vray opacity/speedtree exporting

quick post about vray opacity as well. heard from my supervisor that opacity map is heavy during rendering. like it takes alot more time to calculate maps with opacity thus taking a toll on render time.

I got to know that from a speedtree example. When we are exporting animated/static trees from speedtree. there is a option that allows us to use cutout leafs instead of exporting them as a planes, thereby saving us time when we bring the trees in to maya to render as there's no opacity to calculate. there was something else that he mentioned but i forgot hahah. anyways it'll be less problematic. :D

anw nights guys.... byebyee :D

premiere pro bit depth issue

hey guys, it's been a while since i updated this blog. my bad haha.
recently in my company we've been doing this big project that has been going on for ages, like months and we're finally near the finishing end. however we're facing an issue with bit depths as we've been doing our edits in premiere pro. which is okay i suppose. if we're not planning on doing any post-production with the export from premiere. however we were /might be doing some grading/overall colorcorrection on the film thus we've needed to export the video out at at least 16 bits. or higher. JUST TO PUT IT HERE as a reminder for all of us.
saw this information in this website. : "http://wolfcrow.com/blog/how-to-handle-bit-depth-in-adobe-premiere-pro-after-effects-and-speedgrade/"

max output from premiere is only 10 bits. & max input is 16 bits.
whereas for after effects, the max input and output are at 32 bits :D

gotta read up more on that. but it's good knowing stuff like that for future projects.
heard from my colleague that DPX format is also being used during rendering for vfx related footages as nuke works better with DPX? read up more on thattt ;D

information about color depth : http://wolfcrow.com/blog/what-is-color-color-bit-depth-and-a-color-model/

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/961982

this looks freaking awesome.

https://arnold-rendering.com/
http://www.3dscanstore.com/index.php?route=journal2/blog/post&journal_blog_post_id=33
http://www.leegriggs.com/tutorials

refer: zbrush displacement export as well as other tips

http://polycount.com/discussion/93984/exporting-displacement-from-zbrush


http://henningsanden.com/2013/02/27/zbrush-to-maya-displacement-map/

http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/tool/polymesh/displacement-map/

good read on pixar's short film: piper and how they managed to make the film happen using the different software, and their research for the film itself.

https://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-tech-of-pixar-part-1-piper-daring-to-be-different/

tut for using height map in maya. results came out instantaneously, would be really cool to try this one day in maya. not sure if they're using different renderer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq9VYGpnkh4

baking displacement and normal map in mudbox. really great tut. it's been a great help for projects that i've worked on . :D

http://polycount.com/discussion/109030/problem-with-displacement-maps-mudbox-maya

normals issue and tuts

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/linear-workflow-made-simple/
http://polycount.com/discussion/73593/normal-maps-can-somone-explain-this-black-edge-issue
http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDOC2/Ambient+Occlusion+and+Normal+map+bake+using+Xnormal
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/help/150SP1/tutorials_interior.htm
http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDOC2/Common+XNormal+Baking+Errors+and+How+to+Solve+Them - xnormal is actually a really cool software.

interesting read from all these websites. tuts to refer to when i have the time.. been having some troubles with normal maps at work. not sure what's the issue but there's always this black edges that appears along uv edges/seams.

https://www.screencast.com/t/Ai57wdFnDhbq

ONE OK ROCK: We Are [OFFICIAL VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU307tV32B0

https://www.screencast.com/t/38xyO9pR0w

background's really pretty if it was a render hahahahha.

pardon my spam posts HAHAHA

tuts

slowly this blog became somewhat a place for me to post stuff where i can refer to later ahhaha...

https://www.youtube.com/user/vrayguide/videos

Wideangle : lenses
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/wide-angle-lenses.htm
https://luminous-landscape.com/dof2/

http://erwanleroy.com/blog/

http://erwanleroy.com/create-position-reference-pref-pass-in-vray-for-maya/

gamma

yoyoyo back to gamma hahah.
sRGB and raw? and other color space?

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/gamma-correction.htm

light probes and HDRI

found this by accident but it's so beautiful. not really sure how to use it for now but there you go. :D

http://www.unparent.com/photos_probes.html
http://hdrmaps.com/freebies?p=4

and this website for reference. some of their renders with hdri looks pretty decent :)
http://stockhdri.com/hdri-samples.html

some of the cgi renders in this look so pretttyyyyy
http://www.steinzeit-hdr.de/cgi_gallery

brute force

to refer later on.

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/72600-brute-force-when.html#

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/making-of-tomczak-house/

vrayLightMtl

vray materials: Apparently glass/transparent materials only work in blend when used as a base.

vray light materials limitations: The direct illumination options currently only work properly if the VRayLightMtl material is the only material applied on the object. They will not work if the material is part of a complex material like a Multi/sub-object material or a VRayBlendMtl material. This restriction will probably be removed in a future release

tested it out by applying a black and white map in to opacity input. but it didn't work. my results was ended up with a completely white vrayLightMtl.(something like surfaceshader)
however it works when i placed the same exact map in to both diffuse and opacity slot. Transparency/Opacity works.

When direct illumination was switched on, opacity map got broken again. ><
Not sure if it's some bug in for vrayLightMtl or not..

substance map explanation

https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=3243.0 : explanation of maps function.

http://polycount.com/discussion/155524/pbr-basecolor-metallic-to-vray-3-2-corona-redshift-arnold-converter : examples of how you go from substance to vray or any other renderers or software.

https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/Creating+export+presets
: how some maps are calculated in substance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePnLTuzRAbg : allegorithimic tutorial on how to bake textures.

note to self. always plan before you do anything so that it would be easier for you to make changes instead of wasting precious time.

http://polycount.com/discussion/56014/how-the-f-do-i-model-this-reply-for-help-with-specific-shapes/p34 : interesting forum posts and discussion on how to model stuff with good topology. *warning long post ahead

substance painter to vray

just started learning substance today, great experience in figuring out how to texture stuff in PBR instantly and real time hahaha.
Found a simple tutorial to remind myself on how to transfer to maya vray in the future hahah.
http://www.darrenwallace3d.com/2015/10/substance-painter-to-vray-tutorial.html

*IMPT https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/V-Ray+for+Maya

Maya Dynamics - Foliage air dynamics simple lattice-based setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKibBWv0tQc