JG3D

Check out this 3D Storm Trooper test by norWIZ - Funny dance but great quality lighting and rendering :) Made with 3ds max 2009 and V-Ray SP3a:

There are great HDRI panoramas and timelapse footage available for free at http://www.openfootage.net The images are available for download in 2 sizes: 10000x4000 pixels for background use and 2000 x 500 pixels for lighting. Great to use in your 3D scenes Various timelapse footage is also available in HD 1080p, HD 720p, PAL 16:9, and NTSC 16:9 formats. There is footage of Nature, clouds, weather, cites, etc. You can also comission openfootage.net to capture specific timelapse footage for your needs.

Welcome to this tutorial on making a chrome material and using an HDR image in V-Ray. To complete this tutorial you will need 3DS Max with V-Ray 1.5. Step 1 The first thing we need to do is create an object that we will apply our chrome material to, in my case I made a simple teapot. Add a camera to the scene too. Step 2 Create a normal V-Ray material. (Open up the material editor and change the first material in the material editor to a VrayMtl ). Rename this material "chrome" Step 3 We can leave the Diffuse colour of the chrome material grey, as chrome(chromium) seems to be a steely-grey colour in reality ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium ). It doesn't really matter what colour we make the Diffuse channel though, because we are going to make it so reflective, (in the next step), that it's colour will come from whatever it reflects in the environment around it. Step 4 Change the reflect colour to pure white (maximum reflectivity) Step 5 Change ...

Peter Guthrie has a post on his blog on how to use the Vray override material - it's a great way to check the overall colour balance and lighting of your scene, especially if you are using HDRI lighting. It's quick and easy too. ( link to PeterGuthrie.net )

Chrysler is giving away some 3d car models here The cars available are: CHRYSLER: 2008 Sebring Convertible Limited JEEP: 2007 Wrangler Rubicon 4x4 two-door DODGE: 2008 Viper Coupe SRT10 Each data set includes 3D geometry, reference materials (photos, charts, graphics, etc.) HDRI domes, and photographic backplates for each vehicle, sheesh! Very cool of them to give this stuff away! Be warned though, it's a lot of data, like a couple of Gigabytes worth! Also, most of the meshes are in Maya format, so you will need to convert them in something like Okino PolyTrans if you want to use them in Max. here is a screenshot of one of the cars - i'll post up a render when I have time...