Featured: Creating Alloy Wheels in MAX by Dave3D

[Dave_3d]

It loks like it is reflecting mostly black ....

Make sure you crop the HDRI for reflection. If you don't do this then it will be trying to reflect a lot of the black area in the HDRI.

To check place your camera very low under the wheel looking up and render - that way it should reflect the lighter upper part of the HDRI.

I explained earlier about setting the H parameter to 0.65 in the bitmap properties for the HDRI.

Try that and let me know ...

Otherwise, it's looking good !

Dave

[Dave_3d]

Not quite ...

The rim material should be Raytrace. And the HDRI bitmap, exactly as you have done, should be in the environment slot of the Raytrace material.

So the Chrome material should be raytrace reflective with the HDRI as the thing it reflects.

See here :



Dave

[Dave_3d]

It looks OK now. What part do you think is not smooth ?

I don't know how you have set everything up. If you PM me a link to your file I could download it and take a quick look ?

If you want to do that make an Archive of the file - it will create a ZIP file of the scene and your texture maps.

EDIT : You have a light (omni) in the scene ?

Dave

[Dave_3d]

OK, I had a quick look. It all seems well done.

But a few pointers:

1. I changed your renderer to Mental Ray - you can do this at the bottom of the render dialogue panel. Why not, if you have Max8 ?
2. The centre spokes are quite flat when you view them from the front, it should have a curved, dished shape if you look from the side. This helps reflections. If you have a flat plane it reflects mostly the same area because the reflect map is only pixels (finite) it will look a bit flat, with a curve it reflects more different pixels from the same map. Just looks better .. The Alloy wheel manufacturers do the same for effect !
3. I made your rim a little deeper, just for reflections, and rounded the edge near the outside rim. You can change those back if you wish I was just testing.

Anyway here is what I get now :



Sent you a PM.

Dave

[Robsen]

Thanks for the nice Tutorial (!!!), but i need it in german .

[cant do cars]

Hi, I could never understand Max's array tool. My question is how you worked out the 18 degree rotation? Ok you need to rotate the mesh section 10 times to make 360 degrees (360/10=36) but then you divide 36 by 2, why?

Thanks

Dave:banghead:

[backa]

hey dave i have a question where to find array ??? and how to do tha pivots??

[cant do cars]

Thanks for that, but is it better to get the correct angle in the first place? I'm still at a loss as to why he (Dave) divides by 2?

[EquiNOX]

Dividing by two is to model the half of a spoke itself before you could symmterize it.

[cant do cars]

Cool, thanks fella

[borisss]

i have a quick question. after applying symmetry i applied the array and everything went well.the problem is that the rim is not one object but 10 objects, so how do i join the vertices beetween the objects and make it a one object so it can be meshsmoothed properly?

in other words i need the effect that you get when you enable the "Weld Seam" and enter a Treshold under the parameters in the Symmetry modifier.

[Dave_3d]

Basically a similar method.

I found it easier to weld two sections together at a time - just keep on adding the next section to teh growing section.

I joined the different sections by selecting one section and using the attach command. Then I actually went in and selected the vertices and welded them. You need to take care because some of the sets of vertices are close together so if you set your tolerance too close you will join some vertices you need for the chamfering.

Dave.

[borisss]

dave thanks for replying.

after a couple of different tries i managed to attach the segments and now im welding them one by one.its a bit time consuming but as long as everythings ok i dont mind.

thanks again

[Dave_3d]

Yes ... it can take a little time. But that way you are sure the vertices are all welded correctly and no holes will appear in the mesh.

You can try joining all the vertices at once but I found that I sometimes joined some that were VERY close together (in fact closer than 2 vertices I did want to join) BUT I needed them for the crisp chamfer.

I left that stage until last because with the segnents all instanced you only need to adjust one segment and they all adjust

Dave

[borisss]

yep,thats a big disadvantage when attaching the segments together and making it a single object, no more correcting and adjusting them so easily