Japanese 3d Zen Stones
In this tutorial we are going to create a serene japanese style 3d image in 3ds Max. We’re going to model a shiny dark pebble stones and create a balanced pile out of them. This is a simple tutorial where emphasis is on the lighting and materials. I am using 3ds Max 2011 but several older versions should work as well.
Step 1 Mental Ray Renderer
We’re going to render the image with Mental Ray. By default 3ds Max uses the Scanline renderer so we have to change that. Change the renderer to Mental Ray ( ).
Step 2 3d Stones
Create five geospheres ( ) in the top viewport. Modify the geospheres ( ) according to the following parameters :
- GeoSphere001
- Radius: 58
- Segments: 12
- Geodesic Base Type: Octa
- GeoSphere002
- Radius: 44
- Segments: 12
- Geodesic Base Type: Octa
- GeoSphere003
- Radius: 30
- Segments: 12
- Geodesic Base Type: Octa
- GeoSphere004
- Radius: 38
- Segments: 12
- Geodesic Base Type: Octa
- GeoSphere005
- Radius: 14
- Segments: 12
- Geodesic Base Type: Octa
Step 3 Scaling the Stones
Go to the front viewport and scale the stones ( ) about the Y axis according to the values below. ( ).
- GeoSphere001: 21
- GeoSphere002: 46
- GeoSphere003: 59
- GeoSphere004: 15
- GeoSphere005: no need to scale this one
You don’t have to create exactly the same kind of stones. Feel free to experiment and to be creative.
Step 4 Deforming with the Noise Modifier
Add Noise modifier, one at a time to each stone except the first one ( ). By right-clicking you can copy and paste modifiers. Apply the following parameters ( ) to the Noise modifiers.
- GeoSphere002
- Noise
- Seed: 11
- Scale: 690
- Fractal: YES
- Strength
- X: 40
- Y: 40
- Z: 40
- Noise
- GeoSphere003
- Noise
- Seed: 11
- Scale: 700
- Fractal: YES
- Strength
- X: 60
- Y: 60
- Z: 60
- Noise
- GeoSphere004
- Noise
- Seed: 6
- Scale: 750
- Fractal: YES
- Strength
- X: 40
- Y: 40
- Z: 40
- Noise
- GeoSphere005
- Noise
- Seed: 6
- Scale: 560
- Fractal: YES
- Strength
- X: 60
- Y: 60
- Z: 60
- Noise
( If you need more segments I suggest you add TurboSmooth above the Noise instead of raising the segments value. This method produces smoother surface. )
Step 5 Pile of Japanese 3d Stones
Create a pile of stones balancing on top of each other. It’s a typical arrangement of stones seen in many zen-like photos and illustrations. Move and rotate the stones as you see fit.
Step 6 The Water Around the Stones
Next we’re going to create a water surface and some ripples around the pebbles to make the scene more interesting. Create a Plane ( ) in the top viewport . Modify the Plane ( ) according to the following parameters:
- Length: 10000
- Width: 10000
- Length Segs: 20
- Width Segs: 20
Add Edit Poly modifier to the plane ( ) and activate the Polygon sub-object level. Select one polygon approximately in the middle of the plane and delete it ( ). Deactivate the Polygon sub-object level.
Step 7 The Ripples Around the Stone
Now we’re going to create a dense mesh for the ripple effect. Create another Plane ( ) in the top viewport and apply the following parameters ( ):
- Length: 500
- Width: 500
- Length Segs: 130
- Width Segs: 130
Place the new plane into the hole of the large plane. Add TurboSmooth modifier ( ) and then Ripple modifier to it ( ). Go to the modify panel and apply the following parameters to the Ripple modifier:
- Amplitude 1: 2
- Amplitude 2: 2
- Wave Length: 25
- Decay: 0,02
Tip. If you need more polygons to your object you can just increase the iterations value in the Turbosmooth modifier.
Step 8 Prepare the Scene for Rendering
Let’s prepare the scene for rendering:
- Place the pebbles into the center of the ripple.
- Create a Target camera ( ) in the top viewport. Right-click on the Perspective view and press C in the keyboard to change it to the Camera view.
- Move the pebbles and the camera around to get something like pictures below.
Hit render ( ) and you should see something like the picture below.
The colors of the objects don’t matter because we’re going to create materials for them.
Step 9 Material for the 3D Zen Stones
Press M in keyboard to open Material Editor ( ) and create the material for the stones:
- Click ‘Get Material’ button and select ( doubleclick ) ‘Arch & Design (mi)’ from the material list.
- Select all the stones and assign the material to them.
- Reflectivity: 0,6
- Glossiness: 0,1 ( )
- Glossy Samples: 16 ( )
- Add ‘Composite’ as diffuse color map ( )
- Add Smoke map to the first layer of the Composite Map ( )Size: 40# Iterations: 20
Color #1: black ( )
Color #2: dark gray ( )
- Add second layer to the Composite map. Change the blending mode of the second layer to Addition. Add Speckle map to the second layer ( )Size: 0,2Color #1: dark gray ( )
Color #2: black ( )
Step 10 Water Material
Select a new slot in the Material Editor and create the water material:
- Click ‘Get Material’ button and select ( doubleclick ) ‘Arch & Design (mi)’ from the list.
- Select both water planes and assign the material to them.
- Select template from the drop-down list: Water, Reflective Surface.
- Turn Bump map off ( ).
Now materials are ready. However, there’s no point in rendering the scene now because everything we have is almost black. Let’s create illumination and environment first.
Step 11 Illumination and Environment
We’re going to illuminate the scene with the Daylight system and use Mental Ray’s physical sky as environment map. Daylight is a system that mimics a real world sun. Create the Daylight system ( ) in the top viewport. A new dialog appears. 3ds Max suggests that you use mr Photographic Exposure Control with EV=15. Just click YES. ( If the dialog doesn’t appear, apply the setting manually ( )). Select the daylight, go to the modify panel, and apply the following parameters:
- Daylight Parameters
- Sunlight: mr Sun
- Skylight: mr Sky(A new dialog appears. 3ds Max suggests that you use mr Physical Sky. Just click YES. If the dialog doesn’t appear, apply the setting manually ( ))
- Position: Manual ( )
Place the daylight according to the picture below.
Render your scene to see something like the picture below.
Let’s examine our 3d zen render for a while. There are several problems that need to be addressed.
- The whole image is very dark
- Some ground can be seen in the horizon
- The bluish coloring isn’t appealing
( Note that these are artistic observations and your taste might be different. Feel free to experiment. )
Step 12 Tuning the Settings for Better Impact
Select the Daylight, go to the modify panel, and apply the following parameters:
- mr Sun Basic Parameters
- Multiplier: 10 ( )
- Shadows
- Softness: 20 ( )
- mr Sky Parameters
- Multiplier: 5 ( )
- my Sky Advanced Parameters
- Horizon
- Height: -0,1 ( )
- Horizon
Render the scene to see the effect of these adjustments.
Look closely and you’ll see the color variations in the stones. Smoke map produces the large scale variations and Speckle map produces the small scale variations.
Personally I think that black and white image works better in this case. Let’s go to the mr Photographic Exposure Control settings ( ) to make the image black and white:
- Image Control
- Color Saturation: 0 ( )
Render your scene to see the image in black and white.
Step 20 Render the Final Japanese 3d Zen Image
If you look closely you’ll see some jagged edges. Let’s adjust the sampling settings to get a more polished render. Go to the render setup and increase antialiasing quality by increasing Mental Ray’s sampling values ( ):
- Samples per pixel
- Minimum: 4
- Maximum: 64
- Filter
- Type: Mitchell ( )
Render the image and you’re done. That’s it for today. Let’s continue in the comments!
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89 Responses to “Japanese 3d Zen Stones”
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I am having trouble render the scene:( It says application has run out of memory each time i try to render. I am using 2009 version.
Turn TurboSmooth off in all objects to see if polygon count is the problem. Additionally you could try to tweak Final Gather settings or turn it off altogether.
you are a genius, thanks for sharing your knowledge
It worked! Thank u so much:)
Love all your tutorials btw:)looking forward for new ones:)
Im a long time visitor, first time commentor. And I have to say compared to other tutorial sites, I learn new things on your blog all the time. Good Job, keep it up ;D
Thanks for your kind words! I just visited your site. Beautiful images in your portfolio.
^_^ Thanks mister
Gr8 Tutorial… Thank You
hey dude great tut but im having some issues with the water it well wont work it keeps rendering out as white or a funny brown colour i cant figure out what im doing wrong, sorry for being so vagaue its kinda hard to say whats going on.
any help would be much appreciated.
thanks
alex
Hard to say what the problem is. Maybe you could send me the file and I’ll try to help. I’ll contact you by email.
Thanks for the tutorial man, this is hard but you made it easy for me and i am only 12
Great tutorial! The grey parenthesis, next to a the more trivial steps,really kept things clear. I didn’t feel like I was at a loss at anytime during this tutorial.
Thanks for keeping things clear and concise…really makes re-doing the tutorial far less burdensome.
I’m having a problem here, when I render the stones with the small plane only, the ripples look natural, like yours. But if I include the large plane in the rendering, the ripples don’T have the “fade out before next ripple” kind of thing, its like: ___/^\__/^\__/^\__
Not quite natural, any tips?
Did you include the decay in your ripple settings?
Thank you for your tutorial! It was great and very useful espacially for beginers like me. I’m looking forward for new ones…..Thank you once again.
Thanks for Cool Tutorial!
Thank you very much. I love all your tutorials!
Thanks for the great tutorial, I used Max9 and even though some of the features in 2011 were not available I think it came out well- you can view my result here http://scottroantree.blogspot.com/2010/05/recent-3d-renders.html
What I appreciate in all your tutorials is the clarity in which you explain the details of various steps. You could be an excellent teacher.
Very realistic stone effect! and very useful the tut thanks
This tutorial was great, but I just have one problem that I’m hoping someone can help with. When I render the scene, the water looks perfect but the rocks look very grainy and pixelated. How can I remedy this?
Did you do step 20?
Great tutorial!! It came out perfectly!! Thanks so much!
hi thanks very much for your work i dont know how thanks from you please make pdf format
this is fantastic
thnk you !
thats nice , while i was trying to make it in the materials (m) i do every thing and when u say change the composite to addition i couldn’t find the composite layers i have only composite parameters so i cant make the rock , isn’t the composite addition found in (3ds max 9 sp2)plzz tell me on my e-mail
(shefoalaao@yahoo.com)
Its a good Tutorial to understand the material and Lighting,
Thanks.
Thanks
Amazing tutorial i never got water to work until now after this tutorial thanks!
yepiii….:):):) … thx a lot it worked…… good tutorial to work out for sure
This tutorial is great. I must really thank you for that
Now i can finaly work on my final exam work 
Thank you for this tutorial, I have been asked to teach 3DS Max to a year 10 class with only 2 weeks to familiarise myself with the program, this had gone along way to help me.
I can’t assign the material to the object, i don’t know what happened, how can i fix it?
You must select the object before you can assign the material. If you can’t select the object, selection lock is turned on ( press space in keyboard to turn selection lock on or off). Another way to assign a material is to just drag a drop the material to the object.
thank you. i learned alot. pretty much awesomeness.
hello,
ur tutorial is gr8.But i am having a problem in exposure control.I get all the options in “Exposure control” like
-AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE CONTROL,
-LINEAR EXPOSURE CONTROL,
-LOGARITHMIC EXPOSURE CONTROL,
-PESUDO COLOR EXPOSURE CONTROL
but I dont get the option for “mr Photographic Exposure Control”
can u fix it up plz.I m using max9
I’m not sure but try using ‘Logarithmic Exposure Control’ and setting ‘Brightness to 1.0.
really u doing gr8 job. I like ur tuts. So, please contine. thanks 4 this tuts.
Great Tutorial.
Helped alot =)
Another amazing tutorial. thankyou very much!
Good tutorial. I waiting for a new one.
Thank you very much for sharing.
Amazing idea.
i have quetion that i can’t found the geodesic base : octa
can u tell mw what is it and where i can find it
thank
btw its realy one good tut
Hi, thanks for the brilliant tutorial. I have a bit of an issue:
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j311/wandering_dragon/zenstones.jpg
Can you see the rippling? I can’t seem to understand how I’ve managed to do that..
It looks like there are not enough polygons in the water.
Oh Brilliant! Thankyou
hey nice tutorial…easy to understand…..
Great tut… thank u very much…. keep going
guys i just checked some of your tutorial and i have to say are amazing because you explain every little change what affect will have..i using 3ds max for a year now and i found some interesting tutorials..good job..i will be checking for more..
thanks for this perfect tutorial, its mind blowing! you just forgot to tell that you cant get arch and design material untill you change render to mental ray. anyway, im really thankfull for this tut, thanks mate!