Chapter ? | Product Lighting & Renering using Mental Ray

PREPARATION

STEPS1. We usually set background/environment color to “Grey”

because its luminance value lies in between black and white. So we can very clearly notice whatever change we make in shadows and/or highlights.

2. Set the camera before anything else for better result because Specular, reflection, everything varies in different angles.

3. We are using Mental Ray Renderer for this example.

“Sample per Pixel” is the option for Sampling the pixels. Super Sampling or Sub Sampling. Super Sampling means dividing 1 pixel into 4/16/64/256 or so on and vice-versa. We super sample pixels for higher quality. Higher sampling means higher render time. So, we usually keep it to Adaptive. Means, this will only super sample where it needs to and keeps the maximum value which is “16” (converts 1 pixel into 16 samples) in our example else keeps the minimum value which is “1” (1 sample per pixel)NOTE | In Mental Ray, sampling is done in background so we cannot see it. So, below is the RADIOSITY snapshot for the graphical explanation for the same.

“Filter Type” means antialiasing method. Blending of pixels sharply, smoothly or other way. Right now we are using “Lanczos” the sharpest antialiasing method. Where width and height is set to 4 pixels which means this will blend within plus minus 4 pixels in horizontal and vertical space.

“LIGHTING”

4. Below is the render of the product using skylight. Note: Skylight works only if “Final Gather” is turned “on”. We are using the Max’s default preset slider here. We will learn about it in the next chapter which is for “interior lighting and rendering”. Right now, we will put this slider to “Draft” for test renders. And set it to “Medium” or “High” for the final render.

5. Let’s add some lights to make it appear more beautiful. Here we are putting some standard direct lights.

For the shader part, let’s use default “Car Paint” shader. Because we need some small white flakes all around it. As it happens in real cosmetic products to add more beauty and the bling-bling factor. Reflection is sharp by default. If you want blurred reflection, you need to increase the reflection glossiness and play around with glossy reflection spread for bias. In physics, we call it “Ray Diffusion”.

6. Now, let us apply background. Open “Environment and Effects”(shortcut=8) and choose “gradient ramp as map. And change the clor as shown below.

7. Let’s add some glare (lens effect). Go to Render settings (shortcut F10) . Under “Renderer” tab in “Camera Effects”, we have “camera shader”. Check “Glare” on. To adjust it, drag it to material editor as instance and play around its value.

8. Adding ambient occolusion would be a good idea while composing in Photoshop or any compositing software. For occolusion process, please see the next chapter. “interior lighting and rendering”

Happy product rendering…