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3dsmax render setting for newer versions

Started by art128, September 05, 2016, 10:16:04 AM

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art128

Some people may have noticed but since the recent versions of 3dsmax the rendering settings by default were changed by Autodesk. This resulted in a very blurry render with a very noticeable white/grey outline on your BATs.

Thanks to the help of Jaconscw and a few others at Simtropolis1, a workaround was found:

(click for fullsize)




A few important things to note:
-This is merely just a workaround that worked for me in the settings of my own BATs. To best fit your creations it's best if you play around with the parameters until you find the perfect settings.
-This may not work on very recent version 3dsmax as the current support of BAT4max is very limited. ( Due to the original developer being away from the community)
-Obviously this is not the best solution but as stated above a work around. What I would advise in the long run is to get an older version of 3dsmax (pre 2012)2 as they are untouched by the changes.

If you have any question or remark, please post them.

1 - Very sorry if I forgot your name, but I can't remember right now.
2 - Of course in a legal way.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

vester

#1
Thank you, Arthur for posting this here.


When I first tried these I kept getting an export error, nr 6 if I recall it right.

For the daytime rendering and the maxis night rendering I use the following settings
Sat: 0.001
Value 0.001

(Value  ()what()  Should this not be called brightness or something similar ?)

For the dark night rendering I had to use:
Sat: 0.001
Value: 0.005

vortext

Quote from: vester on September 05, 2016, 10:35:49 AM
When I first tried these I kept getting an export error, nr 6 if I recall it right.

yeah can confirm. Values entered cannot be exactly zero , i.e. have to be small values like the ones you found, otherwise error will occur.
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

JP Schriefer

Do you know where it's possible to get the 2012 version? I can't find it :'(

MushyMushy

I'm worried about the future of BATting, because it's likely impossible to nab the 2012  version legally (without spending thousands of dollars), and the 2014 version (which I have) will go the same route soon. From what I've read, the newer ones do not play nice with BAT4Max at all. What are we going to do when all of our 3 year student licenses for 12 or 14 end?

vester


vortext

erm, the functionality of BAT4MAX in future versions of 3DSMax is well within boundaries of the subject matter at hand I reckon.  ()what()

And yeah, if no one comes along to update BAT4MAX scripts than the worst case scenario in couple of years from now might indeed be the end of SC4 modelling in 3DSMax, which would be a shame - to put it mildly.

time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

mgb204

It's a shame, but it goes to show why software as a service is a really bad idea. Autodesk make it stupid-hard to re-sell old versions and if you find a vendor willing to do so, they know the value of what they are selling too.

If we really want to think about a future-proof solution to rendering, then likely it's better to move from 3DS Max to something open source like Bender. At least that way a consistently available version could be used moving forwards. Of course, without someone with the knowledge able to do this, we're really heading towards the buffers right now.

The good news though is that whatever happens, it should be possible to get 3DS max to render images in the correct rotations/zooms required. Although without the BAT4MAX interface, that would suck a bit. It should also not be a problem to make LODs in 3DS Max, since you can manually import 3DS files into SC4BAT as we do now. Having to do a lot of this manually though will add much more work to the rendering process. Getting textures into FSH and subsequently models shouldn't be an issue though, since they are already handled by scripts which are separate from BAT4Max.