Showing off a mesh to best advantage?

Valandar

My biggest problem to date on showing off a mesh has been I have no clue how to properly render it, so that the Normal Map and Specular Maps show up well.

I use 3DS Max r7. Is there a simple way to render the model so that it shows off how it would look in-game? Or a freeware model viewer that is relatively easy to export to that supports the various map types I can screencap from?

I would highly appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction, even if it's just a tutorial link...

Snowfly

jogshy's produces nice enough results.
http://xnormal.net/

and Keg's looks promising.
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php...true#Post255579

Also look up ben cloward, JI styles, and bryce vandermootle's viewport shaders, but i'm not sure which versions of max the last one works with.

Valandar

Cool, googling now. And thank you.

EDIT: Ugh... Keg's simply doesn't run for me at all, the scripts confuse me, and Xnormal won't take a screenshot. >.< Guess I'll have to start playing around with it...

Joao Sapiro

for work i used 3ds max viewport settings set to "dx dysplay of material" it worked fine. good luck !

Mark Dygert

Are you looking to make beauty renders or just viewport screen grabs with everything enabled? I can give you some tips on lighting set up if you're going for beauty renders. But I won't waste my time vomiting out lighting info if you don't need it.

ironbearxl

How about the UTIII Editor's model viewer? I see some folks screengrab their models from there and they look great.

Valandar

Vig: To be honest, both! Lighting tips for Beauty Renders would be highly appreciated.

Ironbearxl: I have UT3, how do I export to its model viewer?

Mark Dygert

Here ya go

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=260972&an=0&page=0#Post260972

Valandar

Thanks!

Now to figure out what sort of settings I need on Specular Level and Glossiness to replicate the 'typical' game engine output...

Jesse Moody

[ QUOTE ]
how do I export to its model viewer?

[/ QUOTE ]

Follow the tutorial I wrote up.

http://artbyjessemoody.com/ue3_tut1.html

Valandar

Thanks once again! I'll give it a try.