Creating Realistic Rocks with V-Ray -part 2

In part 1 we created very realistic looking rocks that can be rendered far away or for very detailed work. In part 2 we are going to distribute those Rocks on a large scale using Vray Mesh Export and the Advanced Painter Plugin. The image below was created using this exact method.

You need. 3dsMax, Vray and the Advanced Painter Plugin.
There is a video that shows the process at the end of the tutorial.

1

I have created 12 different instances (included in the scene file) of the Rocks we created in Part 1 of this tutorial. I have named them rock_01 - 12

2

Select all the Rocks and right click to open the quad menu, select V-Ray mesh export. Choose 'Export each selected object in a seperate file'. This will keep the rocks individual and not as one collapsed vray mesh. Use 50 faces in preview, or even less to keep things zipping along. Save them into a folder.
I created a new folder called 'vray_mesh_exports'. This is where Vray will save our Mesh Export Versions of our Rocks.
Note: Vray Mesh Export is normally applied after you have merged an object to your scene. To be on the safe side make sure you save your models as a max file, as you normally would with any model you create.
Note: If you have used any unusual characters such as : / @ '' in the naming of your object then V-Ray Mesh export will fail as windows cant use characters in file names.

3

You will now see that the Rocks names are now 'VrayProxy_rock##'

4

Create a plane. 30x30metres. Create a basic Landscape by converting the plane to an editable poly and then using the Paint Deformation tool to push and pull the plane. You can also import or merge the landscaping you wish to use as well.

5

Once you have finished creating your landscape open the Advanced Painter plugin. Choose Randomizer from the drop down menu and add the rocks. Click on your Landscape and the click paint. You can now start painting the VrayProxy Rocks on to the landscape. You can have a play around with the Advanced Painter settings to tweek the way they rocks are painted, such as, scale variation, rotation and how close to the landscape you want the rocks. I find smaller rocks acheive a more realistic look so a setting between 0.2 - .35 is a good. (This is in relation to the original size of the model used) IMPORTANT: Navigate away from Modifier Tab to the Create Tab otherwise you will suffer a lot of refresh slowdown when you are painting. This is a natural problem in Studio Max not the plugin itself.
I find it useful to create Rocks in a new Layers in the Layer manager. This allows you to turn off the layers if your scene if it the poly count is starting to become heavy.
Take some time to paint them. I find rushing this process has a bearing on the final result.

6

Once you have finished hide all the rocks you have created. Click on your landscape and add the Rock Material. Add a Displace Modifier (not vray displacement) in the stack and copy over the Rock Bump Map to Map image method as an instance. Choose Shrink wrap method and make sure the Displacement Modifier gizmo centre is lined up to the bottom of your landscape. (This just helps to stop the mapping warping). This is a really nice way of getting the Landscape to blend with our rocks.

7

Add a turbosmooth modifier to the stack. You can see we are basically repeating the method we used in Part 1 to create the rocks in the first place. Now we are using it on the Landscape.

8

Add a Vray Displacement modifier to the Stack as shown. Add the bitmap in the bump map slot to Texmap.

9

Unhide the Rocks in the Layer Manager and render. The image below shows what you can achieve using this tutorial. I have added a wooden walkway with Vray Lights underneath. Post work in Photoshop includes Vignetting Effect and Clouds.