tutorials on lighting,rendering, and texturing?

[chickentech]

I make these cool models and rig them but when I go to try texturing and rendering a photo realistic picture I fail utterly. I spend months at a time messing with my textures and lighting and I get almost no where. I am just plain fed up with it, no matter what I do I can't get the texture to look like I want it to and I can't get the lighting to reflect the right mood, detail on my model, or photorealism.

Does any one know any tutorials, books, or training DVDs that will explain texturing and lighting in detail. And not just show me how to do it but explain the different things and how they will act. I have the 3ds max 8 bible and It only tells me what the different maps and lights do but it doesn't show me how to use any of them, let alone how to combine them to get exactly what I want. I am in great need of knowing how to set up my lighting and setting up a render and making my textures exactly how I want them. I don't just want to be shown how to do a texture or a certain lighting like in most tutorials. I want to be taught how to figure them out my self and how to use what to achieve it.

Any help, links, or suggestions very appreciated.

[kishou]

im wondering the same thing im a lighting noob and texturing noob.

[chickentech]

I just realized I should probably explain just how much detail I would like. so I will use an example of a problem I have spent hours today trying to figure out.

So I have this cool robot I made. I wanted to give him a really shiny texture that reflected objects and lights that cast alot of light on my robot, like plains with 100% illumintion applied, or spot lights. I also didn't want it to reflect much of anything else, or just have the reflection of everything else very weak. so I set up my lights and I got the texture down OK. But a problem I found was it didn't look to photo realistic with that lighting and I didn't know how to set the lighting so it would. I decided to try to figure it out so I changed the lighting and tested it. I quickly found that my texture changed alot in different lighting. so before I could even get photorealistic lighting I had to try to make a texture that would retain specific qualities in most other lighting too. The problem was that there was a good 10 ways to make the texture look right in the given lighting but when I changed the lighting it would be different again. I spent hours messing with different lighting and textures trying to find the right texture that would keep those qualities I wanted for my robot in most lighting. I finally realized I knew too little about texturing and lighting and making them work together to be able to solve my problem if I spent the next 2 years working on it. I need the texture to retain the right reflectivity and sensitivity to specific things so it will look right through an animation.

So I need some sort of instruction, or series of instructions like books or training dvds to be able to explain how to make lighting and texturing work together and teach me to know how I should make a texture and with what method would work best for what I want.

also If any one knows a solution to my problem that would help too.

[Brian Bradley]

Hey Guys,

This may help!!

Mentalboutmax - Mental Ray training for 3Ds Max Users

Regards
Bri

[Podge]

This will help with textures, and this with Lighting and Rendering

[kishou]

Originally Posted by Podge

This will help with textures, and this with Lighting and Rendering

thx sooo much1!!

[Podge]

No problem kishou, I'm glad I could be of help...

[chickentech]

awesome! these resources are incredible. thanks!