General

The “universal” settings comprise a set of settings that we have found to work very well for still images in many situations. Please note that these settings are not optimal, in the sense that with enough tweaking, you can probably get similar quality with faster render times. The beauty of these settings though, is that they require almost no tweaking and you are guaranteed to get a good result in the end.

The advantages of these settings are:

• very little parameters for controlling render quality vs speed (essentially, only the Noise threshold);
• they work for a very large number of scenes;
• they typically produce high-quality results.

Of course, there is a disadvantage: the scene may render quite slow. With tweaking, you may get faster results.

These settings work, because the high AA subdivs essentially cause all the sampling to be performed by the image sampler. It will take as many samples per pixel as required to achieve the specified noise threshold. In many ways, this is similar to PPT (progressive path tracing), but is done on a per-bucket basis and the number of samples is adaptive for each pixel.

Setting the V-Ray renderer

1. Set V-Ray as the current rendering engine (with the default V-Ray settings).

2. In the Image sampler rollout, switch the image sampler Type to Adaptive DMC. Set the Max. subdivs to 100 (one hundred). Leave the Min. subdivs to 1.

4. In the Indirect illumination rollout, Turn GI on, set the Primary GI engine to Brute force. Do not change the Subdivs. Set the Secondary GI engine to Light cache.

5. In the Light cache rollout, set the light cache Interpolation samples to 5.

6. In the Color mapping rollout, make sure that the Clamp output and Sub-pixel mapping options are off.

7. In the DMC sampler rollout, set the Adaptive amount parameter to 1.0. Typically you will also need to adjust the Noise threshold as the default may produce too much noise. A good value is, for example, 0.005.

8. You can also controll the noise directly from the Image sampler rollout, if you uncheck the Use DMC sample thresh. parameter, and adjust the Clr. thresh instead (e.g. to 0.005).

Notes

• Leave all subdivs anywhere at their default values. They won’t have any effect anyways – the 100 AA subdivs will almost certainly override everything else.
• Avoid using sharpening AA filters. They can make the noise more apparent.

High-end 3D Animation authoring software like 3DS Max produces striking images that cannot be produced via any other method.

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3D Animation has become a very popular presentation medium and has proven to produce superior marketing impact when compared to traditional 2D visual media.  An artist fluent with software like 3DS Max can produce compelling visualizations of products or ideas. 

3D animation is widely used in print and video based marketing. However, with Flash 9 supporting realtime 3D engines, Web3D will experience a revival in the years to come.

3D animation allows you to display a conceptual product that has yet to be produced. A product can be visualized in a manner not possible with conventional photography, such as a three dimensional product disection. Architecture plans are commonly visualized with 3D animation, often allowing real estate developers to generate pre-construction sales.

In the next decade, the term 3D will become  as common as TV. University studies show that when a person can view an object from multiple viewpoint perspectives, as 3d animation does, their ability to recall a mental image of that object increases by 70%. Companies currently using 3D rendered marketing images already know this, as improving the customer’s memory of a product can increase sales.

Razworks provides expertise in 3D modeling and animation. Razworks’ Michael Rassel was a lead 3D artist for Metacreation’s real-time geometry lab, and a lead 3D artist and project manager for Viewpoint in NYC, one of the world’s leading 3D modeling and Web3D companies.

3D animation can be delivered on the web in basically 3 mediums:

1. Rendered still images. 3DS Max software renders an image of a 3D object or scene, much in the same way a camera takes a photograph of an object or enviroment. The 3D images can then be displayed on websites or edited in Photoshop to create dramatic website images, backgrounds and interfaces.

2. Rendered video is just like the video file you get from a camcorder. Video rendered from 3DS Max has superior video quality similar to professional television studio video cameras. The 3D animation is pre-rendered as a video file that can be played on your website using Windows Media Player or Flash Video.

3.Real-time 3D is true to life immersive 3D enviroment, just like video games or military simulations. You interact with a virtual 3D world by navigating a viewpoint or camera within the 3D environment. A computer mouse, keyboard or gamepad is typically used to control the viewpoint and interact with 3D objects. Real time 3D software renders the video immediately, giving the impression of being in a real-wolrd environment. The military uses real-time 3D animation for pilot training of un-manned aircraft like the Predator drone. Razworks utilizes the X3D file format standardized by the Web3D Consortium to produce real-time architectural walk throughs that real estate developers and realtors use to visualize real estate properties.

4. Flash 3D: Flash 3D Animation is psuedo3d, as it is not true 3D, but a 2D vector rendering of a 3D scene. Yet, it can effectively simulate the look of a 3D scene, with comfortably low Flash file sizes. Using the Swift3D Max rendering plugin, we can render layered flash files directly from 3DS Max and produce very dramatic looking 3D Flash presentations.

Animation captivates the attention of your website audience and helps you effectively communicate your ideas.

Flash animation is a standard web technology, allowing 98% of website users to view rich, animated web content immediately, without timely software downloads. 3D animation has revolutionized movies and video games, and is now gaining momentum on the web. University research has discovered that 3D animation enhances a person’s ability to accurately reconstruct mental images, which allows them to better remember your product or services. Razworks owner, Michael Rassel, has been producing Flash and 3D Animation for ten years, and was a lead 3D artist for Viewpoint NYC, a global leader in Web 3D and Rich Media web design.