Quick question. Help wanted

Does anyone know how and could tell me how to make realistic/CGI movie quality outdoors/indoors lighting in 3ds max?

Start by looking into Mental Ray, a really good stock renderer. From there, look into 3ds Max's daylight system.

Look up some tutorials on Youtube. not many of us (I think) can help you here. It's much more than "tell me how." I'm assuming you're not too experienced so it'll take some time, practice and learning the basics is the key. Make your work, then polish, refine, polish, refine, polish, refine, polish, refine, and finally polish and refine...

Don't forget to polish and refine. We have had a shortage of that advice so far...

Thanks for the replies. I think I use mental ray, I'm just not sure how the best set up is. You activate mental ray in the assign renderer right? Should I use standard lighting or photometric? I can't watch youtube tutorials because my internet is utter crap and I would be wasting too much time waiting for it to load. Anyone mind just giving a step by step picture tutorial? Maybe something like setting up a skydome for outdoors, setting up a good daylight system, or maybe just out doors lighting in general. Just something like that that would give a realistic feel to the render.

I have a whopping 0% of experience in my professional cinematics career, but if that's your thing, try reading instead of videos then. Lots of forums have good guides.

Of course going hardcore Blizzard entertainment cinematic realism is going to be an extremely difficult and excessively long time, so here are my recommendations to try out (although bear in mind, these are just guesses and hypothesis as I have earlier stated, the experience equivalent to a squirrel)

1.go simple. Find a more artistic approach whether you like smooth U shaped heads, large chili heads, sharp angular and with distinct polygons for parts of face like the cheeks. Etc

2.aftereffects "MIGHT" be your friend. Make the stuff, the video stuffs and then either layer on or apply whatever effects are available at disposal.

3.use materials and textures that are commercial free from resource sharing websites if deemed necessary and fit your art style

4. Learn what diffuse, spectral, and absorption (something like that) maps do, I certainly don't... I think spectral is looks reflected and maybe diffuse is the one that determines what colour the sheen/reflection/highlights are... Often materials from content creators have all of that worked out for whatever purpose it was made for...

5. Polish and refine...

6. Go with the skydome as making the outside nature and grass, trees, etc is much harder (unless you know, simple but appealing art style) but I would prefer for a closed skydome because I feel that my computer would be better at handling it in the making and I don't need as many background pieces.

Thanks for the tips, but can some one actually show me steps and stuff with examples of final results using the method or methods?

Senjin wrote:
Of course going hardcore Blizzard entertainment cinematic realism is going to be an extremely difficult

Close enough.

Full Size

P3 wrote:Thanks for the tips, but can some one actually show me steps and stuff with examples of final results using the method or methods?

The 3ds max documentation provides some neat info and examples, but it depends on what you're aiming for. Start by learning the basics of mental ray, such as the materials and shaders that come with using it. Some things to look into would be the Arch & Design material, photometric lighting, and the daylight system.

Mental Ray Sun&Sky
Sky Portals for interiors
Arch & Design Material
Photometric Lighting
MR Photographic Exposure Control

The last three methods are used in the above render. Because it isn't an outdoor scene, the first 2 methods are not used. However, I can post how that scene is set up, if you want.

Anything will help.