Boa Lamps
If you have comments or questions about my blog or just want to say hello, please feel free to leave comments here. I would also love to receive requests for tutorial subjects. I have experience with 3ds Max, Rhino and fryrender.
Feedback
Surreal Structures Blog
Fran's works, tutorials and industry news
Fran – Really nice site. It is rare that you come across a website where everything is so incredibly useful!
I have to ask – how did you do your fire in the header image of your site? I’ve always found it difficult to do realistic fire, and your’s is pretty convincing.
Thanks!
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
October 21st, 2009 at 8:56 am
Thanks. I’m glad you like the blog.
For the fire, I used a multi/sub-object material on the logs with a bark material and a glowing material. Then the flame is a plane object with opacity mapping and the companion color bitmap is used for the light material. I use fryrender, but I think you can do this with Vray or mental ray also.
[Reply]
Please tell us how to create a spotlight fryrender direct light? This standard light source I often use with vray
Thanks.
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Hi ilyxa, I will put up a mini-tutorial in the next few days on that for you. Thanks for the request.
[Reply]
Hey Fran,
I really like your site! Thanks for the great tips and tutorials!
[Reply]
Thank you so much, I was having the hardest time making a duvet and being old school 3DS Max trained I haven’t kept up with all the new modifiers…. Shell and Turbosmooth could have saved me a day of aggrivations using just the cloth modifier. At least I landed on your page when I did….Your tutorial was perfect. People were even trying to sell models of duvets when the tools to make those very models, and very realistic at that, are all included inside 3DS Max itself.
[Reply]
Brilliant, clear and to the point, was struggling to add realistic seams and distortions all weekend, and your post solved it for me in a couple of mins.
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
February 28th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Thanks Mike, I’m glad to have been a help.
[Reply]
I’m really enjoying some of your 3D Max tutorials cause it gives me an overview of techniques, methods and approach that might prove to be more useful, fast and efficient esp in modeling interior and architectural things and object. I just hope you could put some more videos on your earlier tutorial like the one you did with the pillow. Over-all thanks for the generosity in sharing your techniques I’m really grateful Miss Frances.
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
June 4th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
I’m glad my tutorials are of help. I don’t know if I will convert any of the static tutorials to video. Perhaps one or two of them, but I won’t be able to do that for several months.
[Reply]
thank you for all the help, but I was wondering how do you get your wood flooring to look like individual panels? sry I’m new to fryrender
[Reply]
nick Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 6:53 am
nevermind, I figured it out with one of your tutorials, thx again
[Reply]
Dear Fran
The work that you regularly post in your blog has truly been an inspiration for me as an arquitectural design student here in Wellington, New Zealand. Your tutorials have also helped me a great deal in understanding many of the complex concepts of max.
I have followed your pillow tutorial and thanks to you I have been able to create very beautiful pillows for my renders. However Fran I have tried for several weeks now to create sofa cushions using the same technique as the pillow tutorial but I’m no where close of creating something as beautiful as your sofa.
I have tried everything really including using a chamfer box for collision and 6 rectangles for each faces of the box and have played with the Depth and Offset parameters as well as the Cloth U Bend/V Bend and U and V Strech parameters with no luck.
I was wondering if you would be so kind in creating a tutorial that shows us how to create those beautiful cushions for the sofa one day. Your pillow tutorial was very easy to follow so using the same video approach would be great. I imagine you must be quite busy but it would be of great help to all of us around the world to learn from your experitise in this area. Thanks again Fran for shearing your knowledge and for the amzing blog
Warmest regards,
Gerard
Wellington, New Zealand
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
June 19th, 2011 at 2:31 am
Thanks Gerard. I will see if I can put together a basic tutorial for sofa cushions sometime soon.
[Reply]
Hi Fran. I don’t think we’ve met but we have FB friends in common. This is beautiful, impressive work. I’ve really enjoyed looking at it.
-Rob
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
June 19th, 2011 at 2:29 am
Thanks Rob.
[Reply]
hello dear Fran
my name is Kostas and I’m from Greece.
I’m a lightwave user for the past 10 years and I decided to incorporate to my work the Fryrebder technology. it’s been a couple of days know that I try but my results are very poor. there is so litle trainning material. in my efforts for looking for tutorials I came to your blog.
well, you have an amazing work here.
please tell me how did you start learning fryrender? I keep trying rendering some images using primitive object with materials on them but my images are very bright.I do not know anything although I have read the manual.do you have any suggestions for where to start.
I’m even thinking of learning the maxwell render because there is a lot of trainning material out there.anyway.
I would appreciate if you have any thoughts for a new user like me…
thank you and have a nice day.
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Hi Kostas,
I’ve been doing 3d visualization since 1997 – starting with AutoCAD/Archvision, then Lightscape, then VRay, then fryrender. I played with Maxwell while VRay was my production engine. When I discovered fryrender, I stopped using VRay unless it was required by a client.
By the time I started using fryrender, I had already learned the basics of setting up scenes, cameras, lights and materials. Since unbiased rendering is different from Lightscape and VRay, using Maxwell and fryrender successfully was a matter of understanding physically based cameras, lights and materials.
The RandomControl website has a Quick Start Guide and User Manual here: http://randomcontrol.com/fryrender-documents
Also, there are Text tutorials and Making Of tutorials here: http://randomcontrol.com/tutorials
There is also a fryrender Help document on the RandomControl wiki: http://randomcontrol.com/wiki/index.php/Help:Fryrender
Last but not least, licensed users can browse the support forums and ask questions on the RandomControl forum.
[Reply]
Hi Fran.
I have a problem with the Cloth Modifier in 3DS Max and I want to help me, I searched the net and nothing …
The problem is that when I make my tablecloth simulation starts to fall to my table model but does not fall completely stops like a 5 or 8 cm from the table, the simulation continues but never falls completely on the surface of the table I want to stay exactly on the table not floating …
Please help me I’m going crazy! with this problem
I hope you understand me, I’ll wait for your answer
greetings,
Edgardo Bautista
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
July 23rd, 2011 at 12:01 am
Hi Edgardo,
Try adjusting the offset parameters in the collision object’s cloth properties. If it is too small, the cloth will fall right through it, so be warned. Is it possible to simply move the cloth to where you want it once the simulation is complete?
[Reply]
Hi Frances,
For the second time I’m trying to demo Arion but I’m not having a lot of success… I had some problems with the installation that might not be resolved and Arion keeps crashing. I exchanged a few e-mails with Erwan Loison but he’s not answering anymore. And since I’m not (yet?) a customer I don’t have access to the support section of the forum.
Do you have a better experience with the support as a customer and have you seen these problems from other users?
Thanks.
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
November 5th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Hi Marc,
Well, considering that you posted this 2 months ago, I guess I’m not much better than Erwan at answering questions. Apologies! If it is okay with you, I will email you personally and then share the resolution here. It could be a driver issue or CUDA, or it could be your hardware or the Windows Watchdog timer timing out.
[Reply]
hi Fran,
your works are inspiring not just as 3d images but also for the aesthetic sense,a sense of objects light space texture telling a story-artfully composed..i am interested in knowing about the furnitures (a blend of modern and traditional)depicted,can you give some links to info on them.specifically about arian rendered-table lamp .thanks. -sibi
[Reply]
Hi! You do some amazing job here!
I was following your tablecloth tutorial, and I am using 3d studio max 2012. I got stuck on the cloth modifier, because I set everything right, but when I start the simulation, the cloth will never, ever, fall on the table plane, it deforms in very strange ways.
The strange thing is that on a previous attempt everything worked fine! This thing is driving me mad! Do you have any tips on this?
Bya and thanks again for all of your beautiful tutorials!
[Reply]
Hi there, you’ve got some amazing stuff here, very impressive!
I was just wondering, what is your stance on using bought/stock models (i.e. Evermotion Archmodel Packs)? Is it acceptable to use this for a job in order to save time and money for the client? I recently completed a job involving 20 different office scenes in which I used many ‘prop’ models, such as printers, computers, chairs etc amongst the clients desks that I modeled myself.
The brief was to create inspiring scenes using the clients desks, so I figured it was acceptable to use pre-made models for dressing the scenes since it was only the desks that needed to be the clients.
Do you end up doing this much in jobs for non-essential models in the scene? Even if I were to use an entire pre-made sofa for a client, would that be considered ‘cheating’ so to speak? The cost of the models wouldn’t be part of the budget as I end up using them in the future so it usually pays for itself in that way.
Regards,
James
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Hi James,
I use stock models when I can and if they are nice. They come in handy especially for productions such as you’ve described. I’ve used them for those situations also.
I don’t often get a chance to decide what goes into my production scenes, since a lot of the content is custom-designed.
[Reply]
Sticky Cloth!
No matter what i do i can’t get my curtain to stick to the rod, the rod is a collision object, the curtain is cloth, the rod has 60 segments the curtain 30, i am atmy wit’s end. I know it isn’t your fault. Do you have a scene file i could look at,this is driving me crazy!
[Reply]
Frances Reply:
April 4th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Did you create a Group in the Cloth modifier with the vertices selected that you wish to stick to the rod?
[Reply]
Wat a fabulous work….i like this tooo much….thank you….
[Reply]