3D World

TuTorials

Master large-scale environments

20

manual Placement

Now you can complete the composition by placing

hero objects in the mid to foreground. A Forest Pack

object can be useful here too. Add all the items you need

to the geometry list and add the surface. Enable Custom

Edit mode and you’ll be able to choose and place items

that will have the benefits of using Forest Pack’s point-

cloud display, randomisation and instancing features.

19

scatter v-ray lights

There are more than 350 lights scattered along the boardwalk. No-one

wants to place that many objects manually, but unfortunately Forest Pack can’t

scatter non-geometric items such as lights. Fortunately there’s a workaround.

Select the Forest Pack object used to distribute the lights geometry and use

Forest Tools to convert it to native instances. You can now use Max’s built-in

Clone and Align tool to add an instance of a new V-Ray light that matches the

position and orientation for each of the bulbs.

23

Position lights

Studio Niskota’s no-post philosophy applies to lighting too. Pay close

attention when lighting the buildings to create a believable mood, with the

aim that you could create close-up or even interior renders if needed. Ensure

that lights are added where there are fittings so that they originate from a

believable source, but feel free to also use invisible lights to add accents. For

example you could add lights facing away from the buildings to boost their

illumination of the surrounding environment and backlight the nearby trees.

24

aDD atmosPheric PersPective

Finally we need to create a sense of depth and

scale. This effect is commonly added in post using a

Z-Depth Pass, but it can be achieved at render time

too. Some artists like to use V-Ray Environment Fog to

achieve this, but unless you really need volumetric light

and shadows you can use V-Ray Aerial Perspective which

approximates the same effect but renders more quickly. •

21

aDD the lanterns

The lanterns in the foreground are created using

groups that contain geometry and a V-Ray light to

illuminate the scene. Manually instance and position the

lanterns so that slightly more than half are sat on the

water surface and some are drifting into the sky. To add

blur to the airborne lanterns, add a short animation and

enable Motion Blur in the renderer and camera settings.

22

riPPles in the water

To create ripples where the lanterns touch the

water, first model wavy discs and then place them just

below the surface, one for each light. Use these to add

displacement to the water using a VRayDistanceTex

map to create a greyscale output based on the surface’s

distance to the disc’s geometry. To move a lantern, just

move the disc to update the displacement automatically.

Forest loD

Using a Forest LOD

object you can

change an item

based on its distance

from the camera or

size in the render.

Often the biggest

performance gains

come from reducing

the complexity of the

shaders rather than the

polygon count.