Showing Vertex color/lighting in Max Render

NathanA

I usually use Maya but I recently received an art test and I am being tasked with doing vertex lighting in an older version of Max ( 2008 ) and I need to render a video for the final product. I know how to apply vertex colors and lighting but for the life of me can not figure out how to get my vertex lighting and colors (same thing right?) to show up in my renders?

Is there something simple I'm missing like a check box or something?
Most of what I have read online has come back with "vertex lighting is for in engine and not for max renders"... but I don't see this company asking for it if it isn't possible.

any help would be awesome. :poly121:

r_fletch_r

Why do folks say its not supposed to be done if they dont know how to do it ...
For diffuse there is a node called. 'Vertex Colour' in the maps list. You can create it like any other bitmap. If you create composite map first and add your texture to it, create a new layer and put the vertex colour in it with its blend mode set on multiply you should get what you want.

I use them for masking quite a lot on high poly stuff. really handy for certain tasks.

NathanA

Thanks for the reply

I tried it but it I'm not sure I fully understand the process, is this correct?

1. Have two materials one that has my texture as the diffuse the other that has "Vertex Color" as the diffuse.

2. Create a new material with its type set to composite instead of standard.

3. Drag the first material with the diffuse into the "Mat 1" slot of the composite texture and then drag the "Vertex Color" material into the "Mat 2" slot.

This is where I'm a little confused, you say to create a new layer and set it to multiply, do you mean just drag it into the Mat 2 slot? and is setting it to multiply the "M" button out of "A S M" options? Tried fiddling around with these options but all I'm getting in the render is the colors from the vertex color material and not the vertex colors I painted on my mesh

Thanks again for any help you can provide :poly121:

r_fletch_r

Ok your creating a composite shader not a map, this isnt what you want.
You need to stay with the standard shader, go to the diffuse map slot and create the composite map in there. this will give you a node in the diffuse slot that can do basic compositing much like a mix8layer in maya

heres a tutorial on the map
http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2008/issue36-3dsMaxDesign.html

NathanA

I think Max 2008 might be too old when I put the composite in the diffuse slot it only gives the options to put in maps , no blending options or anything. I was finally able to get my vertex colors to render using the vertex color shader...now its just a matter of having them show up with my diffuse ><
I tried "mix" instead of composite but if I use this my texture isn't at %100.. which is no good.

But at least for now I got the vertex colors showing up so there is a glimpse of possibility. I think I will just continue trying stuff with the material editor but if anyone has any good hints that would be great too.

Thanks for all the help Fletch

r_fletch_r

No worries, id forgot the composite node wasnt in earlier versions. Use a RGB Multiply node then, it will do the same job

commander_keen

hmm unmodulated vertex lighting? You need to at least multiply result by 2, preferably 4 or 8, so you can get over brightening on the textures. Simply multiplying your lighting data over your diffuse textures will always give you less than or equal to the diffuse pixel color and never actually brighten the pixel, which is important.

Heres some examples:

diffuse*lighting:


diffuse*lighting*2:


diffuse*lighting*4:


You can probably render this is max just by setting the output value to 2 or 4 or 8 in the vertex color node.

You will of course have to adjust your vertex lighting so your scene so it isnt brighter than it should be, but so you still get hot spots where you should. You can use the adjustment options in the vertex paint modifier to adjust the brightness/contrast.

NathanA

Awesome Fletch that worked!

Keen I don't immediately see any way to increase the output in my vertex color node (prob because its an old version of max?) but its a really good tip I'll see if there is an option in something else for that.

r_fletch_r

put it in an output node and set the output amount to a number greater than 1 then do the multiply. worth trying. I havent tested it with vertex colour but i regularly use output to do this sort of thing on bitmaps.

commander_keen

Putting the output node after the diffuse and vertex color multiply should definitely work. Also remember to set the materials self illumination all the way up and turn off or delete any lights in your scene.