- Free Scene & Textures

Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 01

Chapter 01
Software used: 3ds Max and V-Ray

Welcome to this new tutorial series! In the next

three installments of this tutorial we’ll be creating
complex materials and shaders for a control
panel full of buttons, switches, levers, knobs and
any other sort of machinery-related object.

We will also set up the lighting for our scene,

together with some critical rendering parameters
and options. We will use 3ds Max 2013 and
V-Ray for the rendering.

Let’s get started by having a look at the 3D

scene I have provided (Fig.01). It’s composed
of a simple square room with a big opening on
one of the side walls. Some sort of machinery is
lying near the north wall of the room and it’s got
a quite complex control panel, which is the focus
of our tutorial.

In this first part we will just create materials and

shaders for the biggest objects (the machinery
itself, the walls, the floor). We will not be

covering the rendering setup here, since we will If you render the scene, you’ll get something
talk about that in the third and last part of the similar to Fig.02.
tutorial, so don’t worry about rendering in this
phase. We will just set up a basic lighting with As you can see, basic lighting has been set up
one V-Ray light and some GI to better see how for you. It’s composed of a simple V-Ray light
our materials react to light. pointing down from the ceiling. In the Render
Setup panel, the GI is enabled (Irradiance and
Light Cache) and the scene has been rendered
through a V-Ray physical camera (Fig.03).

If you want to check or modify the V-Ray light

or the V-Ray physical camera, just go to the
Display tab of the Command Panel and uncheck
the Lights and Cameras options in the Hide by
Category rollout. This will show both the light
and the camera, which were hidden to avoid
clutter in the scene.

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 Chapter 01 Learn to create realistic shaders

Let’s start creating the material for the object Name this material something like “Machine_
called “Machine_Desk”, shown in Fig.04. BaseMetal” and assign the Machine_
BaseMetal_01.jpg texture (which is included
We want to give the whole scene an overall with this tutorial) to the Diffuse slot of the
worn and used-looking feel, so we’ll need to material (Fig.07).
create shaders to recreate that atmosphere.
The basic material of the machine is obviously Click on the Map slot next to the Reflect color
metallic, but we also want it to be covered with (leave it black) and assign an Output map from
some sort of paint. In order to obtain this kind
of material we need to use a VRayBlendMtl
material.

Select one of the slots in the Material Editor,

give it an appropriate name (such as “Machine_
Desk”) and click on the Standard button to
pick a different kind of shader. In this case, a
VRayBlendMtl shader (Fig.05).

The VRayBlendMtl allows us to create a multi-

layered surface, composed of a basic material
and up to nine different “coat” materials. All of
these can be blended together using a texture
map. In our case, we just need a basic material
(metal) and another one (the paint) to be
blended through a texture.

Let’s start creating the basic metal material.

Click on the None button of the Base material
slot and pick a VRayMtl material from the
Material/Map Browser (Fig.06).

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 01
the Material/Map Browser that will open. Go
to the Output map properties and reassign
the same Machine_BaseMetal_01.jpg texture
we used for the diffuse color. Set the Output
Amount to something like 0.25 (Fig.08).

The Output map allows us to control the amount

of output for a certain texture, so here we’re
using it to control the amount of reflection of our
metal base material. A value of 1.0 for Output
Amount means you are fully using the texture
“as is”, while lower values will dull the texture
itself, making the material less reflective in this
case. That’s fine because we don’t want our
metal to have mirror-like reflections.

Another good thing to do when creating metal

materials is to change the shader type in the Move the time slider to frame 1. A keyframe for Let’s move on to the paint material. Go up in
BRDF rollout of the Material Editor. Set it to the V-Ray physical camera has been set for the material hierarchy and reach the root blend
Ward and change the Anisotropy value to about you to zoom in on the machine’s desk. Render material. Click on the first Coat materials slot
0.9 (Fig.09). the scene to check how our metal material is and assign a new VRayMtl material from the
reacting to the light (Fig.10). browser. Name it “Machine_Desk_Paint” and

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 Chapter 01 Learn to create realistic shaders

assign the Machine_Desk_Paint_01.jpg texture Now that we have both the base and coat will display the coat material and where it’s pure
in the Diffuse slot (Fig.11). material, we can go on and assign a blend map black it will display the base metal (Fig.13).
to the root material. Go back to the Machine_
Set the Reflect color to a medium gray (not too Desk_Blend material and click on the Blend Now render the scene again using different
bright) and the Refl. Glossiness to about 0.8. Amount rollout next to the first coat material we camera positions (just move the time slider
Tick the Fresnel Reflections option and click on created earlier. from 0 to 1 or vice versa to use my pre-defined
the L button next to it. Also, set the Fresnel IOR camera positions) and have a look at how the
to 1.8. The higher this value, the more reflective Assign a new bitmap and pick the Machine_ blend material appears in the scene (Fig.14).
the material will be. We don’t want it to be as Desk_Blend.jpg texture. This texture will drive
reflective as the metal material we did earlier the blend amount from the base material to the Now we need to create the same material
(Fig.12). coat material: where the texture is pure white, it for the bottom part of the machine. We can
just duplicate the blend material we created
for the desk (just drag and drop it to the next
free slot in the Material Editor). Rename the
duplicated material something like “Machine_
Bottom_Blend”. Also, rename its coat material
to “Machine_Bottom_Paint”; we can leave the
Machine_BaseMetal as is.

We also need to change the blend map, since

we’re working with a different object with
different UVs. Assign the Machine_Bottom_

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 01
Blend.jpg texture to the Blend amount slot of
the blend material. Don’t forget to assign this
new material to the right mesh in the scene, and
render again (Fig.15).

You can assign the same materials to the other

machine on the left. It would be a good exercise
to duplicate the materials, renaming them and
creating your own blend maps for the new
objects. We can use the same materials and
maps, but that would look too similar and so it
would be nice to have one different map per
object, but I’ll leave that to you.

Let’s continue creating the material for the front

and desk panel. Nothing fancy here: it’s just a
simple VRayMtl material with it’s own textures
for the Diffuse and Bump channels. (switches, buttons, etc.,) so we don’t need light somehow, even those material that you
to give particular attention to other objects in would not classify as “reflective”.
Next create a new VRayMtl material, then the scene like the other machine on the left,
assign the Machine_Panels.jpg texture in the the walls or the floor. Nonetheless, some of Drag the same texture you used for the bump
Diffuse slot and the Machine_Panels_Bump. these objects may be within the picture and into the Reflection slot and set the Refl.
jpg in the Bump slot. Set the bump value to anyway they could help us with reflections and Glossiness to a very small value like 0.33.
something like 15 (it strongly depends on the light diffusion. So we’ll give them some basic Assign this new material to both the wall object
distance from the camera, so let’s just start with materials, just in case. and the floor, and render again (Fig.17).
a low value and then we’ll see once we set up
the final rendering). Assign this new material to Create a new VRayMtl material and name it This concludes the first part. In the next one
both panels (and do that for the other machine “Walls”. Assign the Walls.jpg texture in the we’ll focus on smaller objects and details, and
on the left, too). Render the scene again Diffuse slot and the Walls_Bump.jpg texture create materials and shaders for them.
(Fig.16). in the Bump channel. Set the bump value to
a very low one; for example 5. To give some Luciano Iurino
The final rendering camera will be focused more realism, we can also make this material Web: http://www.lucianoiurino.it/
on the control panel itself and all its elements reflective; in nature, every material reflects the Email: [email protected]

www.3dtotal.com page 9 Chapter 01

Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 02

Chapter 02
Software used: 3ds Max and V-Ray

Welcome to the second part of this tutorial. This

time we’ll start from where we left off in the first
part and we’ll create all the materials needed for
smaller objects like levers, switches, buttons,
etc. Let’s get started!

First, open the “Part2_Start.max” file and isolate

the objects marked with the white wireframe in
Fig.01.

Create a new VRayBlendMtl and call it

something like “Square_Plate”. This blend
material will have two different VRayMtls inside,
and they will be blended by a texture (just like
we did in the first part of the tutorial) (Fig.02).

Create the first material and call it

“SquarePlate_ShinyMetal” this will be our base
metal. Assign the “Machine_Reflection.jpg”
texture to the Diffuse and Reflect slots (Fig.03).

Now create the second material (call it

“SquarePlate_CoverMetal”) and assign the
texture called “Barometer_Plate_C_vcols.jpg”
in the Diffuse slot. Assign the “Barometer_
Plate_S_vcols.jpg” texture to the Reflect slot.
Set the Refl. Glossiness value to something like
0.74, enable the Fresnel Reflections option and
set the IOR value to 2.0 (Fig.04).

Now we need to assign the “Barometer_

Plate_A_vcols.jpg” texture to the first Blend
amount slot of the Square_Plate material. This
will allow us to blend between the two sub-
materials (Fig.05)

Do a quick render test to see what our material

looks like (Fig.06).

Let’s move on to work on a new material for the

circular frame of the gauge. This time it will be
a simple VRayMtl (call it “Gauge” or any other
meaningful name). Assign a new Mix map in
the Diffuse slot, and put the “Metal_02.jpg”

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 Chapter 02 Learn to create realistic shaders

texture in the first slot of the mix; then use the Lastly, assign the “Meter_Frame_B.jpg” texture
“Metal_01.jpg” texture for the second one. in the Bump channel. Do a quick render test to
check this material as well (Fig.07).
Also, put the “Meter_Frame_A_vcols.jpg”
texture in the Mix Amount slot. Now assign Create a new VRayMtl for the glass. Call it
a new Output map both for the Reflect and “GaugeGlass”, then set its Diffuse color to white
Ref. Glossiness channels; assign the “Meter_ and the Reflection to a medium gray. Enable the
Frame_A_vcols.jpg” texture to both of them (in Fresnel Reflections option. Also, set the Refract
the Map slot), but don’t forget to set their Output color to pure white and assign the “Glass_Dirt.
Amount values to 0.25 (Reflect) and 0.17 (Refl. jpg” texture to the Refract slot. Set the IOR
Glossiness) respectively. value for the refraction to about 1.45 (Fig.08).

Create a new material (this time a simple

Standard one) for the inner part of the gauge
and assign the “TempGauge.jpg” texture to
its Diffuse channel. We also need a simple
Standard material with a pure black Diffuse color In order to create the material for all the
for the lancet (Fig.09). rectangular plates in the bottom part of the
panel we’ll do something similar to the Square_
Now we need a base material for all the screws Plate material we made earlier. You can check
and bolts in the scene. We’ll start with just one all the sub-materials and their parameters in
material and then we’ll create variations of it Fig.11.
(lighter, darker, shiny, weathered, etc). Create
a new VRayMtl and assign the “Machine_ Let’s create the material for the switches. Create
Reflection.jpg” texture to both the Diffuse a new VRayMtl material and call it “Switch”.
and Reflect channels. Enable the Fresnel Assign a new Mix map in the Diffuse slot.
Reflections option and set the Refl. Glossiness Assign the “Metal_02” and “Metal_01” textures
value to 0.85 (Fig.10). to the first and second slots of the Mix map

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 02

respectively. Use the “Switch_A_vcols.jpg”

texture to blend them. Assign an Output map in
the Reflect slot. Assign the “Switch_A_vcols.jpg”
texture to the map slot of the Output node, and
set its Output Amount to 0.3.

Do the same thing for the Refl. Glossiness

channel, but this time use a higher value like
0.25 for Output Amount. Assign a new Mix map
to the Bump slot of the Switch material, and use
it to mix a standard Noise map (with a very small
grain) and the “Switch_A_vcols.jpg” texture.
Also, use this texture to blend the two maps in
the Mix options (Fig.12).

For the knob base we’ll use a VRayBlendMtl to

blend two different VRayMtls (one for a shiny
metal and the other for a black paint). You can
see the parameters for this in Fig.13.

The plastic material for the buttons is quite two variations of a same color (for example, in
simple. Create a new VRayMtl and mix the Fig.14 there are a couple of orange variations).
“1.jpg” texture with a Falloff map. Set the Mix Set the Refl. Glossiness value to around about
amount to about 55. In the Falloff map, set 0.9.

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 Chapter 02 Learn to create realistic shaders

Now we can duplicate the plastic material,

change its name and colors, and use the copies
to create some variations for the round buttons
(Fig.15).

We can use the same plastic materials for the

square buttons. Also, we can assign the same
shiny metal material we created earlier to the
square buttons’ base (Fig.16).

In order to create a different kind of metal

material for the bigger gauges we can start by
copying the shiny metal material and modifying
it a bit. For example, we can use a Mix map in
the Diffuse slot to blend a VRayColor map and a
texture. This will give our metal a different look, and shiny in the outer perimeter of the object.
(Fig.17). Let’s start creating a new VRayMtl material.
Call it “Wood” and assign a new Mix map to
We can repeat the same process, duplicating the Diffuse slot. Assign the “Wood.jpg” texture
and creating variations of existing materials. to the first slot of the Mix map and then assign
For example, in Fig.18 you can see some the “WoodWeathered.jpg” texture to the second
material variations built upon previously created one.
materials.
Mix the two maps using an Output map. Use
The last material we will create is the wood. the “Wood_Plank_A_vcols.jpg” texture for the
This time we will try to give this material a more Map slot of the Output. Create another Mix map
weathered look, while we’ll keep it quite polished for the Reflect slot and this time use it to blend

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 02
a dark gray color with the “Wood_Bump.jpg”
texture; use “Wood_Plank_A_vcols.jpg” texture
as the Mix map. Now create a third Mix map
for the Bump channel and mix the textures as
shown in Fig.19.

Do a final rendering to check the whole scene

(Fig.20).

This concludes the second part of our tutorial.

Next time we’ll add a couple of objects and
create the last materials before the final
rendering setup.

Luciano Iurino
Web: http://www.lucianoiurino.it/
Email: [email protected]

www.3dtotal.com page 15 Chapter 02

- Free Scene & Textures
Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 03

Chapter 03
Software used: 3ds Max and V-Ray

Welcome to the third and final part of this

tutorial. In previous issues we had a look at
how to create different kinds of materials and
shaders for the objects in our scene. Some
objects were left out last time for space reasons,
but you can find them in the new scene that’s
included in the downloadable resources for this
chapter: “Part3_Start.max”. Nothing special was
done about them; they share the same materials
used for the other elements in the older scenes.

Now that we have our scene complete, we can

start thinking about the final rendering. The first
step to take is picking a nice viewing angle for
the scene. Choose it carefully because it can
give your final result a very different mood.
Gamma 2.2. This makes your rendering look
The V-Ray Camera in the Part3_Start.max file “darker”, while it’s not dark at all. Using linear
has already been set up with an angle of my workflow will solve this problem, but you have
choice; feel free to experiment with different to pay attention not only to the rendered image,
camera angles and positions (Fig.01). but to textures and materials as well.

Make sure you don’t have any light source in There are a few steps to take to comfortably use
the scene; Part3_Start.max has already been linear workflow in 3ds Max and V-Ray. First of
cleaned out and it does not have any light. We all, let’s see how to correct gamma settings in
have used a very basic light setup in the two order to better see materials and textures in the
previous parts of this tutorial, just to be able to Material Editor (otherwise, they may look very
work with materials and shaders, but now we dark in the Material Editor preview slots).
need to create our light rig from scratch.
This step is optional, but if you need to fine-tune
Before we actually start working on lighting and your materials and shaders you wouldn’t be able they will be taken into account every time you
rendering, we need to talk about the “infamous” to correctly see the preview thumbnails in the load a bitmap texture file in your materials’ slots.
linear workflow. For years, 3D artists used all Material Editor. Setting Input Gamma to 2.2 will ensure that your
sort of tricks to enhance the lighting of their texture will be loaded with a default gamma of
renderings, mainly because, in interior scenes, Go to the Customize > Preferences menu and 2.2.
they were getting poor lighting from outside, so look for the Gamma and LUT settings; enable
they had to add in fake lights. Then someone the Gamma/LUT Correction option and set the Also, remember that textures used for bump
came up with linear workflow. Gamma value to 2.2. Make sure that both the and normal maps don’t need to be gamma-
Affect Color Selectors and Affect Material Editor corrected. As a general rule, keep in mind that
Basically, your 3D software and renderer (in options are enabled, and set the Input Gamma everything affecting colors, in any way, should
this case, 3ds Max and V-Ray) process your value to 2.2 (Fig.02). be gamma-corrected (for example, diffuse
rendering with a Gamma of 1.0 (that’s why maps, color textures, simple colors, etc). Also,
it’s called “linear”); chances are your monitor Please note that all these settings will be HDRI maps usually don’t need to be gamma-
though, will show your final rendered image with ignored by V-Ray in the rendering phase, but corrected to a 2.2 value.

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 Chapter 03 Learn to create realistic shaders

For all these kind of textures, make sure to

override the gamma value in the bitmap import
options (Fig.03).

All these steps have already been taken for

you in the Part3_Start.max scene file, but if
you need to modify or add new textures to an
existing material, now you know how to process
the different kinds of textures to be linear
workflow-friendly.

Now it’s time to tell V-Ray we want to use the

linear workflow. Although one may think that
enabling the Linear Workflow option in the Color
Mapping section is the right thing to do, it’s not.
In fact, we will not use that option at all. Instead,
set the Gamma value to 2.2 and enable the
Don’t affect colors option (Fig.04).

This last option we enabled will allow V-Ray not

to “burn” the gamma value directly in the image,

thus allowing us to better correct and enhance Fig.05. It will then ask you whether you want to
tones and mid-tones later in Photoshop. automatically add a VRaySky environment map;
answer Yes.
That’s it for the settings. We will talk about more
options later when we do our test renderings. In order to do our first render test, we need
to use the V-Ray Frame Buffer instead of the
Let’s start working on the lighting. We will use default one. Go to the V-Ray tab in the Render
a basic VRaySun as our main light source. Setup and tick the Enable built-in Frame Buffer
Create a new VRaySun and point it as shown in option (Fig.06).

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 03

Now let’s enable the GI. A good basic setup for The rendered image shown in the V-Ray frame Beside that, there are a couple of other things
the GI would be using Irradiance map and Light buffer looks way too dark; that’s because we’re we need to improve. Lighting is definitely one
cache. Copy the settings from Fig.07. working with the linear workflow, so to actually of them: we need to create more dramatic
see the gamma-corrected picture we need to lighting for our scene. This is really up to you
Let’s do a render test to see how the light and enable the sRGB option in the Frame Buffer and the mood you’re trying to achieve for your
shaders are behaving with this setup (Fig.08). (Fig.09). final rendering; for example, we can give more

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 Chapter 03 Learn to create realistic shaders

importance to some of the elements in the

scene making the sun light directly affect them.
Position the V-Ray sun light as shown in Fig.10.

Now render the scene again; it looks much

better (Fig.11).

Don’t worry about washed out areas or burned

out details, we will save the final rendering in
a special format that will allow us to control
brightness and exposure in Photoshop without
losing any information.

I’m not particularly happy with the reflection

effect on the machine’s desk. You can go back
to its reflection properties in the Material Editor
and fine-tune them until you get something you here, because it goes beyond the scope of this
like. If you need to improve or adjust any other tutorial, but you can do some Googling to find
material, this is the best time to do it. out more about it.

Now we have a realistic light situation, so you For this example, I’ve used Fixed AA with a
can spot any problem with materials, textures subdivs value of 6. Make sure to increase
and reflections. You can use the Region Render the subdivs for the glossy reflections of the
in the V-Ray Frame Buffer to decrease render materials if you want to avoid noisy reflections.
times while experimenting (Fig.12). Try to find a good compromise between quality
and render time.
Now we can start setting up the final rendering. GI and then fine-tune the parameters as you
The first thing to take care of is the quality of Also, don’t forget to increase the GI quality (for see fit. Finally, check out the V-Ray sun subdiv
the picture, and that means AA (anti-aliasing). I both Irradiance and Light cache).You can start parameters to get better soft shadows all over
will not discuss all the AA parameters in V-Ray off by using the V-Ray quality presets for the your scene.

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 03

Whenever you’re ready, hit the Render button of this tutorial, just add a VRayZDepth and a
and wait for 3ds Max and V-Ray to finish your VRayObjectID pass.
beauty pass (Fig.13).
To correctly set up the ZDepth pass, keep in
Save the picture in OpenEXR format; it will mind that you need to measure the distance
retain all the exposure, brightness and contrast between the V-Ray camera and one of the
information you need to fine-tune the beauty objects that will be in focus in the final picture;
pass in Photoshop. then you have to do the same thing for an object
that will be slightly out of focus. Finally, you
There are several ways to composite the final need to put these two values in the VRayZDepth
picture. For example, you can render out every pass options, respectively in the zdepth min and
single pass from V-Ray to Photoshop. In this zdepth max values (Fig.14).
tutorial, we have just rendered one full beauty
pass and we are about to render two other The other pass (VRayObjectID) will be used
passes we will use later in Photoshop. to isolate different object silhouettes. This is
particularly useful if you want to add more
In order to render a pass, just go to the Render details with textures blending in Photoshop. For
Elements tab in the Render Setup window and example, in this case we isolate some objects
add everything you need there. For the scope we want to blend some textures onto. To assign

different Object ID to the objects, you need to

select the objects (either one by one or on a per
group basis) and use the Object Properties to
assign a new Object ID (Fig.15).

Moving to Photoshop for compositing, in Fig.16

you can see how the original VRayObjectID

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 Chapter 03 Learn to create realistic shaders

pass can be used to easily select the silhouette as a new layer above everything else; this will This concludes the tutorial series. I hope you
of a particular object; a new layer with a add some more realism to the final picture. enjoyed it! (Fig.19).
scratches texture has been pasted into the
selection, to add some detail (on the right). Finally, you need to add the ZDepth pass
to the Alpha channel of the picture, and use Luciano Iurino
In Fig.17 a volumetric light pass has been Photoshop’s Lens Blur to add the depth of field Web: http://www.lucianoiurino.it/
rendered in 3ds Max and added in Photoshop effect (Fig.18). Email: [email protected]

www.3dtotal.com page 22 Chapter 03

Creating cartoon animals is a great starting point for anyone who is thinking about having a go at 3D. Cartoon
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