How to do 'Clay Renders'

[eddie500]

hi all almost every render i see is done in this 'clay render' look which i see people talking about i have posted an example of this. it is 1 of the renders from 'the last great war' mod. plz plz tell me how you can get this effect. thanks

Eddie

 

[MINDA]

whoa, that looks phat. with a p h.

i wanna know how to do that too. that looks awsome.

 

[The Dark Elf]

It's just global illumination, a now very overused lighting effect that most consider their "make things look cool so I don't have to" feature. The early Arnold renders are to blame for starting things off.

 

[bastard_loud]

Arnold renders?

Like, Governator renders?

 

[mindless_moder]

get brazil or the elight max script OR actually take time to learn lightin and make ur own rig.

 

[Nostradamus]

mindless_moder what on earth has a rig got to do with render?

anyways, a simple one is just to set up 3 lights in a triangle and place them above you'r model. very primitive, but a time saver, and i kinda prefer it

But a good thing to do is to make a horizontal grid and make a big sphere sround your model(hope you get the picture)

this is kinda the basic setup if you are going to do GI

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by Nostradamus
mindless_moder what on earth has a rig got to do with render?

Lighting rig. A technical term from the film and TV industry for a rig setup with lights on, same thing in 3D only you don't need the rig itself obviously. But the name stuck cause it made sense.

 

[Nostradamus]

ah ok

 

[Short_Fuse]

Well most famous for clay renders is brazil. Brazil uses a default 3d max skylight to get that effect.

So for my G18 Glock Custom renders which is in another thread, i just chucked a skylight in and it came out looking like a brzil render. Only downside is each render took about 20 mins on 2.26 ghz

 

[SidewinderX]

yeah, for thouhge you just use a skylight and render it... pretty slow though.... i like to set up a 5 light system for my non-GI renders.... maybe i'll make a quick tutorail some day...

 

[ankalar]

Brazil uses a default 3d max skylight to get that effect.

No...no it does not...

I do not see how the lighting makes it look like clay, I just think it's the smoothing that is doing it.

 

[RMachucaA]

It has to do with Photons (actual light photons being emmited from a source) and the simulation of how they will react upon the geometry in the scene, that is how you get those renders, and for that you can easily fake it by using several lights with different intesities\shadows and save a lot on rendering time, and as for the lighting positions you should have a Key light, a fill light an ambient light and a contrast light.

 

[Short_Fuse]

No...no it does not...

Sorry mister 100% right all the time :angel: Yeah it was a broad statement, one setting of brazil uses a 3d max skylight, but most of the time it uses its own cant remember what its called light, but thats under the skylight setting in brazil. Anyway screw brazil, if you can get the same result with max just 10 times longer who cares :dork:

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Anyway screw brazil, if you can get the same result with max just 10 times longer who cares

The free version of Brazil includes the Global Illumination parameters, so you really have no excuse not to use it (unless of course, you like waiting twice as long for half the quality).

Unfortunately they no longer offer the public test version on there website, but if you scout around the net (or email Splutterfish) you should be able to find it.

 

[Stormy]

i like to use the global illumination in my renders i think it shows off the model nices kinda makes the detail come out alot better

i normly use one omni light on about 0.6 but then dull down the white to about 180 so its not too bright. adv ray traced shadows then put on a skylight then if you go i think render > advaned lighting or just press 9 then stick on the coool lighting have a fiddle with the parimeters on there. i usaly put colour bleed up to 1.5 but yea get nice renders with that.


not that greater example but you can see that you get some really nice shadows, they get less entence as they get further back

 

[The Dark Elf]

This is the style the OP was talking about

 

[eddie500]

thx fishymumma :dork: helped alot

 

[Stormy]

np

but it comes out kinda light hehe i saw your mark 2 or what ever it is ... try not to make the colour of it to dark like 2 up from white thats what i normly use and a white plane on the floor so it casts some nice shadows

 

[eddie500]

yea i got the white working but i kinda liked the black 1 to thx again

 

[Stormy]

just from my own experance i think dont make it to dark as it all looks the same and carnt see the shadow to well thus the detail dont show up as well.. but still personal preferance tis up to you dude