Software used:

• 3D Studio MAX 6 (�3dsmax�)
• Brazil r/s V1.2.21 Plugin (�Brazil�)

Recommended Skills

• This tutorial is very basic and mainly for beginners starting with 3dsmax. So don�t worry.
• You should only know how to create new objects in 3dsmax and have Brazil properly installed.

The Goal

• Creating a realistic looking gold texture within 3dsmax.
• Gaining basic knowledge about the Material Editor and Brazil�s rendering settings
• Optimizing the rendering process

1) Start up 3dsmax and set the rendering engine to Brazil if it isn�t your default engine. If you already know how to do this you can continue with 2)

1a) Open the render settings clicking this icon on the upper left or hit F10.

1b) Now scroll down on where one bar reads �Current Renderers� (�Renderer zuweisen�) and click it, so it expands. Scroll down until you can see the three assigned renderers for �Production�, �Material Editor� and �ActiveShade�. If all read �Default Scanline Renderer� you have to set the Production rendering to Brazil.

1c) Assuming you properly installed Brazil click on the dots next to �Production:� and highlight �Brazil r/s V1.2.21� in the pop-up selection box and hit OK.

1d) Notice that now also the Material Editor�s renderer is set to Brazil, which is bad becase Brazil doesn�t support it. So we have to change it back to the �Default Scanline Renderer�.

1e) Hit the yellow button depicting a closed lock just right of the �Material Editor�. The icon should now show turn grey and view an open lock - the renderer should change to �Default Scanline Renderer�. Check the picture below to see if you�ve done it the right way. Don�t mind the German descriptions

1f) Close the Render Setting by clicking on it�s X-button in the very upper right.

2) Now open the material editor via hitting M on your keyboard. If every slot reads �not supported� its rendering is set to Brazil. In that case continue at 1a).

3a) Click the �Standard� (1) button and select �Brazil Chrome� (2) and hit �OK� (3). Now we�ve got a pretty neat chrome material but not at all golden. Note that a reflecting metal doesn�t have a color itself, it rather filters the reflected environment in a characterstic way � so forget all of the �Gold Diffuse Textures� you found on the web. Gold only reflects the yellow and orange light of the spectrum.

3b) Rename the material from �01 � Default� to �Gold� or similar.

4) Below, click the white rectangle right of �Filter� and a color-picker palette should pop-up. Select a warm yellow tone. I used the following settings: Red 255, Green 207, Blue 23. Click �Close�.

5) The �Glossy Reflection Control� section. Fist of all, what does it mean? Glossy reflection control determines how diffuse the reflection on the material is. It takes a lot longer but looks more realistic if turned on.

I rendered the above samples on a 2GHz Intel Pentium M with 1GB of RAM in highest quality with Global Illumination (GI) turned on. The little stopwatches indicate the rendering time in minutes.

For the gold-material I chose to keep the initial glossiness value of 80. If you want it blurrier, decrease it, if you want it crisper, increase it up to 100. In terms of rendering performance the glossiness value doesn�t really matter. Only if it is below 40 it slows everything down a little.

Also important for the rendering time is the sample rate. Initially it is set to 10 which guarantees a pretty smooth surface but takes quite long too. I chose a value of 4 this time but it depends: If the golden object is very close to the camera, I would boost it up to 10 or even 13. If it was only in the background, a value of 2 or even 1 would be sufficient.

Below there are four enlarged examples of the cube�s reflection with different sampling rates of the glossy reflection control. Note that the value in the stopwatches indicates the time it took to render the whole image, not only the enlarged cutout. Glossiness Level was 50 in all four examples.

Please note: The graininess is also dependent on Brazil�s Image sampling rate and last but not least the Global Illumination Shade rate. For a detailed walkthrough see addendum A.