Category Archives: Intro Level

Here is where all the basic things can be found

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First Glance at 3ds Max 2017 and Auto Peel UVW unwrap

  By Denis Keman • April 22, 2016 ,

When i make a new post i kinda tend to make it so that the videos are educational and are pretty much in the form of a tutorial. Well today’s video is more of a informational character then educational. Namely a few days ago Autodesk decided to release their newest version of the 3ds Max software the 2017 version of it, so i decided to make a quick video about the very first thing you can see when you try it out. I made it so that it is divided into two short videos in which you will see what you can expect with the new version of Max, as well as few issues and bugs. (This is an understatement)

So in the first video i go and show you how the UI has been changed, and i kinda compare it to Maya and as you will see for yourself it appears as Autodesk are trying to make Max look like Maya for some reason. Also you will see that in the rendering department we have some novelty in the form of a new render engine ART. But check it out for yourself in the video below.

In the second video that i decided to make it separate i go over something that i am personally stoked for, and that is the UVW Unwrap Auto peel mode. It’s been ages since Autodesk have done diddly squat when it comes to unwrapping in Max, and it has been a total drag having it do it in it. Well in this last version they finally decided to give the unwrapping portion some love and get it so it starts being useful. In the 2017 with the addition of the Auto Peel mode, and the addition of the tension map it is really starting to get back on track, so now the only thing that needs to be fixed is for Max to stop crashing every 5 min. In any case check it out for yourself in this short intro to Auto Peel Unwrapping in Max 2017.

After having some time to play around with Max 2017 i can only say that it’s probably going to be a good version of Max, but as of now i would stay away from using it, especially if you want to use it for your work projects as it is really buggy and unstable and it appears that crashing is it’s favorite past time.
And that would be it for this post, i hope it was informative and if you liked what you saw then click the like button, share and comment below.

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Introduction to ZBrush

  By Denis Keman • December 21, 2015 ,

And finally i decided it would be a about that time to get my feet wet with covering a bit of ZBrush in my videos. One of the things that i have actually noticed is that a lot of people don’t really know what ZBrush is used for, so they discard the idea of learning the software as they can’t find a justification to spend the time to learn it.

ZBrush is used for adding details, and micro details to high density meshes counting polygons in the millions. After that bake those details back onto the original mesh, and retain the details from the high poly mesh.

This is really helpful for the gaming industry, jewelery industry, as well as the 3D printing industry and the architectural visualization industry. Now if you can’t understand why would i choose to place the ArchViz industry in the the same mix with the 3D Printing and gaming industry, then you probably haven’t been in the loop and don’t realize that the game engines lately (Unity and UE4) have advanced so far that it will most probably be the go to destination for future visualization projects. If you want to get a quick idea check out the Paris Virtual Tour video from a while back (This is like year old video, and things have gotten even more advanced now)

Well ZBrush is right in the center of this as it is the go to software for when you want to fine tune your meshes and add details to them. So knowing that i decided to start simple, and make a few introduction videos to Zbrush that will be meant for someone that is a complete starter with the program.

In the very first video i basically start with explaining the UI of the program, as well as explaining how to navigate in the program. Even though this might sound like a silly thing, ZBrush actually has quite a bit of a “weird” way of navigating through it and it takes a bit of time to get accustomed to it. So before anything else, go ahead and watch the first video.

In the second video i go over brushes in ZBrush. In this video you will learn the importance of the brushes, what they do and how can they be used to sculpt and manipulate your mesh. I managed to squeeze in a short intro about the Standard brush, Clay Buildup, Damien Standard (Dam_Standard), hPolish and a few more other brushes. We will also see about the Add and Subtract options that the brushes have, as well as their function. So if this sounds interesting then check out this second video.

And in the third and last video we will cover a tiny bit of everything as we will touch base with the move brush, the transpose tools, we will have a chance to see what Dynamesh is and what it’s used for as well as a bit of masking. Like i already said this is all just a very quick preview on what Zbrush has to offer and it’s only the beginning. So check out this third video in the introduction to ZBrush mini series.

And with that we opened the season for ZBrush tutorials. I will continue to make new tutorials for 3ds Max as well as ZBrush, and a bit down the road we will start to mix them up and combine them together in a work pipeline that will focus on giving you extreme control over the details you want to add while at the same time to cut down on the time it will take you to create them.
What i actually learned from making these videos is that going on about general stuff in ZBrush is generally not a bad idea if you don’t have a time limitation, but when you want to keep it within 20-30 min mark then it should be more focused on one thing which is something i will try to do in future videos.

In all the previous posts when i get to the end i tell you that with that we wrap up that theme, well today with this post we are opening up the doors for more ZBrush videos which i really hope will be a fun endeavor for me, and an educational experience for you guys. So if you liked the videos then don’t forget to subscribe and like them and share them around so they can reach more people.

P.S. I know i kinda screwed up the intro text to the videos as it says New And Amazing intro video, but i wasn’t going to spend another 2 hours rendering just to fix that little screw up, and also i’m pretty sure that most wouldn’t have picked up on that if i hadn’t pointed it out.

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Starting with V-Ray Part-4, Understanding Color Correction

  By Denis Keman • August 1, 2015 , , ,

OK so here we go with the fourth part of the Starting With V-Ray series. In this part we will get to see how the Color Correction works within V-Ray. We will see what are the differences between using Linear Color Correction, Exponential, HSV Exponential as well a Reinhard color correction type. We will also see what do the Bright and Dark multipliers control as well as the Burn value for Reinhard. So without making this intro any longer than it should be i’ll leave you here with the video.

I really hope that you enjoyed this video as well and if you have any questions feel free to leave them as a comment either here or on the YouTube channel. Also if you enjoyed this post then subscribe to the YouTube channel, share it around or like it and help spread the word around.

That’s all for now and remember, stay hungry for more knowledge as that is how you get to improve.

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Working with Loft Part 3

  By Denis Keman • November 26, 2014 , ,

Alright this is the final installment of this three part tutorial into the ways that the Loft modifier works in 3DS Max. In the first part we had the chance to see the basic parameters of the modifier, then we followed with the second part where we took what we learned from the first part and used it to make a road, and in this last part we are going to continue building on that knowledge.

In the following video we can see how to effectively use Loft to make a road that is going up an inclination, while at the same time it incorporates the natural curving and bending that we might expect to see in a realistic road.

So as we saw in the video, by using the Loft modifier we can do more then simply choose lines and extract geometry from it, we can further refine that geometry and the way it bends, twists and deforms by simply controlling the tangent handles of the bezier corners.

So with this i am putting the Loft modifier series to bed, and i’m really hoping that you guys learned something from this and if you really did then share the post around, subscribe to the YouTube channel and keep on learning.

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Working with Loft Part 2

  By Denis Keman • November 20, 2014 , ,

And here we are back again with the second part of our Loft trilogy. This part is not directly linked to the Working with Loft, but it’s rather building on the foundation that we learned from it. In this second part we are going to start off with a single line that is representing our road, then we are going to see how we can fix some of the issues that can arise from dense geometry and even go into texturing the road and fixing the texture issues without having to go deeper into UVW Unwrap.

So just like in the previous part we started off with a simple line and with the help of a few profiles we ended up with a nice looking road that even has street crossings incorporated into the model. With this i would end the second part here, and in the third part we are going to see a few more uses for the Loft modifier.

And last but not least the call to action, if you liked this post or the video then share it around, subscribe to the YouTube channel and keep on learning.

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