16 unique boulders, each with diffuse, bump, displacement, and specular maps (where appropriate). All materials/maps assigned & ready to go. The only special thing about the file is all the materials are designed to be rendered with mental ray (Arch & Design material).

Each boulder can be fully customized by adjusting the turbosmooth (set low for distant renders, and high for close-ups), displace, noise, & FFD modifiers; from 300 faces all the way up to any level your computer can handle. The displace (with bitmap) modifiers are kinda "stuck" to the mesh in that you should only adjust the strength; all other displacement (& FFD) modifiers can be easily changed to modify the overall look of the stone. This method is completely non-destructive and excellent for quickly populating large areas of customized stone. If hundreds of copies (or more) are desired, just set turbosmooth low & once you have a boulder shape you like, you can edit mesh & detach a copy to use with scatter, for example. The mapping will be preserved, and the displacement will be preserved to the level you set turbosmooth; (although you won"t be able to edit it later). That"s ok - it was a copy!!

The file "6foot_boulders.txt" contains all the geometry details that result from the current settings for the turbosmooth modifiers. Other than that, each object (16 total) is a simple 152 vertex, 300 face mesh under a customizable modifier stack. That"s why the max file is so small (1248 KB). But there"s "lots-o-maps" - that"s why the zip file is so large.

Another similar file is available for setting boulders in the ground. There"s no reason to have a 300,000 poly stone that is 75% buried in the ground. For that search for "submerged_stones.zip." Uses the same principle except with a bent plane instead of a box.