As of Build 1437, Brazil r/s v2 Professional Edition has been split up into two different versions:
Professional-stable is intended to be the current 'locked' and 'known good' version of Brazil r/s v2 Professional Edition.
Professional-beta contains beta features and changes which can be highly in flux (including, potentially, breaking file compatibility - although we'll certainly try not to ). So a bit more risky, but more production tools to play with.
The list of what's in beta that's not in stable, as of Build 1558, is:
Material Editor rendering ( Build 1449 )
Brazil r/s v2 can now be used as the Material Editor renderer. This allows you to do things like preview SSS effects on, say, the Cube or any custom scene geometry loaded into the Material Editor renderer.
Note that you can't interrupt material editor renders at this time, so if you create a very heavy setup - consider switching back to the Scanline renderer for material editor rendering.
Dome Light ( Build 1449 )
The Dome Light, to be found in the Brazil r/s v2 Lights category, is a spherical / dome light that implies importance-sampling. In short, the Dome Light allows you to light a scene much like you would with Sky Light, with the major advantage that it is magnitudes more efficient for a textured light source (mapped skylight), especially HDR and EXR 'Image Based Lighting'.
Currently the Dome Light samples on its own, not hooked up with Light Portals and the Render Cache, so typical speed compared to using the Render Cache will be slower.
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Originally Posted by minimaldocs by 0xc02da5
- On, Color, mult : old same obvious stuff
- Limit to Hemisphere: When on, light will come only from the above (+Z part of the world space). When off, light will come from below too. Having this on, as you can guess, causes slightly better quality and speed with the same settings.
- Texture
- Use Environment: when checked, the light will use max's environment texture and settings. I think currently the non-textured max environment (constant color) is not bind. I'll fix that
- Specify Texture: when checked, the texture in the below slot will be used as the sky texture. You can put any texture map there including bitmaps and procedurals. Currently only the "Spherical Environment Mapping" is supported. So please make sure that the texture mapping settings are correct (Explicit mapping will give you constant color).
- Resolution: This determines the lookup table size that the importance sampling system uses. The higher this value, the more details of the texture is preserved and more RAM will be needed. RAM usage is ~(4xResolutionxResolution) Bytes.
- Filtering: This is another obvious parameter. Please note for filtering be effective, filtering settings of the texture should be enabled (non-None) too. Also you may find slightly increased filtering amount values (1.5 maybe) giving better results. Please let us know your findings.
- Shadows: Should be obvious. The shadow type used is the sharp ray shadow (the dome lighting will automatically make for soft area/occlusion shadowing)
- Sampling / Quality:
- Adaptive sampling: This is the usual block of adaptive sampling parameters.
- Importance: This parameter controls the "importance sampling" feature. Normally almost always you should keep it at "ON" and use "1.0" as the amount. There are theoretical cases where you may want to slightly lower the amount value. For example if there is a very very bright small spot in the HDRI texture map, all the samples will be concentrated to that region (this is how the importance sampling works). This makes the variance (noise) in the image quite low as long as that spot is visible by the illuminated surface point (which is the dominating light source). But, if there's an object between the illuminated point and that bright spot in the sky, then that point will not get illumination from the other parts of the sky, so will totally black. So if that happens, you can lower the importance amount letting some samples to hit non-bright areas as well. This will increase the noise a bit but will also make sure that sky texture will be sampled more homogeneously. Practically I couldn't find a scene/texture which shows such a need. But you are the real users and so please do report if you find lower numbers giving better results.
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Analytical Bump ( Build 1449 )
The Analytical Bump map calculates bump maps on objects as if they were small surface displacements, rather than simple normal perturbation. This increases the quality of the bump significantly, especially when used for seams, paneling, etc.
As a huge bonus, the Analytical Bump map works off the Mono channel of maps - if you've ever had problems with maps seemingly not working (properly) when used as a Bump map, it would be because the Map either incorrectly implemented the Bump channel - or did not implement it at all. By using the Mono channel, this map doesn't care whether the submap supports the Bump channel or not. The only down side is that 'Bump Amount', present in some procedural maps, will have no effect - use the RGB Level output instead.
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Originally Posted by minimaldocs by strangelove
- Bump Source: This is the map who's output is used to 'displace' the surface. We evaluate the map using the monochannel api in max, similar to how true displacement evaluates the map. This means that bump specific settings in the texmap used as the Bump Source will have no effect, since the source map isn't being evaluated as a 'bump' map. For example, Bump Smoothing in Cellular will have no effect. A big advantage is that maps that don't support bump properly should work when used in the analytic bump map.
- 'Displace Amount': Controls the amount to displace the microtriangle when computing the new surface normal. This is in world space units and will change to reflect the unit display preferences (feet, cm, etc.) Generally this should be set to the amount you would displace the surface physically if you were using true displacement mapping.
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Bi-Directional Sub-Surface Scattering ( Build 1449 )
Bi-Directional SSS has been added to the Brazil2 Sub-Surface Scatter map. Essentially, this adds backscattering in addition to Forward scattering.
Additionally, the SSS Map can force a material to evaluate as 2-sided (required for proper SSS), and adds an Include/Exclude list so that you can ignore (internal) geometries when using this map.
Self-Surface shading options in the Sub-Surface Scattering map ( Build 1550 )
A new dropdown has been added to the General Options rollout: Self Shading. Subsurface scatter shading was extended to allow 3 different methods of handling shading when the scattered object is shading itself (typically shading the light on the opposite surface of itself, the light entering the object.) These are full shade, lambert illum, and raw illum.
- Full Shade (default): The full shading pass is run, so diffuse color etc. influence the SSS. This is the way SSS has always worked.
- Lambert Illum: The diffuse affecting lights are processed, performing a simple lambert (diffuse) falloff calculation. This essentially treats the object as a pure white diffuse surface. This is probably the easiest to work with as it allows full control over the SSS color.
- Raw Illum: This is similar to lambert illum, except the light angle is ignored. Note that backfacing illumination is ignored, so there's a sharp edge to the illumination due to lack of diffuse falloff.
- Lambert - Full Shade: The pure Lambert Illum is computed as above, and the Full Shading is computed. The SSS illum is the difference between these two. This is effectively energy conserving, in that only light that is NOT reflected from the surface is allowed to scatter into the surface. So, if the object has a pure red Cs (diffuse) color, the SSS illumination will be cyan (blue/green.) Since we are doing a full shade, transparency is respected. Bear in mind that if the SSS has self-illumination this will cause issues.
- Raw - Full Shade: Similar to the previous mode except we use the raw illumination instead of the lambert illumination.
Front-faces handling in the Sub-Surface Scattering map ( Build 1550 )
A checkbox has been added to the Sub-Surface Scattering map which allows it to ignore front-facing surfaces. These are typically surfaces of the object that are self-intersecting, such as the spout of the Teapot primitive in 3ds Max.
Brazil2 Global Fog ( Build 1449 )
In addition, we have added a volumetric (environment) effect that simulates a full fog that can react to lighting.
Another common complaint about 3ds Max's volumetrics is how they blend; they don't. They are composited in listed order. Global Fog, when using the Illumination option, will create a perfect blend between apparent volume light and fog. If your volume light is in the distance, the closer ambient fog (if used) will partially occlude it.
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Originally Posted by minimaldocs by strangelove
- General Parameters
- Fog Background: This one should be obvious - controls whether fog should be applied over the background.
- Fog Color: Effectively the diffuse color of the fog particles. The actual rendered color will still depend on the Ambient and (if illumination is enabled) illumination color from lights.
- Ambient: This is the global ambient fog illumination. If you don't have Illumination enabled, you may want to set this to White and forget about it. Where not illuminated, the rendered fog color will be FogColor*Ambient, regardless of whether illumination is on or not. I may move this control to the Illumination group and have it be ignored if illumination is disabled (there's potential future features that make me hesitate to do this.)
- Extinction: Controls how opaque the fog particles are. This determines how rapidly objects (and illuminated fog) are occluded by the particles in front. Higher values lead to effectively denser fog. This does NOT increase the amount of light reflected. That is controlled by Outscatter in the illumination control group.
- Mode:
- Manual: user specifies both the max steps and the step size. This is what the original version used.
- Auto Max Steps: Max steps is computed based on the specified ranges and the step size to guarantee the entire range is covered. This is the recommended option in combination with setting up appropriate environment ranges for your scene.
- Auto Step Size: Step size is computed based on the specified ranges and max steps to guarantee the range is covered. This is the default option for new scenes as default environment ranges are rather large.
- Step Size: This is the distance in world units to step along the ray. At each point along the way, illumination is calculated if needed, and the overall opacity is accumulated. If the fog becomes totally opaque at some point along the way, ray marching terminates.
- Max Steps: Controls the maximum number of steps we can take along a ray. If max steps is hit before the far range is reached, ray marching terminates anyway. If you are not seeing a light in the fog that is within the near/far ranges, you are probably being limited by max steps. Try increasing either max steps or step size.
- Ranges - 2 choices for controlling the distance over which the fog is applied. Note, that these ranges ALSO effect fog visible in reflection/refraction, just like normal Max fog. So if near is set to 100, the fog (and ray march) will not start until 100 units from the camera, or in the case of reflection, 100 units from the reflective surface, etc.
- Use Camera Ranges: Near and Far ranges should be taken from the current camera environment settings.
- Near/Far: manually set the ranges
- Illumination - This group controls the fog's response to scene lights
- Illumination On: When enabled, the fog will sample the lighting at each point along the ray march. This creates light beams just like volume light. Unlike volume light, the fog IN FRONT of the light will occlude the light beam, so the lighting effect will recede into the fog properly.
- Outscatter: Effectively a multiplier for the light reflected from the fog. If light beams are too bright, lower this setting. If too dark, increase it
- Symmetry: Controls the 'phase' or tendency of the fog to scatter light back toward the light, or away from the light. At a value of -1, all light is scattered back toward the light source (back scattered), at 1, all light is scattered away from the light (forward scattered.) This is easiest to see with an omni light in the fog, using colored attenuation. In most cases, a value of 0 works best (uniform scattering in all directions.)
- Use All Scene Lights - When enabled all lights will be used by the fog. When disabled, only lights in the list will be used.
- Lights group: This is just like the light list in Max's volume light, without the retarded space wasting 'pick light' and 'remove light' buttons. We use these new fangled icon button things instead
- Notes
- In order to minimize banding issues, the ray marcher jitters the start sample position, this is the source of the noise. To reduce noise, decrease step size.
- Brazil 2 lights will generally be faster than max lights, especially when using features that constrain the light, such as attenuation or focus.
- Unlike Volume Light, all shadow types should work with all light types (e.g. ray shadows with Max lights works properly.)
Controlling the quality and speed of the fog render is a combination of the Step Size and Max Steps controls in the General group, as well as the Ranges. No fog or illumination occurs outside the ranges specified and step size coupled with max steps control the detail while limiting the number of samples into the fog. |
Thin Translucency shader ( Build 1449 )
This is useful for creating the backface illumination of thin translucency materials such as paper and cloth. It allows blurring the illumination, biasing the diffuse falloff, and several other effects.
Trick: Use a Double-Sided material with full translucency in the material to create a cheap 'backscatter' effect for softened shadows on directly lit surfaces.
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Originally Posted by minimaldocs by Steve Blackmon
General parameters- Color (mappable): The translucency color of the material. This is effectively the backface diffuse color. When used in standard material's colored self-illumination slot, or b2 advanced's luminosity slot, this will completely determine the resulting backface illumination color. When used in the extra-light slot of b2 advanced this will typically be combined with the Cs (diffuse) color of the shader.
- Diffuse Bias: Controls the sharpness of the diffuse falloff. The default value of 0.5 results in normal falloff. Lower values, from 0.0-0.5, will cause the diffuse falloff to occur very quickly, so areas will only receive light if the backface is pointing directly toward the light. This is useful for thick, rough materials such as satin or velvet, since it implies more self-shadowing of the material. Values from 0.5-1.0 will gradually flatten out the lighting. At 1.0 there is no diffuse falloff. This is useful for materials like paper, where the light scatters through the material and there is little surface self-shadowing.
- Diffuse Level: This is a simple multiplier for the diffuse lighting.
Illumination Blur parameters- On: Enables illumination blur (go figure)
- Blur Amount Map: Acts as a multiplier for the Radius.
- Radius: The distance in world units to blur the illumination.
- Surface Offset: A fixed distance in world units to offset the illumination along the surface normal for the backface. This has two purposes - it helps mimic the distortion of the backface lighting that would occur if the surface had thickness, and it acts as a material level shadow bias, to prevent self-shadowing issues.
- Auto Bias: This computes a surface offset for each illumination point based on how far that point is from the original point being shaded. When illumination is being gathered for points far from the actual point on the object, auto bias creates a larger surface offset. For points very near the actual shade point auto bias only adds a small offset. This provides good self-shadow artifact control without completely sacrificing contact shadows. It also tends to create an interesting distortion of the blurred illumination/shadows based on closeness of the translucent surface to the shadow casting/etc object.
- Sampling Controls: The full set of min/max samples, adaptive on, and max error controls everybody should be familiar with by now.
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Brazil2 Volume Light ( WIP - Build 1488 )
This is our implementation of a Volume Light. A common complaint about the 3ds Max Volume Light is that it is purely additive. The Brazil2 Volume Light adds a Blend compositing mode that more faithfully reproduces lighting within dusty or thick foggy, rather than misty, environments.
We also did away with the absolute necessity to pick lights (although you still can) - it features a "Use All Scene Lights" option.
Last but not least, fBM (fractal Brownian Motion - google it!) noise types are included in the Brazil2 Volume Light, allowing for more believable fog/dust noises without having to set up expensive procedural projector maps for the lights.
Brazil2 Fresnel Map ( Build 1488 )
This is similar to the 3ds Max Falloff map set to Fresnel mode, except that, in part thanks to its use of the existing internal Fresnel option used by e.g. Brazil2 Glass:
- it isn't prone to NaN bugs like Max's Falloff map - which often causes odd colors at the edges of objects, in photons, etc.
- the Fresnel effect doesn't 'flip' at high IORs, causing dark edges when using the 3ds Max Falloff fresnel with high 'IOR' values.
- it includes IOR mapping with several different modes of IOR map interpretation to handle mapping between IOR values, including across 1.0 (mostly for future use in refractive shaders)
k-D Tree Accelerator ( Build 1488 )
Added a new k-D Tree Ray Accelerator. This is a new accelerator type which excels in certain scenes, especially those using Deformation 3D Motion Blur.
Ray Accelerators Tester ( Build 1550 )
A simple utility to quickly get statistics on rendertimes and RAM usage from the various Ray Accelerators. Some scenes benefit more from a particular Ray Accelerator than others. This utility easily lets you find the best choice for a given scene.
SplutterFish Communication Center ( Build 1558 )
This is a major update to the 'update check' Bonus Tool available in the Stable edition, adding (optional) automatic update and announcement checking. 3ds Max r9 and 2008 users will find this version much smoother as well as it makes use of .NET access to check for updates.
more details...
Scene Explorer Manager ( Build 1558 )
This Bonus Tool adds extensions to the Scene Explorer so that Brazil r/s v2 lights can be adjusted from Scene Explorer. Includes two pre-defined Scene Explorer views with all the available properties listed.
more details...
Simple Exposure render effect ( Build 1558 )
A very basic exposure effect with black/white point, gamma, filter, saturation and main exposure (multiplier) control that can work with Float Buffer data.
more details...
Vignette render effect ( Build 1558 )
An easy to control vignetting effect that can work with Float Buffer data.
more details...
Box Blur/Glow render effect ( Build 1558 )
An efficient and fast blurring/glowing render effect that can work with Float Buffer data.
more details...
Custom Kernel Blur/Glow render effect ( Build 1558 )
A complex (map kernel-based) blurring/glowing effect that can work with Float Buffer data.
more details... ( 1558 )
more details... ( 1565 )
minor miscellanea- Build 1449 ( http://splutterfish.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21691 )
- Added Dome Light support to lu-mi-mi
- Added Photon on/off support to lu-mi-mi
- Build 1488 (http://splutterfish.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21796 )
- added the Missing Map Files dialog from Brazil r/s v1
- converters can now convert an entire scene between b1 and b2 with a single button (manual post-tweaking applies)
- List Incompatible Elements can now automatically list "incompatible" materials/maps in 3ds Max 7+. This lists the same materials/maps as the Material Editor when "Incompatible" is checked there.
- BrMax > Help menu's 'manual' entry should now automatically find the manual file location on 3ds Max 2008 thanks to registry access.
- Build 1550 ( http://splutterfish.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23275 )
- DataScope now has various new sample coloring options for, primarily, photons for easier in-viewport diagnoses
- converters can now specify which ray accelerator to convert to when converting between b1 and b2
- Build 1558 ( http://splutterfish.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23312 )
- Settings I/O can specify the folder to read/write settings files from
- sfTooltip has a new 'inner tooltip' mode that looks like a regular tooltip but does not steal focus
- List Incompatible Elements and b2 Removal scripts employ exprForMaxObject (yields a maxscript expression pointing to the element) for further guidance in removing these elements
- Fovea and lu-mi-ni have been added to the quad menus
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Of course the fun doesn't stop there... there's more in the line-up that's alpha material and thus not in the beta yet, such as...
Physical Sky environment (FUTURE)
Your basic physical sky with quick setup of any sky environment. Great for exterior renders to make the Sky Light shading just a little more interesting than a single color, and without having to fuss with gradients or third party HDR images.
and more which we just can't post about yet
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Bugs
Feel free to post any bug reports or unexpected results, etc. We know there's some bugs in there (we'll note them in the posts below), but if you think you've found something new - post away
Share!
And if you make something nice - please do share! We love seeing what you do with these new tools - thanks in advance!
20-Nov-2007, 02:34 AM
Professional-stable vs Professional-beta (as of Build 1565)
Linear Mode
