Digital Visualization For Design Professionals II

This course is designed to get you up to speed fast using 3DS Max and VRay as effective design development and presentation tools at every stage of your process.
You'll learn production-proven methods for modeling that allow you to explore design alternatives and adapt quickly to changes.You'll learn to use materials and lighting effectively and efficiently so that they contribute to design evolution rather than slowing you down.You'll learn how to organize and manage project file structures for effective collaboration, rapid iteration and painless integration with BIM.The goal of every lesson, every exercise, every bit of information presented will be to help you up your game by making computer modeling and rendering as natural as sketching and a useful, fluid part of your everyday design process.

Course Outline:
Why The Arch-Viz World Uses 3DS Max and VRay
A Five-Minute History of Computer-Generated Imagery.Biased vs. Non-Biased Rendering Engines.Squeezing the best possible performance out of the hardware you have.3DS Max as a Design Tool:
System Unit Scale and why it's so important.What you really need to know about Gamma.The Universal Coordinate System and why staying as close as possible to the origin will help you stay sane.Understanding the Object Transform Matrix and knowing when it needs to be reset.Understanding the Slate Material Editor and making node-based shader networks work for architectural materials.Best practices for file organization: Layers vs. Groups vs. Selection Sets vs. XRefs.Building and maintaining a model and material library that's actually useful.Getting Better Results Faster From VRay:
What you really need to know about Deterministic Monte Carlo (DMC) sampling and how to choose the right settings in every situation.Understanding Trace Depth and BSP Tree depth and their impact on speed.Understanding image filtering and texture filtering and when you can get away with disabling one or both for faster, more efficient rendering.Understanding color mapping and how to use it effectively.VRay materials -- Best practices for optimizing speed vs. quality.Bump maps vs. normal bump maps vs. displacement. Which to use when.Understsanding the VRay physical camera and why it makes sense to use it.Understanding the Irradiance Map and Light Cache and how to make them work most efficiently.Brute force as a viable alternative to the Irradiance Map and Light Cache.Modeling for Design:
Editable Mesh vs. Editable Poly. Which to use when and why.Managing modifier stacks and balancing performance/stability with editability.Exploring design options with subdivision surface modeling.Best practices for typical interior modeling scenarios.Best practices for typical exterior modeling scenarios.Best practices for modeling context.Modeling for fabrication.Getting useable geometry out of Revit. And back in.Rendering for Design:
Exploring design options through rendering: How to get useful results fast enough to make deadlines.Material studies: Accurately simulating reality vs. representing a desired result.Best practices for managing texture maps. Size and quality vs. memory overhead and speed.Best practices for lighting interiors.Best practices for lighting exteriors.Exploring design options through post-production: Using mattes and elements effectively.Making distributed network rendering work for you.Keeping Large, Complex Projects Manageable:
Best practices for organizing project files in a multi-user environment.Using Asset Tracking and the Resource Collector effectively.Establishing firm-wide layer-naming, G-buffer ID and Render Element standards.Understanding proxy geometry and when to use it.Case Study Example: John F. Kennedy International Airport, Terminal 4Case Study Example: The World Financial CenterCase Study Example: Park Avenue Between 43rd and 47th Streets