so after struggling for awhile to get my head around how Vray works, I've finally started to make some progress. I've got what I believe to be a nice evenly lit room in the works, and now I'm working on unwrapping and texturing everything in it. I'm very happy with the way its coming out so far, even though I'm just playing around with textures at this point (as you can see, some areas of the room aren't even textured in this render).
This image was rendered with V-ray 1.5 RC3 for 3ds Max 9. I believe it took roughly a half hour on my machine, but that was because it was drawing up a fresh irradiance map and light cache. It should go down a bit when I'm ready to do the final render and I have these two files stored. If you're 3D savvy, leave me some feedback on this sucker (make sure you click the thumbnail to get a better view).
I'm trying to keep this blog up to date, but the truth is I'm just bad at updating it. I've done a ton of work over the past few weeks on various things including my own website, Hurdler 2 graphics, and other 3D models. I will try to update every other day this week with new posts about this new work, rather than just give it all away in this post ![]()
UPDATE: I just realized that the original image I uploaded had an Alpha channel on it and was making the render look a little funky... if you took a look at it before, take another look at it now, it's much better ![]()

So now I've decided to take my pool room a step further and create my ideal GAME room. My ideal game room would have more than just a pool table. Obviously it would be a place to entertain, and a place where I would have many of my close friends come and relax with me. For this reason, I'm going to be adding a bar into the mix. While it's not complete by any means, I've built the frame and begun to add the finer details, like some cabinet doors and a wet sink.
Also, I will be adding a section of the room that has a large television with lots of video games attached. I plan on modeling it all myself
. But any gamer knows that you need something comfortable to place yourself into while you game. Because of this, I spent about an hour or two this afternoon crafting a nice, comfy recliner that I will have multiple of in my television area.
My goal for this piece is to eventually give a beautiful walkthrough of this desirable game room. I think it will be a great addition to my reel.

One of my favorite 3D pieces that I've done would definitely have to be my pool room. Even though I'm not so good at it, Pool is a game that intrigues me. Being the 3D animation nerd that I am, whenever I'm playing or watching a game of pool, I can't help but notice the various textures, colors, and reflections in everything that makes up the environment that is the billiards room. It's such a unique environment, and while I'm proud of my portfolio piece, I can't help but think that my presentation of it just isn't doing it justice.
So, I've decided to upgrade it!

I did a 3D model of an in-progress poker game to use as a backdrop for a commercial advertising the World Series of Poker.