Realistic Architectural Visualization with 3ds Max and mental ray [Paperback]

Roger Cusson (Author), Jamie Cardoso (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0240809122 | ISBN-13: 978-0240809120 | Publication Date: April 15, 2007 | Edition: 1

Bring new realism to your visualizations with a command of the 3ds Max toolset. Three step-by-step tutorials demonstrate exterior and interior, day and night lighting scenes. You learn the nuts and bolts of importing models from CAD programs, lighting, applying mr shaders and materials, and optimizing your renders. Mental ray is made simple with an accessible description of its tools.

* Color reproductions illustrate a wide array of subtle techniques.
* mental ray is made easy with accesible demonstations.
* Companion CD contains all of the project files.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Bring new realism to your visualizations with a command of the mental ray toolset in 3ds Max. mental ray is made simple with an accessible description of its tools and workflows. You can learn the nuts and bolts of applying materials, lighting, and optimizing your renders.

Step-by-step tutorials lavishly illustrate the processes and techniques required to produce renderings of existing models. Interior and exterior projects demonstrate how to:
*Prepare materials for interior and exterior scenes in light-free enviornments for efficient rendering
* Light a daytime interior scene including indirect illumination, color bleeding, and mr lights
* Light a nighttime interior scene including light decay, lume shaders, exposure controls, and rendering light tests
* Light an exterior scene in daylight with mr Sun and mr Sky objects
* Create a hazy exterior setting with mr Physical Sky and an applied bitmap
* Efficiently work a complex scene to reserve time consuming complete renders for the end

Valuable appendices provide direction on trasnferring CAD files from AutoCAD and Revit to 3ds Max, creating caustics and flash effects, HDRI, Render passes and Bucket rendering, common errors and the process of creating the high resolution image as seen on the front cover.

About the Author

Roger Cusson is an active educator and consultant working in the professional and academic architectural field. He has authored several titles on Autodesk Viz and 3ds Max, 3ds Max Design, AutoCAD and Revit.

Jamie Cardoso is a senior 3D artist and special effects designer. Currently he is working as a 3D Consultant for a variety of professional organizations worldwide. Find more information at jamiecardoso-mentalray.blogspot.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (April 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240809122
• ISBN-13: 978-0240809120
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,093,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing Book with Poor Presentation, April 29, 2007

By 

Nicholas T. Fox (Australia) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Realistic Architectural Visualization with 3ds Max and mental ray (Paperback)

The objective of Architectural visualization is to produce high quality photorealistic images. Unfortunately this book falls far short of achieving that objective. The illustrations throughout are a huge and major disappointment and printing photorealistic images with a semi mat finish kills the renderings stone dead. The book largely replicates the settings information available in the 3ds User Reference so you're not going to learn any secret techniques that will make you a rendering expert with mental ray. I'd have to rate the presentation of this book as being at the bottom of the pile and given the blurb on the experience of the authors, I really expected something that set the bar a whole lot higher. The Appendix section on HDRI images and their use for lighting is woeful and the images are tinted with a orange/pink colour that leaves you wondering what the authors were trying to do as HDRI for lighting can produce truly spectacular renderings. Unfortunately you're not going to learn how to do it using this book though your renderings may improve if your a total beginner. There is too much emphasis (and illustrations of) problem with mental ray renderings - one screen capture is a totally black box - that could have been described in a few sentences. Showing problems is not something that needs to be illustrated as that just wastes precious paper that could have been used to provide useful information. When combined with it's 'tick this, change that setting' approach of the authors, this book is a very unsatisfactory work that skips and skims over the workings of mental ray and its setting, which is probably something that more advanced users really want to know. What the authors tell you about mental ray can be found in the 3ds User Reference where it is clearly covered in about the same amount of detail. Readers are looking for snappy solutions for rendering with mental ray and unfortunately this book fails to deliver. As a reader I feel it's a total let down. The DVD with the book contains the models and textures used throughout the book and these are welcome. A redeeming feature of the book are the screen captures for 3ds settings, which are very clear. If you've used mental ray in 3ds for any period of time then this book probably isn't for you as it seems to be aimed more at novice users and those not totally familiar with the 3ds interface. The appendices take up one third of the book, which seems a bit excessive given that the book is supposed to be about producing high quality renderings with mental ray.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Be warned: You must have 3ds Max version 9, April 19, 2007

By 

E. Kasparek IV (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Realistic Architectural Visualization with 3ds Max and mental ray (Paperback)

With the limited number of more advanced books regarding architectural visualization for 3ds Max, I was really looking forward to getting this one. To my disappointment, none of the tutorial files on the dvd will open because I have 3ds Max version 8, not 9 which the files require.

I think it's kind of misleading that there's nothing written anywhere on the books cover or in the online summary saying that you need version 9 to do any of the tutorials. I wish I knew this before I dropped $50. What a bummer.

Otherwise, the book looks full of useful information that other beginnner books don't get to. There's even a good chunk of info in the appendix at the end of the book with very useful tips for those working in architectural visualization.

This book is going to look great next to the other Max books on my shelf. In the meantime, I'll try to be patient until my employer can upgrade to version 9. Rrrr...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not even close to realistic Architectural Visualization, May 12, 2007

By 

Romulus W. Sugar - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Realistic Architectural Visualization with 3ds Max and mental ray (Paperback)

I must admit that i am really dissapointed with this book. To me it seems like the author just took the reference help menu and made it his own. These renders are not even close to realism. I thought by buying this book, i would gain some confidance in the archviz field. Unfortunately that is not the case. I will have to look elsewhere to gain that confidance and to get a better book or dvd tutorial on archviz. I am not new to 3D. I have worked in 3D for 7 years using 3ds max, and Maya. This book is more accurate to be marketed towards beginners and not towards mid level or professionals.