portisgreg

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone uses them? Are they any good?

I'm pretty new to MR so I tend to use the Arch Materials in Max but I know my texturing needs work and i thought getting a good library of texture maps and shaders would be a good place to start. Am I right?

Thanks

Greg

SandmanNinja

The ProMaterials that ships with Max 2009 Design is pretty awesome.
We're covering that this week in an ArchViz class that I'm doing online.

Also - Bri Bradley at www.mentalboutmax.com has a series on making your own shaders! He's done Ice and Cloth and I believe he is planning more.

Is there anything he cannot do...?

__________________
-SandmanNinja
website

SandmanNinja

The ProMaterials that ships with Max 2009 Design is pretty awesome.
We're covering that this week in an ArchViz class that I'm doing online.

Also - Bri Bradley at www.mentalboutmax.com has a series on making your own shaders! He's done Ice and Cloth and I believe he is planning more.

Is there anything he cannot do...?

__________________
-SandmanNinja
website

ama

I could be wrong, but the archshaders are for vray.

AJLynn

There's an Archshaders disc for mental ray.

Joel: do you find the Pro Materials useful? I haven't spent much time on them but they struck me as "A&D Material for Dummies" (which is a bit odd considering A&D was supposed to be "mental ray for Dummies") without enough options to do a lot of the things I usually do with A&D.

pixelperfectg

If I may offer some info: Yes, the ProMaterials are more limited in terms of buttons/knobs to adjust when compared to the A&D material. However I strongly feel the term "A&D for Dummies" isn't an accurate analogy.

In addition to being compatible with Revit, the ProMaterials have the benefit of being preconfigured with "measured" reflectance values for their real world counterpart. For example: A person can guess at the reflectance & glossiness values of their A&D wood floor material, or they could use the ProMaterial where those values have already been "measured" & programmed into the material. Since the primary values are already assigned it's not necessary to adjust much on the ProMaterials other than the available parameters.

So while the ProMaterials are indeed more limited in functionality than the A&D material, I believe they can be useful for both the new user & veteran users.

__________________
Jeff Patton
My mental ray blog | Personal Website | mrmaterials.com
Interested in mental ray for 3ds Max training?

SandmanNinja

Just from playing with them for a week...

There are different types of ProMaterials with options and rollouts that aren't on all of the other ProMaterials. However there is a Generic ProMaterial which has options from all of the others combined. While this may seem like a throw-back to regular A&D Materials, it gives you the ability to get down and dirty with them.

The area of Materials is where I'm weakest, given my background in modelling 'mechs and spaceships is where I started learning 3DS, so this week has been very good for me.

I don't have a huge commercial collection of textures, so the ones that come with Max 2009 is a real life saver. I think you just have to be careful - I think we'll see a surge of renders with Red Diamond Tiles on the kitchen floors...

When the class is over, I'll post some revised work and ask for feedback.

__________________
-SandmanNinja
website