A Muscle Girl
How to create a Lit Sphere material for Arnold render in 3ds max 2018? Arnold has no such built-in shader, and I was looking for possible options in the internet and found shader Matcap (texture) written in the OSL …..
Here is the demonstration of possibilities of maxscript, which I have worked out while creating hair animation for video, where Veda dances Ballet. This script optimizes the work for setting up Flex modifier in the case, when Flex is used for generate dynamics of objects out of massif of splines.
In this article I’d like to go back to the trend of previous years – Lit Spheres materials (also called matcap/Spherical Environment Mapping (SEM), etc.). The essence of this material is that all shader parameters: color, reflections, and so on are located on the image, where the sphere is depicted. To use such a image as material you will need a special shader which can draw out from it the necessary parameters.
This kind of materials are very useful in modeling (especially organic objects) and allow to identify errors in the topology. They have proved themselves in programs such as Mudbox and Zbrush. Presence of the library with such materials and possibility of fast switching between them considerably lighten modeling.
Just creation of Lit Sphere materials and library with them in 3dsmax we’ll do now.
In the process of creating rig of knee it dawned on me that the MuscleStrand lacks one important feature – the possibility of expanding the muscle when it is bent.
In the area of the joint there is multilayer structure of muscles, and while it is bending some muscles are contracting increasing in volume. Stratifying on each other, displacing and contracting muscles give visual effect of extension of adjustment tissue by knee and elbow joints.
It is hardly possibly to create anatomically right muscle structure using MuscleStrand. That’s why I have replaced the whole group of muscles by MuscleStrand object extending it if necessary.
I attract your attention to the description of the techniques which I used at work CAT MuscleStrand in 3dsmax, creating Veda, and also additional instruments, what I specially worked out for this purpose.
I took some research and found solution to get it work without error in new versions of Mental Ray (3.9-3.11+) and 3ds max 2012-2014+.
Displaying thumbnails of 3ds Max files in Windows Explorer helps much easier to navigate to the files you work with. If instead of thumbnails in Windows Explorer – .max files are displayed as icons, the following solution should help you.
PushByAngle – 3dsmax’s MAXscript modifier allows to “push” object vertices outward or inward along the average vertex normals on the value which is calculated from the angle of two chosen objects. PushByAngle extended version of 3dsmax’s Push modifier. Modifier support any kind of geometry objects.
Choosing between Poly and Mesh for modeling definitely worth to choose Poly. But, nevertheless, there are tasks, where the use of Mesh more justified than Poly. Despite the fact that Poly is essentially the evolution of Mesh, it has a number of significant differences and limitations in their work.
Poly Loop Soft Select – 3dsmax MAXScript, allows when working with Editable Poly object in Edge sub-object mode filter Soft Selection by selected edge’s loop.