How to create a realistic stucco texture.

I don’t know where your from, but here in Arizona, we use a lot of stucco. I mean a lot. So its only fitting that we come up with a good stucco texture. I see a lot of renderings out there where the stucco looks dull and lifeless. In the real world, new stucco is pretty monotone in color without a lot of variation but without variation it tends to look flat. Here is the key to making good stucco.

I use a Standard v-ray in  material in 3dsmax. In the diffuse color slot, I use a hue  for the general stucco color.  You need to play around with this a little  to get the exact stucco color you want, lighting will be a factor. Under diffuse map slot, I do a concrete texture that isn’t too varying in lightness and darkness and not a heavy texture. (see above) I set that to 15 percent. This slot is where I control the weathered look of the concrete. The higher number, the more weathered it will look. You also would need to adjust the color to make up for the gray in the concrete if you are increasing the diffuse value. In the bump map slot, I do a noise map at 36. In the noise map, I do a .6 size and noise type- regular.

The size of the noise is good when you set your UVW map on your object to about 150″x150″ x150″.  Your rendering also has to be fairly high resolution or you won’t see the sandy finish bump effect. If  you are doing a low or medium resolution, or you building is far away in the scene, you may need to increase the noise size to .8.

Also, if you do increase your value in the diffuse map slot, you can always add a color correction directly to the concrete map for further color adjustment.

That is pretty much it. A very simple stucco. Please feel free to experiment with this concrete map! Good luck and happy rendering!

Alienware M15x. The mobile office for 3d rendering.

Vray Benchmark M15x Normal mode (non-stealth)

Vray Benchmark image for the Alienware M15x

Are we 3d architectural illustrators and 3d renderers no longer chained to our desks or  in a cube? I recently purchased the new Alienware M15x. I have to say, I was so tired of working at my desk everyday for hours and even though I miss my large flat panel, I like being mobile better.  Now I know a laptop is not a render farm or a Boxx but for a little workstation, its pretty impressive.

I purchased it in March, about 1 week after it was announced. I was a little nervous about NOT purchasing a dell but I really wanted to try something better, and to tell you the truth Dell wasn’t really impressing me with their workstations anymore.

My spec’s are:

Intel Core2 extreme x9000 2.8 ghz

Nvidia Ge-Force 8800M GTX 512 MB

15″ WUXGA LCD with web-cam

4 GB ram

Blue-Ray/DVD Rom

200GB Hard drive with another 200GB Smart-bay drive

Vista Ultimate (no comment)

The cool thing about this laptop is not only is it fast but with its glowing  light pipe around the outside lid and the lighted keyboard, this computer turns heads. I must admit, it was the cool lighting and Alienware FX that pushed me over the edge and made me order it.

It also has stealth mode (low power mode- see above images) built-in blue tooth, built in web-cam and HDMI port for watching off of the Blue-Ray Disc to the TV.

All in all I have been really impressed with this mobile workstation and enjoy being able to leave the confines of my office once in a while…

MORE BENCHMARKS AT THIS THREAD:

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=36265

Texturefly.com is now open for business.

desert tree image texturefly

Come check out http://www.texturefly.com to get your masked images for compositing, 3d entourage, clipart,  and stock photos. We have over 50 new images, including tree images, car images, people textures and plant images. We are also adding new stuff everyday so don’t forget to register for an account so that we can update you with out product updates newsletter.

Texturefly has been a dream of mine for a long time. After working in the industry for 12 years, I realized the real shortage of masked images available to architectural illustrators and artists alike. I noticed I was seeing the same textures and images in everyone’s rendering in every state. We all know how long it takes to shoot, airbrush, cut and edit these images, and finding the time to start this endeavor hasn’t been easy. I have been cutting out my own trees, cars, and plants since 2001 and like to think that these images will give you a little more variety so that your 3d renderings or whatever you decide to use them for will be unique and your photocompositing enjoyable. Don’t forget to check back periodically. New items go up everyday! And sign up for our newsletter for email updates.

Happy halloween from Texturefly!

Starting a good 3d rendering

3d rendering- Phoenix Arizona

I have a formula for a good 3d rendering. I use it over and over. After a while, I start to wonder, should I be experimenting more? I am a firm believer of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. At the same time with all the new technology, should I be trying new settings or new materials, lighting etc.

Here’s a little bit of background on my soup Du jour, Right now I am working with the new 3dsmax 2009 coupled with V-ray 1.50 SP2. Compositing is done with Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended. My hardware is new also. I purchased the Alienware M15x with 4g ram and the Intel Core2 Extreme x9000 and the NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX. I will get into that bad boy a little later.

It’s good to have a template scene set up in 3dsmax. In my template named templatesun.max, I have a camera, a sun and compass and one ground asphalt plane.  I also have my environment and V-ray setting up. Basically, I import the 3d geometry into the scene and pull my camera, sun and ground plane over to my model. This way, if I need to import more geometry, I can bring it into the scene and it will be in the proper x,y and z coordinates.

I find the most important element to be your V-ray materials library. If you are starting a materials library, check out http://www.vray-materials.de/ . This site has some really great materials that are free. Just make sure you have the proper plug-ins and the materials you select are in the correct max version. You may also have to check the paths on the maps. I haven’t gotten one yet that I didn’t have to change the paths.

I have a library called, you guessed it, Vraymaterials.mat.  I keep getting this request from clients. Can I have your model, which would include materials. Anyone who spends an inordinately amount of time in Max and Vray knows that materials are top secret entities. Hours go into creating a good material,  so next time people, just don’t ask 🙂

My basic materials are, asphalt, stucco, concrete walk, concrete curb, dg (or decomposed granite for those of you not from Arizona or Nevada), grass, glass, stone, roof tile and metal. I can basically drag and drop, do a little color adjust and voila, the rendering is ready….. If only it were that simple. But if you are doing a lot of renderings, this makes it pretty easy to keep your renderings consistent and shorten you time on the project.

Our website is: http://www.endisine3d.com