3D Mountain in 3ds Max

26 Apr 2010

Mountain imageIn this 3ds Max tutorial we’re going to create a simple 3d mountain. The mountain geometry will be created from a simple plane with the displace modifier and it will be textured with a combination of procedural maps. The image will be finalized by strong sidelight and some volumetric clouds. I’m using 3ds Max 2011 but many older versions should work just as well.


Step 1 Mental Ray Renderer

We’re going to render the mountain with the Mental Ray. By default 3ds Max uses the Scanline renderer so we have to change that. Change the renderer to the Mental Ray ( Rendering > Render Setup… > Common tab > Assign Renderer > Production > mental ray Renderer ).

Step 2 3D Mountain Geometry

Create a Plane ( Create panel > Geometry > Standard Primitives > Plane ) in the top viewport . Modify the Plane ( Make a selection > Modify panel ) according to the following parameters :

  • Length: 200
  • Width: 200
  • length Segs: 200
  • Width Segs: 200

Plane object in 3ds Max

( We need a dense (80k faces) mesh because we’re going to deform it with the displace modifier and Gradient Ramp map. )

Step 3 Mountains with the Displace Modifier

Add Displace modifier to the Plane ( Make a selection > Modify panel > Modifier List > Object-Space Modifiers > Displace ) and apply the following parameters:

  • Displacement
    • Strength: 100
  • Image
    • Map: Gradient Ramp

Open Material Editor ( Rendering > Material Editor > Compact Material Editor ). Drag and drop the Gradient Ramp map from the Displace modifier into a material slot in Material Editor and select ‘instance’ when asked. Apply the following parameters to the Gradient Ramp map:

  1. Double click on the Flag #1 and change the color to white
  2. Double click on the Flag #3 and change the color to black
  3. Gradient Type: Radial
  4. Noise: Amount: 0,3
  5. Noise: Size: 6
  6. Noise: Turbulence
  7. Noise: Levels: 10

Displacement map design

Finally go to the ‘Output’ section, click ‘Enable Color Map’ and adjust the color map according to the picture below. ( to adjust a point, right-click on it and change it to ‘Bezier-Corner’ point. )

Color map curve in Gradient Ramp map

Tip: To adjust the small details of the mountain you can change the ‘ Phase’ in the Noise settings.

Step 4 Mountain Material

We’re going to create a snowcapped mountain with snow also at the base. The material will be created from scratch and it will use only procedural maps found in 3ds Max. We’ll utilize Gradient Ramp diffuse map to create color variations and Composite bump map to create lots of small scale details. So let’s select an empty material slot and create the material. You can just copy the settings from the picture or read the explanations below the picture.

Complex mountain material design

  1. Select the mountain and click ‘Assign Material to Selection’
  2. Diffuse Color: Gradient Ramp

    Flag #1: Color: RGB 180, 180, 180 Position: 0

    Flag #2: Color: RGB 180, 180, 180 Position: 15

    Flag #3: Color: RGB 100, 100, 100 Position: 22

    Flag #4: Color: RGB 100, 100, 100 Position: 39

    Flag #5: Color: RGB 180, 180, 180 Position: 49

    Flag #6: Color: RGB 180, 180, 180 Position: 100

    ( Click on the color gradient to add a new flag. Right-click on a flag to modify or delete it. )

    Gradient Type: Radial

    Noise Amount: 0,1

    Noise Type: Turbulence

    Noise Size: 1

    Noise Levels: 10

    ( It’s a good idea to make a test render now to see how the diffuse map looks like )

  3. Bump: Composite ( The Composite map is used to combine several maps together )
  4. Add Smoke map to the first layer of the Composite Map ( large scale details )

    Size: 5

    # Iterations: 20

  5. Add second layer to the Composite map. Change the blending mode to Addition and Opacity to 70. Add Speckle map to the second layer ( medium scale details )

    Size: 4

    Color #1: white

    Color #2: black

  6. Add third layer to the Composite map. Change the blending mode to Addition and Opacity to 60. Add Speckle map to the third layer ( small scale details )

    Size: 0,003

    Color #1: white

    Color #2: black

( We combined three different maps to create large, medium, and small scale details to the bump map. This method produces more realistic bump map than a single map would. )

Make a test render to see how the 3d mountain looks like with the diffuse and bump maps. At the moment there are several problems with the rendered image:

  • The mountain looks really boring and flat
  • Sampling quality isn’t high enough for the small scale details
  • There are some unnaturally sharp edges in the outline of the mountain

Next we’re going to fix these issues.

Flat and boring default rendering

Tip. If you’d like to create vegetation to the base of the mountain you could change the color values of Flags 5 and 6 ( in the Gradient Ramp map) to green.

Step 5 The Lighting

Soon we’re going to create more serious renders so let’s create a camera. Create a Target camera ( Create panel > Cameras > Target ) in the top viewport and place it according to picture below. Right-click on the Perspective view and press C in the keyboard to change it to the Camera view.

We rely heavily on the bump map so we desperately need more interesting illumination for the mountain. Create ‘mr Area Spot’ ( Create panel > Lights > Standard > mr Area Spot ) in the top viewport, place it according to picture below, and apply the following settings to it.

  • General Parameters
    • Shadows: ON
    • Shadows: Ray Traced Shadows
  • Intensity/Color/Attenuation
    • Multiplier: 2,5
    • Color: RGB 255, 248, 221
    • ( These settings create really strong light with warm yellowish color )
  • Spotlight Parameters
    • Hotspot/Beam: 15,2
    • Falloff/Field: 17,2
    • ( Just big enough to cover the mountain. Increase values if needed. )
  • Area Light Parameters
    • Type: Disc
    • Radius: 250
    • ( the higher the value, the softer the shadows. If you do a high resolution render and experience graininess in the shadows you can increase the ‘Samples’ values to fix it )

mr Area spot and camera placement in 3ds max

Render your mountain to see the effect of the Mental Ray area spotlight.

Effect of strong sidelight

Now the left side of the mountain is completely black and it fades into the background. Let’s fix that by adding a fill light. Create ‘Omni’ light and place it to the left side of the mountain and apply the following setting to it:

  • Intensity/Color/Attenuation
    • Multiplier: 0,7

Render a test image to see the effect of the fill light. Move the Omni light if necessary.

Unpolished rendering with low sampling values

Compare this to the render in step 4 to understand the importance of lighting.

Step 6 More Polished Look

Next we’re going to increase the quality of the mountain geometry and adjust the sampling settings to get more polished render. Go to the render setup and increase antialiasing quality by increasing Mental Ray’s sampling values ( Rendering > Render setup… > Renderer > Sampling Quality ):

  • Samples per pixel
    • Minimum: 4
    • Maximum: 64
  • Filter
    • Type: Mitchell ( For most scenes the Mitchell filter gives the best results. )

Select the mountain, go to the modify panel, and add TurboSmooth modifier to smooth out the hard edges of the model. Render your mountain to see the effect of these adjustments.

Polished 3d mountain render

Step 7 Volumetric Clouds Around the Mountain

As a final thing we’re going to add some clouds around the mountain to create more depth and better sense of scale. Create four sphere gizmos ( Create panel > Helpers > Atmospheric Apparatus > SphereGizmo ) in the top viewport. Apply the following settings to the gizmos:

  • SphereGizmo001
    • Radius: 61
    • Hemisphere: YES
  • SphereGizmo002
    • Radius: 47
    • Hemisphere: YES
  • SphereGizmo003
    • Radius: 79
    • Hemisphere: YES
  • SphereGizmo004
    • Radius: 50
    • Hemisphere: YES

Place the gizmos according to the picture below. SphereGizmo001 is on the left and SphereGizmo004 is on the right.

Sphere gizmo placement in top and front viewports

Let’s go to the atmosphere settings ( Rendering > Environment… > Atmosphere ) to add some clouds:

  • Click ‘Add…’ , select ‘Volume Fog’, and click OK.
  • Gizmos:
    • Click ‘Pick Gizmo’ and click on the SphereGizmo001. Repeat for all sphere gizmos.
    • Increase ‘Soften Gizmo Edges’ to 1.
  • Volume:
    • Color: RGB 255, 248, 221 ( The same as in the spotlight )
    • Max Steps: 200 ( Increases the quality of the effect )
  • Noise:
    • Type: Turbulence
    • Size: 40

Just hit render and your 3d mountain image is complete. I made some small adjustments in Photoshop:

  • Smart Sharpen Filter
    • Amount: 40%
    • Radius: 0,5 pixels
  • Contrast
    • +25

Mountain scene rendered in 3ds Max

I hope you enjoyed it! I’d love to hear how the tutorial is working for you!

Click to share if you like it!

95 Responses to “3D Mountain in 3ds Max”

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  1. n1fd3l says:
    August 8, 2010 at 12:00 am

    nice tuts thanks for sharing your skills!!!!

    Reply
  2. Quik says:
    August 15, 2010 at 7:53 pm

    I think the “modelling” of this mountain is very interesting, however, the fact that the end result is in grayscale, and the “texture” of the mountain seems just to be a noise filter to be honest with some booring lightning makes it rather booring to look at…
    Don’t get me wrong though, the lightning part is very interesting and each of your tutorials teaches me something new! i just find this one, rather booring =/
    Keep up the great tutorials! i am eager to learn more! =D

    Reply
  3. justan says:
    August 19, 2010 at 8:27 am

    Hey, i was just wondering why my mountain is flat? haha I’m at step 5 and yours looks all 3d and stuff, and mines just flat.
    I’m a beginner.

    thanks!
    this site looks great and very helpful.

    -justan

    Reply
  4. sujeet says:
    August 22, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    GR8 !!! thanks a lot

    Reply
  5. Gede says:
    September 1, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    Nice job, I liked that mountain , you can also create a crater or even a volcano by editing few things :) Well , however there would be , I need an advice, if you can write me to my email , I would be fully apresheated, becouse I am not going to write everything here :)

    Reply
  6. steph says:
    September 5, 2010 at 7:02 pm

    The clouds you place at the end of a lovely touch. However, I’d like to be able to do something like this with them:

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Tango/Images/mountains_clouds.jpg

    Is it possible using the sphere gizmos or would I have to grab a plugin?

    Reply
  7. 3darch says:
    September 9, 2010 at 8:06 am

    I just discover this webpage. its great!!! Im in love xD, nice tutorials the best tutorials I ever seen!! thanks!

    Reply
  8. Djghost1133 says:
    October 11, 2010 at 1:57 am

    Thanks for the tutorial man. Really helped a lot. You should make a similar tutorial on how to create an island.

    Reply
  9. euqid says:
    October 17, 2010 at 2:15 am

    Nice tutorial :) I suggest adding a gradient map in environment map with black and the semi-white you use in your light for colors. Adding noise to this gives a dark clouded BG wich further enhances the mountain feel ;) Thnx :)

    Reply
  10. Durgesh says:
    October 20, 2010 at 9:35 am

    Hello sir! you have done fantastic job. Newbies like us are able to learn such great softwares bcoz of great people like you only. Thank you so much!

    Reply
  11. bluerube says:
    October 24, 2010 at 5:25 am

    How do you extend this to creating a mountain range? I’ve been thinking of placing a flat plane underneath the mountain and then applying some noise, reposition the mountains artificially so that it looks like it’s part of the base terrain. But I don’t think this will work out too well.

    Any ideas?

    Reply
    • bluerube says:
      October 26, 2010 at 8:09 am

      Sorry, I’m using Max on my laptop, so it’s a tad slow. So what I do is try to visualize what to do first. Bear with me!

      I tried tilting the mountains to match the base terrain, but it looks too weird. The whole mountain tilts, so it looks unnatural.

      Now I’m thinking of attaching the base plane to the mountains. But the individual mountains have thousands of side vertices and the base mesh will have a lot too (after the noise was applied). How would you tie these together?

      Or, I could create a flat plane, attach the mountains to different areas on the plane. Then I would apply noise to areas that are not part of the mountain, creating a hilly base for the mountains. Will this work? Same problem though, how would I attach all those vertices from the mountain to a few points on the base plane?

      Thanks again!

      Reply
      • polygonblog says:
        October 26, 2010 at 9:55 am

        I would try it with two displace modifiers. With first displace modifier you create the hilly base that covers the whole plane. In the second displace modifier you create the mountain like in the tutorial but you just scale it smaller and position it where you want it (by scaling and movie the gizmo in the displace modifier).

  12. WifiRex says:
    December 2, 2010 at 6:20 am

    Keep them coming man. Need more lighting tutorials badly. When I made the mountain, I thought the daylight system would work well on a sky background, but once I changed it my mountain became a sillouette! Even with the daylight system removed! So I started again…

    Reply
  13. Kammeron says:
    December 8, 2010 at 8:14 pm

    Excellent Tutorial!

    Reply
  14. Dave says:
    December 20, 2010 at 5:51 am

    Just getting a giant wedge shape and confused what type of units your using.

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      December 20, 2010 at 5:41 pm

      I’m using Generic Units.

      Reply
  15. Azmy says:
    December 27, 2010 at 6:23 am

    LOL Your website is like a science lab..
    Soooooooooo ClEAN….

    Reply
  16. Little Laura says:
    December 28, 2010 at 8:22 pm

    Hey
    Great Tutorials btw
    just a quick question i have combined two of your tutorials to create larger scene (this one and the one with the ocean) to produce a scene, and when i have created the clouds from this tutorial into the scene they come out black, and i am unable to change the colour of them can you think of any reason why?

    Cheers

    Reply
  17. thulasi says:
    January 7, 2011 at 11:21 am

    exllent tutorial

    Reply
  18. Kura says:
    February 2, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    A very,very nice Tutorial!

    Reply
  19. Kush Kumar says:
    March 29, 2011 at 8:55 am

    Facing some problems with material editor (Step 4)
    if someone could elaborate
    I would appreciate it.

    and also follow me on twitter @thenameiskush
    thanks

    Reply
  20. Ganesh Srivastav says:
    April 15, 2011 at 10:15 am

    Great. Thanks a lot. It has worked perfectly and i would try changing the light settings.

    Reply
  21. zzff says:
    April 22, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    awesome! works like a charm
    thank you for the lessons

    Reply
  22. Noname says:
    April 25, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    We’re using this tutorial in our class!

    Reply
  23. ANURAGZ says:
    May 12, 2011 at 6:50 am

    I DONT KNOW WHO ARE BUT I REALLY WANT TO SAY YOU THANKSSSSSSSSS.
    THERE ARE VERY FEW PEOPLE WHO SHARE THIER SKILLS TO HELP THE BEGINNERS LIKE ME. THANKS ALOT

    Reply
  24. Bladelock says:
    June 6, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    Amazing!!!

    How do you make these stuff?

    This looks complex! Don’t you ever forget how you make such models?

    How do you keep remembering how to make these stuff to the point of posting this in your blog?

    Cheers!!!

    Reply
  25. Aquila says:
    June 15, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    Very inspirational! Thanks for a good and very easy to follow tutorial!

    Reply
  26. Thomas Braithwaite says:
    June 16, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    Great tut. Can’t quite get the clouds the way I would like to get them though, they look to glowy, and bright, less cloudy, more..urm..yeah! haha Great tutorial though, need more :)

    Reply
  27. mohit soni says:
    July 1, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    thank you for sharing. nicely explain step by step thankyou one again

    Reply
  28. soupz_vicky says:
    July 9, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    awesome tutorial it really came in handy 4r me….

    thanks a lot :D

    Reply
  29. Chris Clark says:
    July 21, 2011 at 5:18 am

    How can I use this approach to create a mountain that is 10,000 feed high and 5,000 feed wide?

    Reply
  30. sam says:
    August 18, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    I it fantastic and very clear. thank you very much. please also make a of break brick wall……………

    Reply
  31. ravi says:
    August 30, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    great tutorial but needed hand made. any way it gave some idea
    its good

    Reply
  32. babak says:
    September 9, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    tnx very very good

    Reply
  33. Tanveer says:
    October 12, 2011 at 9:10 am

    i think u should put something in the scene behind the mountain to make it more relevant rest of all is fine…

    Reply
  34. Dewmal says:
    November 24, 2011 at 4:16 am

    Thankx , nice tute and i learned more.

    Reply
  35. Resident says:
    November 30, 2011 at 1:10 am

    Hey buddy. I’m loving this site more and more, your tutorials are brilliant. Well Done.

    Anyways, I’m having an issue with the Mountain’s surface; it kinda looks to smooth and has nowhere near as much detail and jaggedness as yours seems to have.

    Also, the clouds look terrible in mine, I tried fiddling with the density but this is the best I could get (Which looks kind of terrible): http://residentgaming.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/mountainrange1.png

    Any idea how I’d solve these issues?

    Again, thanks for having such an awesome site! ^-^

    Reply
  36. noor says:
    January 10, 2012 at 1:19 pm

    very nice sharing sir! may u keep smiling ever!

    Reply
  37. nitin pasbola says:
    January 24, 2012 at 6:30 pm

    thanksss….

    Reply
  38. kian says:
    February 2, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    Tnx

    Reply
  39. rait yuki says:
    February 9, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    you are always best thank you thatwas really nice good luck for next works

    BANZAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  40. Livi says:
    May 6, 2012 at 8:13 pm

    My mountain looks all grainy and stuff and also, where’s the pick Gizmo …plz help.

    Reply
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