3D MAX Autodesk 2012 - I am back from 3D Studio 4 to the future!!!

I wish to say "I am returning to 3D Graphics!!!", but my returning will be hard.

  

Pre-history:

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I was born in small city "Ust-Ilimsk" in Russia. When I was at grade 8 in a school, all software,

which we could get, was written on CD disks and delivered to us by magic channels.

We had chance to try different software, including Operation systems,

Different programming languages and graphics software!!!!

I remember how in our hands we got 3D Studio 4 - it was first product, which we started work on.

We didn't have any books and we had to investigate product on our own.

Every weekend we met together with our friends to discuss what new features and tricks we found.

I remember couple valuable projects I made at that time:

1) Image for the local discussion board "Slonopotam". After all these years I found one but it si in bad resolution:

The idea was to use on of the "star wars" character and give him weird name. On a picture displayed russian spelling of "Slonopotam" and its character.

2) Another my project was advertment video for the "Grafika-sm" company.  My friend Oleg owned that company and he asked me assist him in creating good TV adverstmenmt for his company.

That company still exists and making different kind of stamps. I only remember that rendering process took 4 full days!!!!  We (me and my friend) used 3 computers to rendered TGA files on each computer. After that we used Video post to combine them to video and apply music and text.

(I am still trying find that video on my hard disks and will put it to YouTube if I find it. It was very impressive video at that time)

3) <n> years later I made another small project in 3D Max for software company, which I was working for. That video was showed at local TV. I had to render project twice, because their super duper machine for video processing didn't accept resolution of the Secam format, so second time I used PAL.
All these projects I made fo free. At that point of time it was just a hobby. I used Maya as well for static image rendering - very impressive product, but I wanted to make video and I decided to use 3D Max.

Start:

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In First step, I downloaded trial version of 3D Studio Max 2012 Architect edition. I installed it in stand-alone mode and started from basics. I was impressed what I found. The basics were the same as n years ago, but it became so easy to work with projects.

Modelling

Object creation was the same as before -

Standard Primitives objects, Compounds objects (I liked use boolean operation), shapes.

I found some new architect edition object types, such as windows, doors... but I would create it easily in standard edition as well.

I had to spend some time on object modifiers and read manual about what every modifier does.
The huge difference was to use real world coordinates in map size. There is "customize->Unit Setup" menu option, which allows set default unit measute for the objects.

Materials:

My weak part was always work with material library. I found "Autodesk material library", which impressed me. All materials, which exists in this version we would  have to create manually. I simplifies work n times.

In old days if I need create material I would take my photo camera and go make pictures or

use very slow internet to download images or buy material library (Last option was not acceptable for me).

Lights

The knowledges was the same as before, but I found Photometric type of lights and "Sky" type of light, which makes day light.

Making animation

Oops - I better leave it for future investigation :-)

Cameras:

The same experience as before- I am happy,

Helpers and space warps
the same as an animation. I will start investigate it for the making videos.

Rendering: Now you can easily select rendering engine in your project.

Some rendering engines, such as V-Ray use they own objects, so it is better decide what you are going to use from the beginning. following renderers are available in this product:

• mental ray renderer
• default scanline renderer
• iray renderer
• Quicksilver Hardware Renderer
• VUE File Renderer

I remember those days then "Mental ray" was a separate product and now it is part of 3DMAX!!!

Finally,

I can say that new product very impressed me - It is very simple to use it and I was getting pleasure to work with it on very powerful computer. It will take some time, in any way, to learn new features, which Autodesk brought to this product.

Here is my first rendering after <n> years:

I worked on http://www.sympatico.ca/  - that is why I made it. Of course,  not a professional 3D work (I would say it sucks), but good for the beginner. I played with text object  + glass material + photometric lights.

Here is another one:

In this project I played with muli/sub-object material + lights + real-World mapping coordinates. I used inches in environment preferences + I created floor, based on material size proportions. I selected tile 3x3 inches/sq.
There is one bug in my rendering - black tile on the floor. I think it is 3DMax bug  - I double checked project material assignment.

As I said, I will start look into new feature of 3DMAX (buy one  - of course) and start make good videos (hopefully).

P.S.
I would like to have friends, who already doing it on professional base to get new knowledges and would like to learn new things based on real tasks and help with real projects and ideas.
I really impressed what other people doing in this product, but most of work I would like to see as video and not as static image. I am understanding that it serious work but I woould share my knowledges about distributed rendering and it's optimization.