BlueCherry

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

BlueCherry

A few weeks ago I began wondering why I have to set 4 or 5 different settings just to get caustics in 3dsMax’s mental ray renderer. It dawned on me that I could program a maxScript that would allow beginner and intermediate users harness the power of mental ray without going through the tedious interfaces and setups.


I began work on BlueCherry- the bullet-proof interface that grants easier access to special effects like Ambient Occlusion, Final Gather and HDRI lighting, and Caustics and Global Illumination.

One of the things that makes BlueCherry so special is that it samples your scene when it’s run. Instead of having to input a scaling value, the script will analyze your objects and choose a formulaic scaling value automatically. Then, if you’re looking for a deeper level of control, you can alter the trace depth and decay settings. BlueCherry seeks to incorporate a robust feature set that makes it easy and fast to arrive at incredible render settings.

I think it’s important for people to be able to show off their modeling capacity without having to worry about where their lights should be. BlueCherry has powerful and easy to use features for beginners. It has a robust and adaptive interface for intermediate users looking for an edge. It’s ease of use and speed of setup allows even advanced users to setup their favorite effects faster than if they were working alone.

***** Download a video of the interface here *****
To view, just download and unzip to your desktop. Open the HTML file and your browser will automatically play the video for you. Allow ActiveX content if you recieve a message; I won't hurt your computer- honest.

BlueCherry will probably be released late 3rd quarter.

[DeadlyFreeze]

Ah so this is the secret project I've been hearing about. Pretty amazing work so far blue. I like to get my hands on it and see how it works, keep on it!

[TheCheshireCat]

Looks promising, I'd love to see it done.

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

Quick Reply
Glad there's some response there. It's going to be pretty slick, though currently I'm working on some compatability issues. I'll post more information after this weekend, since I'll be working on a friends machine to get some bugs worked out.

[gnome]

Considering myself as a beginner, I'm looking forward to this thing

I think it would be great to see how (and depending on what) things are set up, so one can get a feeling for it - learning by imitating, that is.

[Antievo-3DT]

Aha!!! I have been waiting for this post! Now I see what you have been up to
I need to try this out when it's done! Great work Guy BlueSummers!

[shikav4]

Hey I've been waiting for this from a long time. Looks very good to me. And I'm sure when its done completely it will be very useful.

I havent been able to download the video right now but I'll do it later and tell you what I feel about it.

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

Monday Update for 07/31/06
This past week has been pretty crazy, but I've made a lot of progress. The brightness and contrast spinners are now functioning properly no matter what you do to them. RenderQuality now also alters Ambient Occlusion samples. You get beautiful quality from about 20% and higher. Finally, Hold Changes Mode is also working nicely too. You can now experiment using the render button in the window, while keeping the system's renderer to whatever you had before engaging Hold Changes Mode. Then you can decide to stack or dump the changes.

Bad news boys; it looks like Max7 doesn't support the full functionality of BlueCherry. I'll start looking into building a "legacy version" of blue cherry to cater to Max7 users, but it will be missing a lot of functionality (like Ambient Occlusion entirely). More on this issue to follow in next week's update.

Back to the good news! It looks like I'll have more free time to myself this week, so I may get my Light Probe set up and start taking some HDRI images. I'll post my progress on that next week. Also, I'll get started on the help files. I expect to have on-board help for each item, so it's really easy to glance at a "cheat sheet" for every feature. Otherwise, you can look at the big, meaty help file that will come with the plug-in. Lots of pictures for you visual learners.

[andoy]

Superb Guy BlueSummers, you are a real star... I am sure a lot of max users will cherish this baby..

[USED]

oh oh sign me up GUY!!!!!
hey if you would like some beta testing I would be happy to help

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

Fast Update
Light probe is built. Time to start making those HDRIs. I'll post a link to Antievo's HDRI thread once I get home tonight and take some pictures of it. It's so low tech, you'll get a laugh out of it.

[shikav4]

So tell me is it gonna be free or you're thinking of making it big and commercially selling it?

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

Well, there're a lot of factors at work. For example;

• I've spent a lot of time on this project (I have at least 30 pages of notes. Countless more scraps of paper with functions and scribbles on them). This takes enough of my free time to unseat my Counter-Strike: Source addiction.
• I'm including many original, super high-rez HDRI maps (which are in high demand). These can easily be stripped from BlueCherry and used wherever.
• Finally, it helps to think of BlueCherry as a set of training wheels. They'll help users who are unfamiliar with mental ray understand what each feature does and how it reacts to changes in the interface. The help-file will be packed full of image-based examples, and tips on how to get the most out of mental ray. Another key idea in this project has been to keep information accessable to the user.

The plug-in will be released through 3dTotal.com and I'm expecting it will be sold commercially. However, a price has yet to be decided on. From my perspective, I want BlueCherry to help beginner and intermediate users. I would expect the price to be a good value for what you're getting. BlueCherry is like a tutorial, a utility suite, and an HDRI repository all rolled into one.

More to follow later this week, and I'll continue to answer questions as they come up!

[noyb]

Sounds promising.

Any chance of site licenses?
I help with the 3ds max classes on my campus and many of the architectural students want to learn MR (some animators do as well). Since I'm the only lab assistant that has experience with it, I spend almost all my time teaching them how to use it. To top that off, the only professor that knew how to use it moved and teaches on a different campus... which leaves, well... me .
Hopefully we can get some of the advanced students who know MR to help out.

If this makes it easier like you say it does, it may help a lot.

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

Quick Reply
I think you'll be really impressed Noyb. I'll start putting together a plan for site licenses too. =)