MR presentation mat and floating geometry shadows

Sonnhalter · Jun 2012

hey guys I was searching around and seemed to only find threads related to AO baking with floaters so excuse me if this has already been posted.

I'm using syncview's shiny dark mat for presentation. My floating geometry keeps casting shadows no matter how much I mess with the object properties and render settings...If anyone has figured this out I would love to hear from you. thanks.

richwderby · Jun 2012

You can sort out the AO shadows in photoshop, I have no idea about the render though

Sonnhalter · Jun 2012

yep, I also tried to composition two of the same render with the shadows being turned off all together in one but it didn't work out well.

r_fletch_r · Jun 2012

I havent really used it in max, but MR AO has an 'include/exclude object id' setting, giving your floaters an ID and setting the shader to ignore them should fix the problem.

AmbientOcclusionMap?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ao-mr-fletcher_mat.png

AmbientOcclusionMap?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ao-mr-fletcher_mat.png

Sonnhalter · Jun 2012

That did it! thank you so very much, I'm very happy with how it looks! you're the best!

cryrid · Jun 2012

http://wiki.polycount.com/AmbientOcclusionMap#mental_ray_Method

I use the back-face method too.

cptSwing · Jun 2012

That doesn't work with some material setups though, since MR's AO shader ignores the setting (as opposed to Final Gather). But r_fletch_r got it right, just set your floating geometry to a certain ID and exclude that from rendering AO.

cryrid · Jun 2012

since MR's AO shader ignores the setting

Is this a Max-specific thing then, I'm getting a different result with my MR and its AO shader in XSI

r_fletch_r · Jun 2012

cryrid wrote: »

Is this a Max-specific thing then, I'm getting a different result with my MR and its AO shader in XSI

wouldn't surprise me. for all the good stuff about Max's MR integration XSI seems to have it beat on things just working.

r_fletch_r · Jun 2012

perna wrote: »

You can do this and still get internal AO for the floater detail?

sure, just put another shader on the floaters. for a bake you'd need to do a custom diffuse bake but its an option if you cant rely on backfacing.

MR presentation mat and floating geometry shadows

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