Best tool for high poly static rendering?
polycounter lvl 4
Hi,
This will probably sound pretty naive, but I'd like to make really nice renders as effectively (as opposed to as simply) as possible, and am wondering what program is best suited to me.
I do (as a complete amateur) high poly hard-surface modeling in 3Ds max, with the intention of making very nice static renders. I'm not terribly concerned with low poly stuff for this reason, nor am I (at present) interested in getting into animating or modeling for video games.
What I would really like to be able to do is make really nice renders of subdivision surface models. Now, I'm not necessarily asking for complex renders, but just really nice ones. Plastic that really looks like plastic, metal that really looks like metal, etc.
Most of my problem has to do with materials. I can't figure out how to make plastic or metal, or self-illuminating materials look quite the way I want them to within the 3DS max renderer "suite." Today I downloaded substance painter and designer on a student license, but am not sure that's the right choice for me. The reason I think this is because it seems substance painter is really designed for low-poly video game stuff, and before putting a file into the program from 3DS max you have to unwrap the UV, which is something I know virtually nothing about.
More or less, I can't take my subdivided or high-poly model and plop it straight into substance painter and start painting and rendering and etc. There are extra steps that I'm not sure are something I need to be doing given the direction of my work.
One other program I know of that might be a better fit is Marmoset toolbag (though it's advertised as a real-time renderer, which is another thing I'm not really interested in?), but I thought I'd come in here and see what polycount thinks.
So, the basic question is, for high-poly static rendering: Substance painter/designer vs. Marmoset Toolbag vs. something else?
A corollary is, can I create materials in substance designer that I can use in 3DS Max? Any good tutorials I could be pointed in the direction of?
Thanks.
This will probably sound pretty naive, but I'd like to make really nice renders as effectively (as opposed to as simply) as possible, and am wondering what program is best suited to me.
I do (as a complete amateur) high poly hard-surface modeling in 3Ds max, with the intention of making very nice static renders. I'm not terribly concerned with low poly stuff for this reason, nor am I (at present) interested in getting into animating or modeling for video games.
What I would really like to be able to do is make really nice renders of subdivision surface models. Now, I'm not necessarily asking for complex renders, but just really nice ones. Plastic that really looks like plastic, metal that really looks like metal, etc.
Most of my problem has to do with materials. I can't figure out how to make plastic or metal, or self-illuminating materials look quite the way I want them to within the 3DS max renderer "suite." Today I downloaded substance painter and designer on a student license, but am not sure that's the right choice for me. The reason I think this is because it seems substance painter is really designed for low-poly video game stuff, and before putting a file into the program from 3DS max you have to unwrap the UV, which is something I know virtually nothing about.
More or less, I can't take my subdivided or high-poly model and plop it straight into substance painter and start painting and rendering and etc. There are extra steps that I'm not sure are something I need to be doing given the direction of my work.
One other program I know of that might be a better fit is Marmoset toolbag (though it's advertised as a real-time renderer, which is another thing I'm not really interested in?), but I thought I'd come in here and see what polycount thinks.
So, the basic question is, for high-poly static rendering: Substance painter/designer vs. Marmoset Toolbag vs. something else?
A corollary is, can I create materials in substance designer that I can use in 3DS Max? Any good tutorials I could be pointed in the direction of?
Thanks.
Replies
That's your answer right there. Before attempting to go any further you need to learn how to unwrap your model, even in a rudimentary manner.
Sure, it would be great to be able to use something automagical to skip the process (which is soooortof doable to an extent, using vertex colors to paint color information in Zbrush). But at the end of the day you'll have to put the effort to learn how to unwrap your model. Thankfully enough, a quick and dirty unwrap is just a matter of a few clicks (select seams to pelt along, click unwrap, done).
Someone will without a doubt bring up the topic or Ptex, but you can ignore that, it's a pain and it will bite you in the ass later. Learn how to unwrap, it will take you about a day.
If you want any material that has some sort of details, then you will have to make your uvs, be it with those automatic stuff that will probably suck and have distorted parts, or by hand with uv unwrap. If not, you can simply tweak some materials and make a flat color material with no details. It won't look amazing but maybe that is the solution you're asking for.
With Max I prefer Corona. Much easier to use than Vray, requires zero setup, and all at no quality cost. It's also considerably faster out of the box, and it's unbiased to boot!
That said, ignoring UVing is only going to only hurt you when you decide you want to make, say, a tree one day and the procedural textures Max provides won't make acceptable bark.
Also you can use triplanar mapping in Painter if you don't want to make UVs I It'll limit you but it'll work and it's a lot cheaper than a commercial license for Keyshot
Getting a scene from Zbrush took forever. It was pretty slow comparing to GPU renderers, even not that speedy Cycles one. Not especially convenient lighting , limited material setup, glitchy passes , I couldn't get proper passes for a render of tree with alpha leaves . It ignored the alpha.
Keyshot is popular because it eliminates 90% of the setup you'd have to do in something like mental ray. For the most part it's a highly effective way of getting concept/key art rendered with minimal faff - which seems like what OP is after.
For my money though, I'd probably be looking at Painter and Iray.
Oh, and yes you can put live substances into max - there's documentation on the Allegorithmic site. You'll have the same issues with rendering though.
Keyshot is too expensive. Corona looks interesting.
@poopipe When you say even if you "live substances," What are those exactly? And also when you say "you'll have the same issues with rendering," you mean just that mental ray or the built in Max renderer sucks? That's another question I have, what is the consensus on the rendering tools built directly into 3DS max.
I'm reading everything and considering all suggestions. Trying to learn as much as possible. Forgive my ignorance though, modeling and rendering and creating good 3D art is really difficult.