[fv]

Hi,
I recenty got the Evermotion tree collection. Nice trees and as mxs files with all image maps.
As it is the mxs files of Evermotion should be ok for 1.7 but in v2 the materials need some work.


I think I need to work out some kind of manual update routine to adjust the textures myself for the trees to render properly. Has anyone already done this?
Some help is very appreciated.

Francois

[Mihai]

Can you post a screenshot of what the leaf material looks like? What is giving you problems exactly?

[fv]

Hi, tx for the help.
Here is my site with the material settings.
http://homepage.mac.com/fillieverhoeven ... ndex3.html
you can use the index pages 1 to 6 to see the materials as they come up in Studio.

As you can see in the r1 render the leafs of this tree are all white or pale and from a dsistance on eye level the trees render mostly dark grey. The leaves should render green though, the flowers are indeed a shade of white. The bark seems ok, very simple material though.

I have a feeling the materials can be simplified to look even better using sss and probably by using less bsdf components.
I could do this myself as well with the manuals and so on but I hardly ever really do this kind of translucent clipmaps in my architectural models. Now with these trees I need a bit of help to render these trees proper and efficient in v2
Francois

[Mihai]

This is the way the material opens in 1.7 as well? In any case I think it's the top BSDF component that's wrong (picture 7). That map should be in transmittance, not BSDF weight. What it's doing now is just mixing black with your texture in the bottom BSDF, since the ND is not set at 1. It's not a ghost component.

So to make this material really simple in V2, you have two options:

Simplest clipmapped material:
1 layer, 1bsdf in the layer. Use the leaf clipmap texture as a Layer weight. White areas will be the visible areas. Use the leaf color texture as usual in the refl0° of the BSDF.

Shiny leafs:
1 layer, 2bsdfs in the layer. You will basically make a plastic approach to creating the leaf, so do one bsdf as usual with the color map in the refl0°. The second bsdf, will be the shiny "coating" on the leaf, so set its roughness to about 10, set the BSDF weight to around 10-30 depending on how shiny you want it to look.
Use the leaf clipmap again as a Layer weight.

So clipmapping is a lot more straightforward in V2, in fact Layer weighting is not just about clipmaps, you can go ahead and use a greyscale texture as a Layer weight as well to get variable transparency, which was a a bit tricky to understand how to make it in 1.7.

EDIT: also take a look at the thinSSS tutorial in the manual if you want to use the thinSSS feature. Will make your trees look a lot more realistic.

[fv]

Tx Mihai,
clear explenation.
but
when creating sss with single sided material I am still a bit confused.
Looking at the manual I find it hard to understand the following:
1. how bsdf transparancy properties and subsurface properties interact. For example, setting the thickness of sss seems to conflict with the tansperancy settings for attenuation depth and color(map).
2. how image maps should be set, and what their effect is for transparancy combined with scattering.
3. In what way the color settings (colorpicker) are still funcional when image maps are in place.
4. The material previews are hard to read when changing settings. I will try to use simplified models next time. Rendering previews, I have a feeling the default preview especially, causes MXED to crash frequently (OSX).

I will study the thinsss treeleaf provided with v2 a bit more.
Francois

[fv]

I copied the sss thin leaf material as provided by NL with v2 and got a nice conversion with the by Evermotion provided textures. The material previews look great now with the laeves and flower textures as provided by Evermotion.
But changing the preview scene in MXED from leaf to the default makes the material preview image dark and dull. That's also how the trees show up in the render looked at from a distance. In close-up the leaves look nicely rendered.

I wonder if the roughness setting at 1 in the sssthin leaf material is the reason for this material behavior ?
Francois

[Richard]

Yeah maybe a thin SSS guide for dummies! Anyone? Mihai, Tom, Mike, Bubba?

[fv]

http://homepage.mac.com/fillieverhoeven ... index.html

These are some test I did last night. The link speaks for itself.
Th last test 23 is rendered only up to SL4. The mxm provided by NL with v2 thinSSS_treeLeaf.mxm does not work out for me. The leaves are dark and a clear front / backside issue shows up.

When I changed this mxm into my own my trees started to look better as seen in test 22 and 21.
I deleted the 15% BSDF and changed the Nd to 1 in the sss BSDF. I also raised the roughness setting from 1 to 55 to make the leaves more vivid. I think my mxm is very crude but works. Strangely when I set the Nd to 1.3 the leaf in the preview shows strong highlights that do not show in the render of the trees.

It would be great if indeed one of the true experts shed some light on trees and their leaves. F
or trees in a normal sunlit setting like a garden or forest.

It would be super if someone would make a MXED manual on how a dozen of the more complex mxm's for Archviz are made with a step to step tutorial to the final results complete with sample rendering without any references to other manuals, sections or assumed knowledge. Richard, I think you are right, for dummies. Or should I say....architects..
Fpr example for masonry (displacement and bump), AGS, real Glass, Concrete, Wood, Greenery like plants and trees, and some other materials with normal, bump and displacement-settings. Architects could then just replace the imagemaps to get the materials they need.

Francois

[Maximus3D]

I read your 'materials for dummies' ideas here fv and i'm not so sure that's such a good idea. It will give your scenes a very generic default look and feel to them. Besides not all surfaces behave in the same way although they may have very similar characteristics. Each one is different, treat them as such and your scenes will look better and more natural when rendered. Otherwise you might end up with a very plastic looking scene.

Why not make use of the built-in MXM wizard, it does a good enough job even for you archviz guys. If you have a a concrete (diffuse) looking surface then create that with the wizard, drop in your textures, tweak a little and you're done. That's a nobrainer even for those of you guys who are not rocketscientists. it won't take more than at most 5-10 minutes to create a good enough looking material with the wizard.

/ Max

[fv]

ok, I haven't used the wizzard a lot yet, hardly actually.

MXED has a lot of possible overiding and conflicting settings and variables. I am afraid the only option is to read the manual over and over again and of course the forum. Sometimes it takes the fun out of rendering a bit, all that trial and error. Imagine the sample mxm for leaves provided by NL does not even render as a leaf should. I think a guide for experts with all the info there on how exactly it works is a better idea. The manual explains a lot but vital details on how exactly the settings are incorperated in the calculations are not always clear. Maybe a flowchart on what seting does what...to make things a little more visual.
Francois

[zdeno]

Thank You fv!

[fv]

Added another test25 with the material as simple as possible. clipmap and a diffuse map vor reflectance 0.
To be honest, in 90% of my archviz work this would work best on single side leaves. It renders a lot faster too.
There is also more control over color and reflectance of the leaves like this. Test 25 is rendered SL 5. Clear enough already really.

Obviously if the trees are your subject you need to work on proper mxm's but in Archviz the trees are usually not the focus of the image, in such cases its best to make them look real with the least effort to render. I rather have more leaves and more trees than less with sss to render realisticly.
Francois

I just bought Onyx and am having fun. An amazing tree making app. I have not doen any Maxwell tests yet but imported the Onyx trees in Modo for now.

[Josephus Holt]

Francois, I agree about your test25 looking very adequate for archviz....maybe for a tree with leaves providing a foreground image one might do more, I would be very happy with those images in my render.

[fv]

yes, I think the most bacic mxm for a leaf does already very well.
But to be honest, working with Maxwell, makes me want to use sss for the leaves. I have no clue anymore how to make that work. A single bsdf with single sided sss is ok but as soon as I add another bsdf for better surface properties the leaves have unpredicted behavior. They might get to dark, or show back/frontface differences.
Francois

[fv]

more and final tests as far as I am concerned,
http://homepage.mac.com/fillieverhoeven ... ndex3.html

now I think I got sss with single sided polygons to render well. Its not easy because you not only have the settings for 2 bsdf's, 1 for the sss and one for the surface properties but also the images to adjust to the right color and vividness and transparancies. You can easily mix something up or get confused on what does what really. Once you have read the manual several times and have tested for a few hours its not all that difficult anymore.

Well, I got the Evermotiontrees were I want them. For trees in the background I would use basic mxm's and for anything a little closer I would go for sss mxm's.
Experiment with a few leaves and not with a forest I would like to add ...
Francois