3DS MAX II - saintangelos.comsaintangelos.com/studentdesk/Download/3ds max II.pdf · 1 | P a g e 3DS MAX II Unit–I: 3DS Max Lighting Introduction - Universal Concepts and 3ds Max

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3DS MAX II

Unit–I: 3DS Max Lighting

Introduction - Universal Concepts and 3ds Max Representation- Sun Study and Positioning Lights- Main and Subordinate Lights- Types Of Lights- components – Light Concepts – Light workings - Omni –Spot-Directional.

Unit–II: 3DS Max Parameters

Light Parameters – Restricting Lights - General Parameters - Intensity and Color Attenuation - Shadow Parameters - Atmospheric Effects - Far and Near Attenuation- Lighting Character - Lighting Sets – Lighting Environments.

Unit–III: 3DS Design

Light and Textures – Light utilities – Light projections-Application Of Lights In Interiors - Creating and Applying Lights On Exteriors - Creating Multiple Lights In Interiors - Appling Lights In Side Wall Corners - Getting Preview.

Unit–IV: Rendering

Concept – Render settings – Render output – Render types-Introduction to Camera -Application and Utilities of Camera - Camera Concepts and Getting Previews - Types of Camera - Free Camera - Target Camera – Parameters for Cameras-Lenses and Coverage.

Unit–V: Modeling

Creating Glows – Objects- Applying Video Post Effects - Creating Contrast-Highlights- Glow on Objects -Capturing Render Still and Animated Movies from Video Post- Applying Lights – Finalizing Seen light and textures.

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UNIT I

Introduction

Lighting in 3ds Max simulates natural lighting. However, standard lights are simpler than natural lighting. Using photometric lights with a radiosity solutionwith your lights provides a better model of the real world.

Intensity

The intensity of a standard light is its HSV Value. At full value (255), the light is at its brightest; at 0, the light is completely dark.

The intensity of a photometric light is set by a real-world intensity value, measured in either lumens, candelas, or lux. Angle of Incidence

3ds Max uses a vector from the light object to the face, along with the face normal, to calculate the angle of incidence.

A surface is fully illuminated when the angle of incidence is 0 degrees (that is, the light source strikes the surface perpendicularly). If the angle of incidence increases, attenuation is in effect, or if the light has a color, the surface intensity can be reduced.

In other words, the position and orientation of the light, relative to the object, are what control the angle of incidence in a scene. The Place Highlight command is one way to fine-tune the location of a light.

Attenuation

For standard lights, attenuation is turned off by default. To shade or render a scene with attenuation, you turn it on for one or more lights. All types of standard lights support attenuation. You can set explicitly where attenuation begins and where it ends. This is partly so you don’t have to worry about setting up strictly realistic distances between light objects and the objects they illuminate. More importantly, this feature lets you fine-tune the effect of attenuation.

In outdoor scenes, attenuation can enhance the effect of distance. (Another way to model environmental effects is to use the atmospheric settings when you render. In an indoor setting, attenuation is useful for low-intensity light sources such as candles.

Photometric lights always attenuate, using an inverse-square falloff, as in nature. (In the case of the IES Sun Light, its great intensity makes its attenuation hardly apparent.)

Reflected Light and Ambient Light

Rendering with the default renderer and standard lights does not calculate the effect of lights reflected from objects in the scene. Because of this, lighting a scene with standard

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lights often requires you to add more light objects than would be needed in real life. You can, however, use radiosity to show the results of reflected light.

When you do not use a radiosity solution, you can use the Environment panel to adjust the color and intensity of ambient light. Ambient light affects contrast. The higher the intensity of ambient light, the lower the contrast in the scene. The color of ambient light tints the scene. Sometimes ambient light is bounced light that gets its color from other objects in the scene. Most of the time, however, the color of ambient light should be the complement of the color of the principal light source for the scene.

TipTo better simulate reflected light and variations in it due to the varying reflectivity of objects in the scene, you can add more lights to a scene and set them to exclude the objects you don’t want them to affect. You can also set up lights to affect only the ambient component of surfaces.

Color

You can set the color of 3ds Max lights. You can use the RGB values for color temperatures as a guide for the principal lighting of a scene. Be aware, however, that we tend to perceive scenes as always being lit by white light (this is a perceptual phenomenon known as color constancy), so accurately reproducing the color of a light source can make the rendered scene appear to be tinted oddly. Use the light source values as a general guideline only.

Universal Concepts and 3ds Max Representation

The guidelines for lighting used by photographers, filmmakers, and stage designers can also help you set up the lighting for scenes in 3ds Max.

Your choice of lighting depends on whether your scene simulates natural or artificial illumination. Naturally lit scenes, such as daylight or moonlight, get their most important illumination from a single light source. Artificially lit scenes, on the other hand, often have multiple light sources of similar intensity.

NoteIf you use standard instead of photometric lights, both kinds of scenes require multiple secondary light sources for effective illumination.

Whether a scene is indoors or outdoors can also affect your choice of material colors

Natural Light

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Outdoor scene with natural sunlight

At ground level, for practical purposes, sunlight has parallel rays coming from a single direction. The direction and angle vary depending on the time of day, the latitude, and the season.

In clear weather, the color of sunlight is a pale yellow: for example, RGB values of 250, 255, 175 (HSV 45, 80, 255). Cloudy weather can tint sunlight blue, shading into dark gray for stormy weather. Particles in the air can give sunlight an orange or brownish tint. At sunrise and sunset, the color can be more orange or red than yellow.

3ds Max provides several daylight systems to simulate the sun. A single daylight system is appropriate as the main light source for sunlit scenes.

When rendering with mental ray, you can gather skylight from a daylight system efficiently into an interior with the mr Sky Portal.

Shadows are more distinct the clearer the day is, and can be essential for bringing out the three-dimensionality of a naturally lit scene.

A directional light can also simulate moonlight, which is white but dim compared to the sun.

Artificial Light

Outdoor scene with natural twilight and one streetlight

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Artificial light, whether used indoors or outdoors at night, uses multiple lights. The following guidelines are for creating normally lit, easily legible scenes. You don’t have to follow the guidelines, of course, but then you call attention to the lighting itself, rather than to the subject of the scene.

The subject of a scene should be lit by a single bright light, known as the key light. Position the key light in front of the subject and slightly above.

In addition to the key light, position one or more other lights to illuminate the background and the side of the subject. These are known as fill lights. Fill lights are less bright than the key light.

When you use only one fill light, the angle at ground level between it, the subject, and the key light should be approximately 90 degrees.

Key-and-fill lighting emphasizes the subject of a scene. It also emphasizes the three-dimensionality of the scene.

In 3ds Max, a spotlight is usually best for the key light, and either spotlights or omni lights are good for creating the fill lighting.

You can also add lights to emphasize secondary subjects in a scene. In stage terminology, these lights are known as specials. Special lights are usually brighter than the fill light but less bright than the main key light.

To design using physically based energy values, distributions, and color temperature, you can create photometric lights.

Left: No ambient light

Middle: Default ambient light

Right: User-adjusted ambient light

Ambient light in 3ds Max simulates the general illumination from light reflecting off diffuse surfaces. Ambient settings determine the illumination level of surfaces in shadow, or those not receiving direct illumination from light sources. The Ambient level on the Environment dialog establishes the scene’s basic illumination level before any light sources are taken into account, and is the dimmest any portion of the scene can ever become.

Ambient light is most often used for exterior scenes, when the sky’s broad lighting produces an even distribution of reflected light to surfaces not in direct sun. A common technique for

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deepening the shadows is to tint the ambient light color to be the complement of the scene’s key light.

Unlike the outside, interior scenes typically have numerous lights, and a general ambient light level is not ideal for simulating the diffuse reflection of local light sources. For interiors, it’s common to set the scene’s environment ambient level to black, and use lights that effect ambient only to simulate the regional areas of diffuse reflection.

You set the scene’s ambient light using the Environment And Effects dialog Environment panel. You set a light to affect only ambient illumination with its Advanced Effects rollout Ambient Only checkbox.

Sun Study and Positioning Lights

Positioning Light Objects

Once you have placed lights in your scene, you can use transforms to change a light's position or orientation.

Transforming Lights

Use transforms on light objects as follows:

Move: Use Move to change the position of lights. You can also use it to change the position of light targets.

Rotate: Use Rotate to change the orientation of lights.

Note - You can't rotate a target light about its local X or Y axes. Instead, use Move to move the light or its target. Rotating the light about its local Z axis can be useful if the light uses a rectangular beam or projects a bitmap.

Rotating a plain omni light or a photometric light with spherical distribution has no effect, as these lights cast light uniformly in all directions. However, rotating an omni light or a spherical light with projection causes the projected image to rotate.

Scale: Scaling Point, Linear, or Area lights has no effect. Using Scale with spotlights and directional lights changes the size of their light beam and attenuation ranges. Scaling omni lights changes only the attenuation ranges. Scaling photometric lights changes their attenuation rate.

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Placing Highlights

You use Place Highlight to position a light to create a specular highlight at a designated point on an object. Place Highlight is one of the buttons on the Align flyout. Place Highlight moves or rotates the selected light object to aim it at a face on an object you pick. The light maintains its original distance from the face. Place Highlight works with any kind of selected object. You can also use Place Highlight with a selection set that contains more than one object. All objects maintain their initial distance from the face.

Types Of Lights

3ds Max has two types of light objects: photometric and standard. Photometric lights are lights that possess specific features to enable a more accurate definition of lighting, as you would see in the real world. Photometric lights have physically based intensity values that closely mimic the behavior of real light. Standard lights are extremely powerful and capable of realism, but they are more straightforward to use than photometric lights and less taxing on the system at render time. In this book, we will only discuss standard lights.

Light Workings - Omni Light

An Omni light casts rays in all directions from a single source. Omni lights are useful for adding "fill lighting" to your scene, or simulating point source lights.

Top: Top view of an omni light

Bottom: Perspective view of the same light

Omni lights can cast shadows and projections. A single shadow-casting omni light is the equivalent of six shadow-casting spotlights, pointing outward from the center.

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When you set a map projected by an Omni light to be projected using the Spherical, Cylindrical, or Shrink Wrap Environment coordinates, the map is projected in the same way as it would be mapped to the environment. When you use the Screen Environment coordinates or Explicit Map Channel Texture coordinates, six copies of the map are projected radially.

Procedures

To create an omni light:

1. On the Create panel, click (Lights). 2. Choose Standard from the drop-down list. 3. On the Object Type rollout, click Omni. 4. Click the viewport location where you want the light to be. If you drag the mouse, you

can move the light around before releasing the mouse to fix its position. The light is now part of the scene.

5. Set the creation parameters.

To adjust the light's effect, you can move it as you would any object.

Spot

Target Spotlight

A spotlight casts a focused beam of light like a flashlight, a follow spot in a theater, or a headlight. A target spotlight uses a target object to aim the camera.

Top: Top view of a target spotlight

Bottom: Perspective view of the same light

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Procedures

To create a target spotlight:

1. On the Create panel, click (Lights). 2. Choose Standard from the drop-down list. 3. On the Object Type rollout, click Target Spot. 4. Drag in a viewport. The initial point of the drag is the location of the spotlight, and the

point where you release the mouse is the location of the target.

The light is now part of the scene.

5. Set the creation parameters.

To adjust a target spotlight:

1. Select the light. 2. On the main toolbar, turn on (Select And Move), or right-click the light and from the

quad menu, choose Move. Move the light to adjust its aim.

Because the spotlight is always aimed at its target, you can't rotate it about its local X or Y axis. However, you can select and move the target object as well as the light itself. When you move either the light or the target, the light's orientation changes so it always points at the target.

To select the target:

The target, displayed as a small square, is often in the same area as objects that you want to illuminate. It can be difficult to select it by clicking.

1. Select the spotlight itself. 2. Right-click the light, and from the Tools 1 (upper-left) quadrant of the quad menu,

choose Select Target.

Clicking the line that connects the light and its target selects both objects. However, region selection doesn't recognize the link line.

Another way to adjust a spotlight is to use a Spotlight Parameters.

To change a viewport to a Light view:

1. Click or right-click the POV viewport label.

3ds Max opens the Point-Of- View viewport label menu..

2. Choose Lights.

The Lights submenu shows the name of each spotlight or directional light in the scene.

3. Choose the name of the light you want.

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The viewport now shows the light's point of view. You can use the Light viewport to adjust the light.

The default keyboard shortcut for switching to a Light viewport is $.

Directional

Target Directional Light

Directional lights cast parallel light rays in a single direction, as the sun does (for all practical purposes) at the surface of the earth. Directional lights are primarily used to simulate sunlight. You can adjust the color of the light and position and rotate the light in 3D space.

Top: Top view of a target directional light

Bottom: Perspective view of the same light

A target directional light uses a target object to aim the light.

Because directional rays are parallel, directional lights have a beam in the shape of a circular or rectangular prism instead of a "cone."

Procedures

To create a target direct light:

1. On the Create panel, click (Lights). 2. Choose Standard from the drop-down list. 3. On the Object Type rollout, click Target Direct.

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4. Drag in a viewport. The initial point of the drag is the location of the light, and the point where you release the mouse is the location of the target. The light is now part of the scene.

5. Set the creation parameters. To adjust the light's direction, move the target object.

To change a viewport to a Light view:

1. Click or right-click the POV viewport label.

3ds Max opens the Point-Of- View viewport label menu..

2. Choose Lights.

The Lights submenu shows the name of each spotlight or directional light in the scene.

3. Choose the name of the light you want.

The viewport now shows the light's point of view. You can use the Light Viewport Controls to adjust the light.

The default keyboard shortcut for switching to a Light viewport is $.

Interface

Clicking the line that connects the light and its target selects both objects. However, region selection doesn't recognize the link line.

When you rename a target directional light, the target is automatically renamed to match. For example, renaming Light01 to Sol causes Light01.Target to become Sol.Target. The target's name must have the extension .Target. Renaming the target object does not rename the light object.

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UNIT II

Light Parameters - Restricting Lights

Common Light Parameters

Most of the parameters for the Standard lights are the same for all the lights and will be described in this section. You may want to create a spot or directional light so you can follow along with the information about light parameters given here.

General Parameters Rollout

The General Parameters rollout for all the Standard lights (except for skylight) is shown in Figure. In the Light Type section, you can change the type of light that is currentlyselected. Simply choose the type (Spot, Directional, Omni) from the drop-down menu.3ds Max will replace the light with the new light type; it won’t change its position or orientation.

This can be immensely helpful when you are deciding which light will work bestfor a scene. Otherwise, you would have to delete and re-create lights to find the solutionthat best suited your scene best.

You can turn a Free Spot or Free Directional to a target of the same kind by simplychecking the Targeted check box. Of course, the On check box controls whether the lightis on or off in the scene.

In the Shadows section of the General Parameters rollout for these lights, you will findthe controls for the shadow casting properties of the selected light. Use the drop-downmenu to select the type of shadows to cast. The two most frequently used shadow types,Shadow Map and Ray Traced, are discussed later in the chapter.

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The Use Global Settings toggle can be very useful. When it is turned on, all of thelights in your scene will be set to use the same Shadow Parameters of the light you haveselected and for which you have enabled Use Global Settings. This is useful in the eventyou need the same type of shadows cast from all the lights in the scene. It can save youthe hassle of specifying the settings for all the lights. It does, however, limit you to thesame shadow settings for all the lights. While you are learning, you should leave UseGlobal Settings off and set each light manually as needed. Again, shadows are covered alittle later in this chapter.

Figure - The General Parameters rollout for all the Standard lights is the same.\

Intensity/Color/Attenuation Rollout

The Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout, shown in Figure , is used to adjust yourlight’s brightness and color settings.

Figure - The Intensity/ Color/Attenuation rollou

Light Intensity

The Multiplier parameter works like a dimmer switch for a light. The higher the value is,the brighter the light will be. The Multiplier can go into negative values. A negative amountwill subtract light from your scene, allowing you to create dark areas within lit areas or toremove excess light from a surface that has unwanted spill light.

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Light ColorThe Color Swatch next to the Multiplier is used to add color to your light. Simply click onthe color swatch to open the Color Selector. The darker the color, the darker the light.

Light DecayUnder the Decay section, you can set the way your light fades out across distance. This isnot the same as falloff with spots and directional lights, though. Falloff occurs on the sidesof a hotspot, whereas decay happens along the path of the light as it travels away from thelight. Figure 10.25 shows a light with no decay type set. Figure 10.26 shows the same lightwith its decay Type set to Inverse Decay. Figure shows the same light with decayType set to Inverse Square Decay. Notice the decay rate increases with each successivefigure.

If no decay is set for a light, its intensity remains at full strength from the light to infinity.An Inverse Decay diminishes the intensity of the illumination over distance traveledaccording to some brainy formula. An Inverse Square Decay more closely resembles the

Figure - A light with no decay illuminates all the numbers evenly.

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Figure - A light with Inverse Decay illuminates the back numbers less.

Decay of real world light, and it is a stronger rate of decay than Inverse Decay. Use this decay rate to drop off the effect of a light quickly before it reaches too far into the scene; however,you will need a stronger Multiplier value to increase your light’s intensity to compensate for the much faster decay.

In Figure, you can quickly see and set the start of a decay in spot and directionallights by changing the Start value in the Decay section of the rollout. In the followingimages, you can see a decay start that is closer to the light and its effect on the render inthe top-left corner, while the start of the decay is moved closer to the spheres in the imageon the right.

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Far and Near Attenuation

Light Attenuation

Light attenuation is another way to diminish the intensity of a light over distance. With attenuation, however, you have more implicit control on the start and end of the fade, and you can specify an area where the light fades in and then fades out. You simply set the Attenuation distances to the desired effect.

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Figure - A light with Inverse Square Decay illuminates the first two numbers and begins to lose the remaining three.

Figure - Seeing the start of a light’s decay helps you see how it will illuminate your scene.

Near Attenuation Group

The following values set the distances where the light fades into existence:

Start—The distance at which the light starts to fade in.

End—The distance at which the light reaches its full intensity.

Use—Toggles on/off the use of near attenuation for the light.

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Figure - Near attenuation fades in the light.

Figure - shows a render of near attenuation at work. The first numbers are darker,the back number are brighter.

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Figure - The spotlight displays the attenuation distances.

Figure shows a spotlight and the Attenuation displayin the viewport.

Far Attenuation Group

The following values set the distances where the illumination fades out of existence:

Start—The distance at which the illumination starts to fade away.

End—The distance at which the illumination has faded to nothing.

Use—Toggles on/off the use of far attenuation for the illumination.

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Figure - Far attenuation fades out the light.

Figure shows a render of the far attenuation on the same set of numbers, usingthe same light as before. Now the lights fade into darkness the farther back they are inthe scene, which is similar to decay.

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Figure - The spotlight displays the attenuation distances

Figure shows the far attenuation display for thespotlight.

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Figure shows the attenuation display for an Omni light in a viewport.You can always use both near and far attenuation to set a sliver of light in your scene, asshown in

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Figure. As you can see, attenuation is a more precise way to set a diminishinglight intensity over the Decay Type.

Both decay and attenuation are important to use when the light needs to be realistic. Light decays in real life; your renders will assume a higher fidelity when the lights in them decay. The effect may be subtle, but it can make a large difference.

Advanced Effects Rollout

The Advanced Effects rollout (shown in the following graphic) enables you to control howa light affects the surfaces it illuminates. You can increase or decrease the contrast andsoftness of a light’s effect on a surface. You can also dictate which lighting component ofthe light is rendered on the surface.

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Contrast and Soften

By adjusting the Contrast and Soften Diffuse Edges values, you can alter the way the lighthits your surface. The following image on the left was rendered with default Contrast andSoften Diffuse Edges values, and the image on the right was rendered with a Contrast of 25and a Soften Diffuse Edges value of 50. The image on the right has deeper contrast, butwith slightly softer values leading from the diffuse color.

Contrast—Changes the contrast level between the diffuse and ambient areas of thesurface when lit.

Soften Diffuse Edge—Controls the softness of the edge between the diffuse andambient areas of the lit surface.

Light Components

Light in a CG program is differentiated into an ambient, a diffuse, and a specularcomponent.The ambient component of light is the general ambient light in a scene. There is no directionto ambient light, and the light itself is cast evenly across the extent of the scene. Thediffuse component of light is the way it illuminates an object by spreading across its surface.The specular component of light is how the light creates highlights on a surface, especiallywhen that surface is glossy.

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In the Affect Surfaces section of the Advanced Effects rollout, you can toggle the checkboxes that will render only those components of the light on the surfaces they illuminate.This is a good way to separate your renders into lighting components that you can latercontrol in compositing, although it leads to a longer workflow.

Figure 10.35 is rendered with the diffuse component of the lights in the scene.

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Figure 10.36shows only the specular highlights rendered.

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Figure 10.37 shows only the ambient lightrendered on the objects.

Ambient Light

Ambient light in 3ds Max is not a light per se, but rather it is a global setting in the renderenvironment. Ambient light, in short, is an even light with no direction or source. It is away to globally brighten the entire scene to add an even light to all objects. Using toomuch ambient light will wash out your objects and give you flat renders.

Figure - The Environmentand Effects window

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To set an ambient light level in your scene, in the main Menu select Rendering

➔Environment to open the Environment and Effects window shown infigure .

To set an ambient light, click on the Ambient color swatch under the Global Lightingsection and pick an appropriate color. The brighter the color value, the brighter theambient light will be throughout the scene.

You can also create an ambient light in your scene by creating an Omni light and toggling on the Ambient Only check box under the light’s Advanced Effects Parameters rollout.

Creating Shadows

Don’t be too quick to smother your scene with light or too eager to show off your careful modeling work and textures. Leaving objects in shadow and darkness is as important as revealing them in light. You can say a lot visually by not showing parts of a whole and leaving some interpretation to the audience.

A careful balance of light and dark is important for a composition. The realism of a scene is greatly increased with the simple addition of well-placed shadows. Don’t be afraid of the dark. Use it liberally, but in balance.

You can create the following types of shadows in 3ds Max: Advanced Ray traced mental ray Shadow Map Area Shadow Shadow Map Raytraced Shadows

Each type of shadow has its benefits and its drawbacks. The two mostcommon types used are Shadow Maps and Raytraced Shadows. When you use shadows, controls in the Shadow Parameters rolloutand the shadow type-specific rollouts are available when you select theshadow type. Shadow Parameters Rollout

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The settings in the Shadow Parameters rollout govern the common parameters for all shadow types discussed here. In this rollout, you can adjust the color of your shadow as well as its density (i.e., how dark it appears). You should always check your light’s Multiplier values first to make sure your fill lightdoes not wash out your shadows before you adjust the shadow parameters themselves. Forinstance, the fill light(s) generally have a lower intensity than the key light(s).

Click on the Color swatch to pick a color for your shadows. More often than not, youwill have your shadow colors at black, if not close to black. You can also control the densityof the shadows by adjusting the Density value. As you can see in Figure, adjustingthe density changes how much of the shadow is rendered. A Density of 0 will turn offyour shadows in essence.

Figure - You can map a texture to the shadow.

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Interestingly enough, you can also apply a map to your shadow by checking the Mapbox and clicking on the button bar currently labeled None. From there, you can choose amap. In Figure, a checker map was mapped to the shadow. Selecting a Shadow Type For the most part, you will be more than happy with the results from a Shadow Mapshadow in your scenes. However, to get shadows to respond to transparencies, you willneed to use Ray Traced Shadows. Additionally, if you need to soften your shadows thefarther they are cast from the object, you will need to use Area Shadows. These shadowtypes are discussed next.

Shadow Maps Seeming to be the fastest way to cast a shadow, the Shadow Map shadow generates abitmap file during a pre-rendering pass of the scene. This map is used to place the shadowsin the final render. However, Shadow Map shadows do not show the color cast throughtransparent or translucent objects. Once you select Shadow Maps in the General Parametersrollout for a light, the rollout appears. It is shown here. Because this shadow type relies on maps, it is important to be able to control the resolutionof the generated maps. When you are close to a shadow, the resolution needs to behigher for the cast shadow than if it were farther from the camera in order to avoid jaggededges around the shadow. The following parameters are useful for Shadow Map creation:

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Bias—The shadow is moved, according to the value set, closer or farther away fromthe object casting the shadow. Figure shows how the bias moves the shadowaway the higher the value is set.

Size—Detailed shadows will need detailed Shadow Maps. Increase the Size value,and 3ds Max will increase the number of subdivisions for the map which in turnincreases the detail of the shadow cast.

Figure compares Shadow Map sizes of64 and 1024. Notice how the shadows on

the left (Size = 64) are mushy and barelynoticeable and the shadows on the right (Size = 1024) are crisp and clean. You don’twant to set your Shadow Map Size too high, though. It will increase render time forlittle to no effect. A range between 512 and 1024 is usually good for most cases.

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Sample Ran - This creates and controls the softness of the edge of shadow-mapped shadows. The higher the value, the softer the edges of the shadow. Figure shows you how a soft edge (on the left) can make the lighting seem less strong or farther away from the subject than crisp shadows (on the right). Ray Traced Shadows

Raytracing involves tracing a ray of light from every light source in all directions and tracingthe reflection to the camera lens. You can create more accurate shadows with raytracing.However, the render takes significantly longer to calculate. Additionally, Ray Traced shadowsare always hard edged, yet they are realistic for transparent and translucent objects. Figure - shows the still life render with a plane casting a shadow over the fruit. Theplane has a checker mapped to its opacity, so it has alternating transparent and opaquesquares defining the checkerboard.

On the left side of the image, the light is casting Shadow Map shadows, while on the right the light is casting Ray Traced Shadows.

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Use Ray Traced shadows when you need highly accurate shadows or when Shadow Mapresolutions are just not high enough to get you the crisp edges you need. You can also useRay Traced Shadows to cast shadows from wireframe rendered objects. The Ray Traced Shadow rollout, shown here, controls the shadow. The Ray Bias parameteris the same as the Shadow Map Bias in that it controls how far from the casting objectthe shadow is cast. Creating Soft Shadows Due to Distance The only way you will be able to create a natural shadow that softens the farther it gets from the casting object is to use Area Shadows. These types of shadows are natural. If younotice a telephone pole’s shadow, the farther the shadow is from the pole, the softer theshadow becomes. Adding such a shadow to a render can greatly increase the realism ofthe scene.To enable a soft shadow such as this, select Area Shadows as your shadow type. Bydefault, the Area Shadow will work for you. Figure shows a regular Ray Traced shadow. Figure shows an Area shadow at the default settings.

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Figure - A Ray Traced shadow is too hard-edged.

Figure - An Area shadow begins to soften at the ends. Go to the Area Shadows rollout shown here. To adjust the softness of the shadows, youwill not want to increase the Sample Spread because that parameter, just like the SampleRange of the Shadow Map shadow, softens the entire shadow. A true shadow is crisp whereit meets the casting object and softens as it casts away.

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To further soften the ends of the shadows, in the Area Light rollout, set the Length to80 and the Width to 60. This will increase the softness of the shadow in a realistic way,while keeping the contact shadow crisp. However, the render, shown here, does not lookvery good. The soft ends are very grainy.

You will need to increase the quality of the shadow, so set the Shadow Integrity to 6 and the Shadow Quality to 10. The render will take longer, but you will get a beautiful shadow, as shown in Figure .

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Atmospheres and Effects

Creating atmospheric effects with lights, such as fog or volume lights, is accomplished through the Atmospheres and Effects rollout, as shown here. Using this rollout, you can assign and manage atmosphere effects and other rendering effects that are associated with lights. In the following exercise, you will learn how to create a volumetric light (similar to a flashlight shining through fog). You will also learn how to exclude objects from a light, so that the light does not illuminate them. This is an

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important trick to know. Creating a Volumetric Light Let’s create a fog light using the following steps:

1. Open the Still Life Volume.max scene file in the Lighting Scenes folder on the

companionCD. Go to Create Panel ➔ Lights and click on the Target Direct Light. Move

your cursor to the Top viewport, click and drag from the top of the viewport down toward the still life. As seen here.

2. Now move to the Front viewport and move the light up along the Y-axis, and then move the target so it is centered to point the light directly at the fruit, as shown here.

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3. If you do a Quick Render, you will see that the scene is being lit from the direction of the light (Figure 10.48). Now you need some shadows in the scene.

Adding Shadows

4. In the General Parameters rollout for the light, go to the Shadows section and check the box to enable shadows. Select Shadow Map from the drop-down menu. This will turn on Shadow Maps shadows for this light.

5. Go to the Shadow Map Parameters rollout and set the size to 1024; this will add some sharpness to the shadow’s edge and make it more like a daylight shadow. If you do a Quick Render, you won’t see any shadows (as shown in the following graphic). This is because the window is blocking the light. The window glass object has a Material that has the Opacity turned down to 0; however, Shadow Map shadows don’t recognize transparency in materials. To solve this problem, you need to Exclude the Window Glass object from the Light.

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Excluding Object from a Light

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6. The Exclude button is in the General Parameters rollout for the light, just below

the Shadows. Click the Exclude button to bring up the Exclude/Include window shown in Figure .

7. Click on the Glass object and press the right arrows in the middle of the window to

add the Glass to the other side, excluding the object from receiving light and casting light. Click OK.

8. Quick Render your scene to take a look. Now you can see shadows. We didn’t

exclude the whole window with its frame because the inside frame is a nice detail to cast shadows. Figure shows the render with the shadows.

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Adding a Volumetric Effect

9. The whole point of this exercise is to add volume to the light. This will give this scene some much needed atmosphere. Go to the Atmosphere and Effects rollout for the light. Select Add from the rollout to open the Add Atmosphere or Effect window, which is shown here.

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10. In the window, select Volume Light and click OK to add the effect to the light. 11. Volume Light will be added to the rollout, as shown here. Render the scene. You

should see a render similar to.

To adjust the volume light, select the Volume Light entry in the rollout and click the Setup button. This will bring up the Environment and Effects dialog window. Scroll down to Volume Light Parameters section to access the settings for the volume light, seen in Figure. Experiment with different settings to see how the volume light renders.The settings are described next.

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Volume Light Parameters The default parameters for a Volume light will give you some nice volume in the light for most scenes, right off the bat. However, to tweak or change the volume settings to your liking, you will be editing these following parameters: Exponential—The density of the volume light will increase exponentially with distance. By default (Exponential is off), density will increase linearly with distance. You will want to enable Exponential only when you need to render transparent objects in volume fog.

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Density—This value sets the fog’s density. The denser the fog is, the more light will reflect off the fog inside the volume. The most realistic fogs can be rendered with about 2 to 6 percent Density value. Most of the parameters are for troubleshooting volume problems in your scene if it is not rendering very well. Sometimes you just don’t know what that problem is and you have to experiment with switches and buttons. The Noise settings are another cool feature to add some randomness to your volume: Noise On—This toggles the noise on and off. Render times will increase slightly with Noise enabled for the volume. Amount—This is the amount of noise that is applied to the fog. Of course a value of 0 creates no noise. If the Amount is set to 1, the fog renders with pure noise. Size, Uniformity, Phase—These settings determine the look of the noise,along with setting a Noise Type (Regular, Fractal, or Turbulence). Adding atmosphere to a scene can heighten the sense of realism and mood. Creating a little bit of a volume for some lights can go a long way to improving the look of your renders. However, adding volume to lights can slow your renders, so use it with care. Also be aware that adding too much volume to a scene may look peculiar, so use volumetric light sparingly andwith good reason—that is, if it is called for in the scene and adds ambience to the image. Light Lister If several lights are in your scene and you need to adjust all of them, selecting each light and making one adjustment at a time can become tedious. This is where 3ds Max’s Light Lister comes in way handy. Accessed through the main Menu Bar by choosing

Tools ➔ Light Lister, this floating palette gives you control over all of your scene lights,

as seen in

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You can choose to view/edit all the lights in your scene or just ones that are selected. Using this easy dialog window gives you instant access to pretty much all the importantlight parameters in one place. When you adjust the values for any parameter in the LightLister window, the changes are reflected in the appropriate place in the Modify panel forthat changed light. This is the perfect tool to edit your lights once you have them set upinitially.

Lighting Character Three-point lighting is a very common lighting technique used in cinematography and photography. Three-point lighting is a very flexible technique and it can be used to illuminate the subject in an attractive way. Three-point lighting consists of three separate lights which can be used to control the lighting, shading and shadows of the subject:

Key light Fill light Back light / Rim light

Key light is the main light source, it illuminates the subject the most and it defines the overall lighting design of the scene. Key light casts the strongest shadows to the subject. Fill light is less bright than key light and is used to illuminate the parts of the subject that cannot be reached by key light. Fill light is also used to soften the shadows of key light and to decrease the contrast of the subject's surface. Back light is used to illuminate the edge of the subject from behind in order to separate the subject from its background. Back light can be very bright. Even if it's bright is doesn't

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compete with key light because it highlights only the edges of the subject. Back light is also known as rim light because it gives the subject a rim of light. The idea of three-point lighting works also in 3D graphics but the practice has some differences compared to real cinematography.

Picture 2 is rendered with 3D Studio MAX's default lighting. In other words, it has been rendered before any light has been created. The default lighting of 3DS MAX works well while modelling the subject but is not a good solution in the rendering of the final image. There are at least two apparent problems in picture 2. Firstly, there are no shadows. And secondly, as you can see the left side of the face is left in darkness and merges with the background. Let's illuminate the face with three-point lighting setup in 3DS MAX. Key Light

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Key light represents the main light source. In real life the main light source usually shines from above, so let's place the key light above the face. Create a Target Directional light, place it according to picture 3 and give the following parameters to it:

General Parameters: Shadows: On

Intensity/Color/Attenuation: Multiplier: 0.8

Directional Parameters: Hotspot/Beam: 0,5 Falloff/Field: 0,51

Shadow Map Params: Bias: 0.0 Size: 2048 Sample Range: 4.0

(The settings above are used with a real size person. If your model is of different size you must change Hotspot/Beam and Falloff/Field accordingly. With this setup the shadows are pretty sharp. Feel free to soften the shadows by increasing Sample Range.) Render a test image. The lighting should be similar to picture 4.

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Fill Light

Create an Omni light according to picture 5 and give the following parameters to it:

Intensity/Color/Attenuation: Multiplier: 0.25

Advanced Effects: Specular: Off

(The intensity of fill light is always much less than the intensity of key light. It's often a good idea to turn Specular off in fill light so that it affects the diffuse characteristic of the surface only.)

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Picture 6 shows the face rendered with fill light only. You can try that by turning off the key light. It's often a good idea to test lights one at a time. When multiple lights are turned on it's not always easy to figure out how individual lights affect the illumination. In real life fill lights are sometimes replaced by reflectors which reflect the light of key light. In 3D Studio MAX you can create the same effect by using a lighting technique called global illumination which creates indirect light by tracing light as it bounces from surfaces. Back Light / Rim Light Back light is needed when the contrast between the subject and the background is not enough. In real life the effect of back light is much stronger because of hair, clothes and other fuzzy surfaces. In 3D graphics surfaces are usually perfectly smooth and there are no little particles to pick up the light. Therefore, there is often a need to create several back lights in 3D graphics.

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Create an Omni light according to picture 7 and give the following parameters to it:

Intensity/Color/Attenuation: Multiplier: 1.0

Advanced Effects: Specular: Off

(It's often a good idea to turn Specular off in back light so that it affects the diffuse characteristic of the surface only.)

Picture 8 shows the face rendered with back light only. Back light can be bright because it illuminates the edge of the subject only.

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Three-point Lighting Rendering

Picture 9 shows the final rendering with three-point lighting setup in 3D Studio MAX. Compare this picture to the picture rendered with the default lighting of 3DS MAX to understand the differences between them.

Lighting Sets Step 1. Setup First make sure that you have your units set to real world metric units. Customize->Unit Setup->Metric (Meters). Change renderer for production to mental ray. Rendering->Render Setup->Common->Assign Renderer. Step 3. Geometry Now we need to create a room. floor Click on Snaps Toggle button to turn it on, then right click and select only Grid Points.

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Choose Top View (T) and create a plane 6×8 m. Click one more time on Snaps Toggle to turn it off. wall Choose Snaps Toggle. This time select Vertex only. In create tab, from dropdown menu change Standard Primitives to AEC Extended. Select Top View, choose Wall and click on every corner vertex. Click on the first point one more time. When a message will appear, click OK and then right click to finish adding wall. Disable Snaps Toggle.

Set height to 2,4 m and width to 0,3 m. Select the plane. Shift-move floor upward and make a copy. This will be our ceiling. Because we are inside the room we need to rotate ceiling by 180 degrees to have normals pointing the right direction. To to this select Angle Snap Toggle and set angle to 90. windows From dropdown list change AEC Extended to Windows. Choose Snaps Toggle and select Edge/Segment only. Go to Perspective View, press F3 to choose wireframe mode. Select Casement Window. Click on the bottom of outer wall edge, while holding a mouse button move your cursor along this edge, next release a button and click on the inner bottom edge of the wall. Move cursor up and click to finish creating a window.

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Don’t worry that your window doesn’t have right proportions. We can fix it now. Go to the Modify Panel and set Height to 1,6 m, Width to 1,8 m and Depth to 0,2 m. In the Frame Tab choose Horizontal and Vertical Width to 0,1 m and Thickness to 0,05 m.

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Change glazing thickness to 0,005 m. Leave Panel Width to 0,1 m. In Casements change Panel Width to 0,1. Select two casements. Position the window on the right height. Hold Shift and drag the window as shown on the image below. When message appears, create a copy.

Select both windows and Shift move them toward opposite wall. Choose Angle Snap Toogle. Rotate two new windows by 180 degrees.

Go to the modify panel. You have there an option, where you can determine how wide windows will be open. Set two of them to 100% and you can see that there is a hole inside. First convert a wall and then windows to editable poly. If you do this in different order, the hole inside will collapse.

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Step 4. Camera Choose top view and then insert a target camera.

Choose left view (L) and move the camera a bit higher. Change position of the camera that you can see the whole room

In Modify panel change lens to 12. You can change view to camera view by pressing (C). Step 5. Daylight

Choose Top View (T). Select Create->Systems. Click on a Daylight button Then a message pop up – click YES.

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Click and drag at the center of the room and create a compass.

Release mouse button and then click one more time to set the height of the sun. Don’t worry we will correct it later. Press (H). Choose Daylight object. Go to Modify Panel and change: - Daylight Parameters: Set Sunlight to mr Sun and Skylight to mr Sky. A message will pop up – click YES.

- Position: change to manual and move Daylight Sun that rays are pointing to direction of windows.

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- mr Sun Basic Parameters: Multiplier to 10. - Softness samples 32. Step. 6. Sky Portals To create more brighter room we need to create sky portals. One for each window. A portal have to be a bit larger than a window. Go to Left view (L), select wireframe(F3) and create first one (Create->Lights->Photometric->mr Sky Portals). Shift move it to another window and make an instance. Select Top View (T) and move them behind windows.

Select both portals and shift drag them to opposite wall behind next two windows.

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Choose two sky portals you’ve just created. Go to mirror and select Y Mirror Axis.

Set multiplier to 10. Change shadow samples to 64.

Step 7. Materials Let’s open Material Editor and create four materials: Floor Create first material. Click Standard button and choose Arch and Design (mi). From templates select Satin Varnished Wood. Change glossiness to 0,8 and glossy samples to

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32. Set reflectivity to 1. Click on the M Button next to color and change U and V tiling to 10. Apply the material to the object. Window frame Create a new material. It will be ProMaterials: Plastic/Vinyl. Change surface finish to glossy and color to white. In performance Tuning Parameters change Reflection Glossy Samples to 32. Apply this material. Glass Create a new material called ProMaterials: Glazing. Click on the first window, choose element selection. Select top and bottom glass and apply the material. Do this to three other objects. Wall and ceiling Create a new material called ProMaterials: Wall Paint. Change RGB color to (R:0,9 G:0,9 B:0,5). Apply this material to wall and ceiling. Step 2. Final Gather Press F10 to open Render Setup. Go to indirect illumination and enable final gather. Change FG Precision Presets to medium and Diffuse Bounces to 5. Step 8. Ambient Occlusion To apply Ambient Occlusion select each material and in every one of them, except glazing go to special effect and enable Ambient Occlusion.

Lighting Environments 1. Let’s start by taking a look at our scene. Open the Ship Cabin_Part1_Starting.maxscene (download can be found at the end of this tutorial; click on the Free Resources logo).

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2. Examining the 3D scene, we can see that there are three main light sources; the large opening in the ceiling, the small circular window, and the rectangular window on the back wall. We won’t consider the artificial lights in the scene for this part, as this will be covered in following parts of the tutorial.

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3. We will use the Mental Ray renderer for our scene, so let’s start by activating it before we get to work on the lighting in our scene. Open the Rendering panel (use the F10 short-cut key), scroll down into the Common tab, and click on the button with the three dots in the Assign Renderer roll-out menu. A browser window will open; select Mental Ray Renderer and click the OK button .

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4. Since we’ll be doing a lot of rendering tests in this project, we can’t wait too long for each render. We therefore need faster feedback to make any adjustments and changes. So let’s set the rendering size to 320 x 240 - this way it will render faster. We’ll increase the resolution only for the final renders. Open the Rendering panel again and set the Output Size to 320 x240 (Fig04).

5. If we render the scene now, we’ll see just the default lighting since there are currently no lightsin the scene (Fig05).

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6. Create a Target Direct light and position it asshown in Fig06.

7. Enable Shadows and set its type to RayTraced Shadows. Set the light Multiplier to 2and change the colour to something like R=255,G=246, B=218. You will also need to copy the parameters for Hotspot and Falloff from those detailed in Fig07.

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8. Render the scene again (Fig08). Now we can see our main light source (the Sun) coming from above and casting shadows into the ship’s cabin. The scene is almost totally black, so we need to create at least one other light source coming in from the two windows on the back wall.

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9. Create an Omni light and position it as shown in Fig09, right between the two windows. Make sure that the light is inside the cabin, as we need it to light that area slightly. Set the Multiplier to a low value, like 0.15, and its colour to R=255, G=242, R=208. Make it cast Ray Traced shadows and enable the Use and Show options for the Far Attenuation. Also, set the Start to 1,92 and the End to 9,44.

10. Render the scene again (Fig10). Now there is much more light, especially at the back of the cabin, but the scene is still way too dark .We need some bounces of light over the entire scene.

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11. Create a sphere that surrounds the whole scene (Fig11).

12. Make the sphere an Editable Poly object, and then select the lower half’s polygons and delete them (Fig.12).

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13. Select all of the polygons (Ctrl + A) and flip them using the Flip command in the Command Panel (Fig13). We’ll assign a self-illuminated material to the sphere, so we need its polygon to point inwards.

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14. Open the Material Editor and create a new Standard material. Name it ―Dome‖ and change its Diffuse colour to something like R=255,G=245, B=203 (Fig14). Also, set its Self-Illumination value to 100 (Fig14).

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15. Open the Rendering panel and switch to the Indirect Illumination tab and enable Final Gather. Set the Preset to Draft and render the scene. This time the render will take a little longer, since we enabled the Final Gather feature of Mental Ray. This option takes care of the secondary bounces of light, or indirect illumination. We have some more bounces of light in the scene, but it’s still too dark (Fig15).

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16. Set the Final Gather Multiplier to 3 and render again. Now we have some more light,but we need to tweak the FG parameters a little(Fig16).

17. Set the Diffuse Bounces to 10 and render again. Now there’s a fair amount of light in the cabin, and we start to see objects that were much too dark before, like the seat on the left(Fig17).

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18. Set the Diffuse Bounces to 20 and increase the Direct Target light’s Multiplier to 4. Render the scene again (Fig18).

19. Since we increased the light’s Multiplier, It is now ―over-burning‖ the areas where it directly hits the surfaces. So let’s change the light’s colour to something warmer and more saturated, like R=255, G=231, B=159. Also, make sure that H=32, S=96, and V=255. Render the scene again. Now it looks better (Fig19).

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20. To add another little bit of light, we can add some value to the Ambient light. Open the Rendering/Environment tab and set the Ambient value to a very dark colour, as shown in Fig20.The brighter this value, the more over-exposed the rendering will be, so do not exaggerate the effect.

21. Now we can start making some test renderswith a higher resolution. Set it back to 640 x 480and render the scene (Fig20).

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22. Since we are getting close to our final render, we now need to increase the level of detail and quality. Let’s start from the Anti-Aliasing filter. Open the Rendering panel and go to the Renderer tab. Set the Filter to Mitchell and the Min/Max to 16/64. Also, lower the Threshold values as shown in Fig.22. This time it will take a little longer to render the scene, but you will see a lot of details that were lacking in previous renders.

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23. Now let’s raise the quality of the Final Gather. Set the Preset to High and render again.It will take even longer to render than before, but the final image will be much better in terms of its quality and detail (Fig23).

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24. Now that we have a pretty good lighting setup for our scene, we can start to tweak the final render with 2D software, like Photoshop.Open the rendered image in Photoshop,duplicate the original layer and Desaturate it, as shown in Fig24.

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25. Adjust the Levels until you get something similar to Fig25. We just need to extract the areas of the image with more light.

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26. Change the Blending mode for the top layer to Screen and apply a fair amount of Gaussian Blur (Fig26).

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27. Set the top layer’s opacity to a lower value,and change the Hue & Saturation to something warmer (Fig27).

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28. Go back to 3DS Max now and reset the Renderer to the Default Scan line. Create a new Standard material in the Material Editor and set its Diffuse colour to pure black. Assign this material to every object in the scene. Select the main Spot light, go to the Environment menu and add a Volume effect. Pick the Spot light and render the scene. You should get something similar to Fig28.

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29. Import this new render into Photoshop and put it right between the top and bottom layer. Also, set its Blending mode to Soft Light and its Opacity to 69 (Fig29).

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30. If you want, you can improve the exposure of the picture with the Exposure tool in Photoshop.

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UNIT III

Light And Textures - Light Utilities

1. Place skylight anywhere.

Set the sky color to white.

Turn on "Cast Shadows" (optional).

2. Render menu > Render

Advance Lighting tab

Advanced Lighting rollout, set to Radiosity

Radiosity Processing Parameters Rollout:

o Initial quality = 95

o Refine Iterations (All Objects) = 1

o Indirect Light Filter = 1

Rendering Parameters:

o Re-Use Direct Illumination from Radiosity Solution

Radiosity Processing Parameters:

o Start

3. Select all the geometry.

4. Command Panel > Utility Tab > More...

Assign Vertex Colors

Vertex Illum

Lighting Only

Color by Vertex

Radiosity > Reuse Direct Illum. From Solution

Assign to Selected

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Light Projections

General Parameters

The General Parameters rollout is displayed for all types of lights. These controls turn a light on and off, and exclude or include objects in the scene. On the Modify panel, the General Parameters rollout also lets you control the light’s target object and change the light from one type to another.

The General Parameters rollout also includes some settings for shadows. Shadows can be easily turned on or off. In this rollout, you can defer to the global settings by selecting the Use Global Settings option. This option helps to maintain consistent settings across several lights. It applies the same settings to all lights, so that changing the value for one light changes that same value for all lights that have this option selected.

Figure 7-7: General Parameters rollout

You can also select from a drop-down list whether the shadows are created using Area Shadows, a Shadow Map, regular or advanced raytraced shadows, or a mental ray shadow map. A new rollout appears depending on the selection that you make.

Exclude button excludes selected objects from the effects of the light. Click this button to display the Exclude/Include dialog. Excluded objects still appear lit in shaded viewports. Exclusion takes effect only when you render the scene.

Intensity/Color/Attenuation Rollout

Multiplier value controls the light intensity. A light with a Multiplier set to 2 is twice as bright as a light with its Multiplier set to 1. Higher Multiplier values make a light appear white regardless of the light color. The Multiplier value can also be negative. To the right of the Multiplier value is a color swatch.

Clicking the color swatch opens a color selector where you can choose a new light color.

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Attenuation is the effect of light diminishing over distance. In 3ds max, you can set attenuation values explicitly. The effects can vary from real-world lights, giving you more direct control over how lights fade in or fade out.

Shadow Parameters

All light types have a Shadow Parameters rollout except Skylight and IES Sky. It lets you set shadow colors and other general shadow properties. This rollout can be used to select a shadow color by clicking the color swatch. The default color is black. The Dens setting stands for ―Density‖ and controls how dark the shadow appears. Lower values produce light shadows, and higher values produce darker shadows. This value can also be negative.

Figure 7-9: Shadow Parameters rollout

The Map option, like the Projection Map, can be used to project a map along with the shadow color. The Light Affects Shadow Color option alters the Shadow Color by blending it with the light color if selected.

In the Atmosphere Shadows section, the On button lets you determine whether atmospheric effects, such as fog, can cast shadows. You can also control the Opacity and the degree to which atmospheric colors blend with the Shadow Color.

Spotlight or Directional Parameters

The parameters rollout for spotlights and directional lights are identical. The same tools for spotlights and directional lights behave slightly differently, as outlined below.

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Figure 7-10: Spotlight Parameters & Directional Parameters

Light Con

This area describes all the adjustable parameters of the light ―cone,‖ which is in fact not always cone-shaped. A spotlight’s illumination shape does look like a cone, but a directional light’s light ―cone‖ is cylinder shaped.

Show Cone

Checking the Show Cone check box will allow you to see the light cone even if the light is not selected.

Overshoot

The Overshoot check box allows the directional light or spotlight to illuminate areas outside the light cone. This is helpful in a number of ways. For example, if you have a large outdoor scene, you will have to scale your directional light up to encompass the entire scene. Make a mistake and you’ll see the cone edge in your render. But if you select Overshoot, there will be no cone edge and the entire world will be illuminated by the directional light. In this way, a directional light is made to behave a little like the sun. For spotlights, sometimes you have your spotlight in the perfect position, but you just catch the edge of the beam in frame. Instead of having to reposition your light, just check Overshoot.

Hotspot/Beam

Most normal lights have a hotspot somewhere near the center of their light beam. This is usually because directed light, like that from a stage spotlight, uses imperfect optics, and either the reflective mirror behind the lamp or the lenses are causing imperfect light focus to concentrate some light in one area and less in another.

Falloff/Field

Falloff/Field is the area of illumination falling outside of the hotspot and going as far as the edge of illumination. Using combinations of Hotspot/Beam and Falloff/Field, you can create very hard-edged theatrical spotlights, very soft-edged light, or anything in between.

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Circle/Rectangle

You can easily switch your beam shape from a cone to a rectangle with the Circle and Rectangle buttons.

Aspect

The Aspect numeric input and spinner controls how rectangular in shape a Rectangle beam is. For example, if you enter an aspect of 1.0, the light beam will be perfectly square. If you enter an aspect of 2.0, the beam will be twice as wide as it is high, and so forth.

Bitmap Fit

If you choose a rectangular beam, you can automatically set the aspect with the Bitmap Fit button. Selecting this button brings up a file dialog. When you select a valid image file, the light’s aspect will automatically be adjusted to match that of the selected image.

Advanced Effects

Options in the Affect Surface section of the Advanced Effects rollout control how light interacts with an object’s surface. The Contrast value alters the contrast between the diffuse and the ambient surface areas. The Soften Diffuse Edge value blurs the edges between the diffuse and ambient areas of a surface. The Diffuse and Specular options let you disable these properties of an object’s surface. When the Ambient Only option is turned on, the light affects only the ambient properties of the surface.

Figure 7-11: Advanced Effects rollout

You can use any light as a projector; you find this option in the Advance Effects rollouts. Selecting the Map option enables you to use the light as a projector. You can select a map to project by clicking the button to the right of the map option. You can drag a material map directly from the Material/Map Browser onto the Projector Map button

To start, make sure you are working in a metric unit with realistic proportions. First I've used a daylight system (Fig.01).

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Change the setting of the sunlight and skylight to mr Sun and mr Sky. For the fast calculation of global illumination, let's activate mr Sun Photons (Fig.02).

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Now let's take a look at some materials. Actually, I prefer to render some objects with ambient occlusion in Max before doing an occlusion pass. For that, the arch+design materials have a section called Special Effects where we can activate Ambient Occlusion (Fig.03).

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For the wall I've used a little bit of noise in a Bump map (Fig.04), and for the glass I've used a different kind of materiel called ProMaterials, with personal settings (Fig.05).

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Let's take a look at the Exposure Control (8 – keyboard shortcut key). You can see the settings I'm using in Fig.06.

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For the indirect illumination, Final Gather and little bit of Global Illumination work well. I don't use diffuse bounces (Fig.07).

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I use some passes in Render Elements for compositing in Photoshop and this is the cool stuff

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(Fig.08).

Here is the render (Fig.09).

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Fig.10 shows the settings for the ambient occlusion.

In Photoshop, we can do some color correction and contrast (Fig.11).

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And this is my final render (Fig.12).

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Place a Sunlight System in the scene and configure

Open max file

In the Top viewport zoom out so that the site is in the centre of the viewport and occupies about one quarter the space available

Create Panel > Systems press Sunlight - the cursor turns into a small cross

In the top viewport left click and drag at the centre of the site to create a Compass helper object just big enough so that it can be seen easily

Take the left finger off the left mouse button and drag the mouse down. This will extend a Sunlight object away from the site into the sky. Drag the Sunlight so that it just disappears from the viewport

NOTE: Notice that in the User viewport the scene is 'bleached'. This is an unfortunate effect of the Daylight System so the Scene's default lighting needs to be used to view the scene comfortably in the viewport. To see the effects of changes in sunlight parameters test render the scene at each stage

Viewport Configuration dialog >Uncheck Default Lighting if this is checked. This will display the basic effects of the sunlight in the viewport

To optimise the sunlight for rendering quickly change the parameters of the Sunlight in the Modify Panel thus:

General Parameters rollout > Shadows - Set this to Shadow Map

NOTE: The Ray Traced Shadows option calculates accurate and fine shadows. However, for infrastructure and landscape work where the scene 'load' can be great this type of shadow can have major effect on rendering times. This exercise shows you how to configure Shadow Mapped Shadows to reproduce the effect of ray traced shadows. Efficiency in rendering time is therefore greatly increased

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Directional Parameters rollout > Light Cone> make sure Show Cone is checked and Overshoot is unchecked

Move the Hot Spot spinner up until the Sunlight cone just surrounds the site to be illuminated. If this goes to far from the edges of the site the shadows will become less sharp. Adjust the Falloff similarly, but this time move it down to decrease the size of the Hot Spot. Try to keep the Falloff size as close to the Hotspot size as possible (there is always a small discrepancy)

Left click to finish the Sunlight creation

Throughout the next steps test render the scene at each stage

Set location and time

Sunlight Parameters rollout > Setup

Control Parameters >Set the time to 11.00 am, the month to 8 and the day to 20

Press Get Location and in the Map dropdown list pick Europe. In the City list pick a City (Birmingham UK for example). The Sunlight will then be positioned in the sky as it would be in Birmingham on August 20th at 11.00am

Logarithmic Exposure Control

Environment dialog > Exposure Control rollout> set this to None if Logrithmic Exposure Control is selected

NOTE: MAX and VIZ are different in the exposure control settings in that VIZ defaults to Logrithmic exposure control On but MAX defaults to None. Turn this off for now and use it later if required

Sunlight settings

Shadow Parameters rollout >Click the colour swatch next to Color and change the colour to very dark grey instead of black

Change the Density to 0.8

Shadow Map Parameters rollout > Bias - Set to 0 - this changes how far the base of a shadow is from the object

Density - keep on 1

Size - Set to 3000 - this is the size of pixels of the shadow 'map' (or image) used for the shadows. On a large site the size should go up accordingly (not above about 5000) and a smaller site down to 512. Decreasing the Map Size and increasing the Sample Range and / or Fall Off (Directional parameters rollout) will make shadows less sharp:

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Sample Range - Keep at 4. However, to make shadows sharper decrease the amout to 2 or 3. To make them less sharp increase to 5 or 6

2-Sided Shadows– uncheck

Provide Ambient Lighting

If just a Sunlight System is used (ie one light), then the sides of objects that are not in sunlight will appear very dark or black and shaded areas will appear too dark next to lighter areas. This is a totally unnatural situation. In the real world light is reflected from surface to surface giving shaded areas an element of light and more subtle shade. This type of lighting is called 'ambient' light. To recreate ambient light in a scene a Skylight light object can be used with the shadow settings turned off and further tweeks made through the Environment dialog settings

NOTE: In MAX rendering with light tracing is often used to give very good global illumination (not covered in Key Fundamentals)

Create Panel > Lights > Skylight > In the Top viewport left click at the centre of the scene to position a Skylight object

Change the Multiplier to 0.3 and Rays per Sample to 5 (this reduces rendering time)

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Finally, visit the Environment dialog settings to further configure ambient light level and colour

Environment Dialog settings

Render > Environment dialog > Background. Change the background colour to light blue by clicking the colour swatch

Global lighting >Set the Level spinner to 1.1. This further adds to the ambient lighting effect

Ambient Light> set the colour to mid grey

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TIP: This exercise does not explain the Exposure Control settings (there are enough to think about initially). However, if you do want to experiment choose Logarithmic Exposure Control in the dropdown list. Experiment with mainly Brightness, Contrast and Physical Scale, producing test renderings to evaluate results. To start with lower the brightness to about 10

NOTE: Key Fundamentals does not cover Atmospheric Effects such as Fog, Volume Fog and Volume Light. Reference MAX / VIZ Help for in-depth information on how to setup these effects

Fine-tune shadow settings

On the Sunlight parameters:

Colour: darker >Density: 1 >Size 4000 >Sample Range: 2

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Colour: lighter >Density: 0.8 >Size: 1000 >Sample Range: 6

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To animate the Sunlight through the day

In the Control Parameters set the time to 6.00am

Make sure the time slider is set to 0 then press the Auto Key button on the Animation Controls. Move the time slider to the end (this defaults to 100) then in the Motion Panel set the time to 8.00pm

Turn off the Auto Key button and move the time slider back to 0. Notice that the sunlight moves across the sky. The time and Sunlight position can now be quickly set at any time during the scene creation

NOTE: When a scene is first opened the time slider is set to 0. The scene will appear dark until the Sunlight is animated back to the required time of day using the time slider. In general, animate the Sunlight for quick shadow studies, then remove the animation by right clicking on any key (below the Time Slider) and selecting Delete Key > All

Step 1

In this tutorial, we’ll be using real units, so the first thing would be to open the menu ―Customize > Units Setup > US‖ and choose ―Standard > Feet w/Decimal Inches‖ as the unit.

Step 2

When you are trying to get a photorealistic quality it is very important to make sure that your object scale is accurate. This will play an important role in achieving a good render. Also, as you can see the scene is quite simple… just a small lobby (mostly modeled with boxes). Note: It is important that it is a closed room, and there are no openings for the light from environment to enter.

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Step 3

Press f10, and from the ―assign renderer‖ tab choose ―Vray‖. This will enable ―Vray‖ as your renderer, and also enable Vray materials in your material editor.

Step 4

Assign a simple Vray material to all the objects in the scene, and set up basic scene lighting and render settings. This is to finalize the lighting and render settings and save time, since a plain material renders much faster than reflective and glossy materials which will be added later.

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Step 5

Now to work on the lighting and render settings to achieve the final result.

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Step 6

Add a Vray physical camera to the scene by going to ―Create Tab > Camera > Vray > Physical Camera‖.

Step 7

The settings for a physical camera are:

Type – Determines the type of the camera. Set it to ―Still‖.

Film Gate – Specifies the horizontal size of the film gate in millimeters. Set it according to your scene.

Focal Length – Specifies the equivalent focal length of the camera lens.

f-number – The width of the camera aperture and (indirectly) exposure. If the Exposure option is checked, changing the f-number will affect the image brightness.

Vignetting – When this option is on, the optical vignetting effect of a real-world cameras is simulated.

White Balance – Allows additional modification of the image output according to the color or preset chosen.

Shutter Speed – The shutter speed (in inverse seconds) for the still photographic camera. For example, a shutter speed of 1/50 s corresponds to a value of 50 for this parameter.

Film Speed (ISO) – Determines the film power (sensitivity). Smaller values make the image darker, while larger values make it brighter.

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Applying Lights In Side Wall Corners

Step 8

Now to place the various Vray lights. Lights 1-4 affect the scene directly, whereas light 5 has been placed in a downward direction, and will affect the scene in an indirect (in the form of bounced light).

Step 9

The basic parameters of the Vray lights are:

Color – The color of the light.

Multiplier – The multiplier for the light color. This is also the light intensity determined by the Intensity units parameter.

Invisible – This setting controls whether the shape of the VRay light source is visible in the render result. When this option is turned off the source is rendered in the current light color. Otherwise it is not visible in the scene.

Subdivs - Defines the samples, or the quality of the light. 8-10 should be used for test renders, and 15-20 for final renders. Increasing the samples will significantly increase your render time.

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Step 10

IES stands for ―Illuminating Engineering Society‖. The photometric data is stored in these files. A photometric web is a 3D representation of the light intensity distribution of a light source. Web definitions are stored in files. Many lighting manufacturers provide web files that model their products, and these are often available on the Internet. We as artists can use them to replicate the real life phenomena of light in 3d.

Go to the ―Lights‖ tab, choose ―Vray‖ from the drop down list, and create a ―Vray ies‖ in the right view. Then instance it below all four steel holders.

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Step 11

The main settings for the ies lights are:

Browse Button - Click it and browse for the ies file that you want to use.

Color Mode – If you choose this option, you can change and affect the light intensity through the color picker.

Temperature Mode – Allows you to accurately change the light intensity through the color temperature.

Power - Determines how bright the light will be.

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Step 12

Through the following steps, you will configure the rendering settings in Vray. Press F10, then under ―Global Switches‖, uncheck ―Default Lights‖. This will cause the default lights in the scene to be switched off. For the Image Sampler type select ―Adaptive DMC‖, and ―Catmull Rom‖ as the filter. Also, change the min and max subdivs as shown.

Lastly, change the ―Color Mapping‖ type to ―Exponential‖. This mode will saturate the colors based on their brightness, and therefore, will not clip bright colors, but saturate them instead. This can be useful to prevent Burn-outs in the very bright areas (for example around light sources etc).

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Step 13

Under the ―Indirect Illumination‖ select ―Irradiance Map‖ and use ―Light Cache‖ as the primary and secondary engine. Also, change the Preset to ―High‖, ―hsph subdivs‖ to 50, and ―interp samples‖ to 20.

Irradiance Map – Computes the indirect illumination only at some points in the scene, and interpolates for the rest of the points. The Irradiance Map is very fast compared to direct computation, especially for scenes with large flat areas.

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Current Preset – Allows you to choose from several presets for some of the irradiance map parameters.

Hemispheric Subdivs (HSph. subdivs) – Controls the quality of individual GI samples. Smaller values makes things faster, but may produce blotchy results. Higher values produce smoother images.

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Step 14

With a Light Cache, the light map is built by tracing many eye paths from the camera. Each of the bounces in the path stores the illumination from the rest of the path into a 3d structure (very similar to the photon map). In the Light Cache put 1500 for subdivs and 8 for no of passes.

The Subdivs determines how many paths are traced from the camera. The actual number of paths is the square of the subdivs (the default 1000 subdivs mean that 1 000 000 paths will be traced from the camera).

Step 15

Your settings for the test render are done. If you hit render now, you should see the same image that was shown before. Now all you need to do is apply the materials, and increase the Irradiance Map and Light Cache samples for the final render.

Step 15

Your settings for the test render are done. If you hit render now, you should see the same image that was shown before. Now all you need to do is apply the materials, and increase the Irradiance Map and Light Cache samples for the final render.

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Step 17

The wood rack is also made of a Vray material with slight reflections and glossiness.

Step 18

The material for the wall is again just simple cream and black colors with no reflections.

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Step 19

The shader on the wall on which the paintings are hanging is made of steel and white wall. The wall part also has a grainy texture assigned to it.

Step 20

Your scene is now textured! You can add any other props or objects you like to fill up the scene. The above rendering settings are good for test renders, but for production quality

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you will need to increase the samples for the image sampler, Light Cache, and Irradiance map.

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Getting Preview

Step 21

Here is the final result! Hope you learned something new!!.

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UNIT IV

Render Setting

The Common Parameters rollout sets parameters common to all renderers.

Procedures

To set the size of the image, do one of the following:

1. In the Output Size group, click one of the preset resolution buttons. 2. In the Output Size group, choose one of the pre-formatted film or video formats from

the drop-down list. 3. In the Output Size group, choose Custom from the drop-down list, and then adjust

the Width, Height, and Aspect Ratio values manually.

Tip - Smaller images render much more quickly. For example, you can use 320 x 240 to render draft images, then change to a larger size for your final work.

To save the rendered still image in a file:

1. In the Render Output group, click Files. 2. In the file dialog, specify a name and a type for the image file, and then click OK.

The Save File toggle turns on.

You can later turn off Save File if you want only to view the rendering on screen.

Note - The file dialog has a Setup button. This displays a subdialog that lets you choose options specific to the file type you are saving to.

To alter the pixel aspect ratio:

In the Output Size group of the Render Setup dialog Common panel Common Parameters rollout, adjust the Pixel Aspect setting to fit the requirements of your output device.

The Image Aspect field updates to show the aspect ratio of the rendered output.

If you alter the pixel aspect ratio but also render to a window or a file, the rendered image might appear distorted.

To speed up rendering time for the purpose of a test (or draft) rendering:

1. In the Options group of the Common Parameters panel, turn on Area Lights/Shadows As Points.

2. Set any other parameters and click Render.

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All area and linear lights in the scene are treated as point lights during the rendering. This reduces rendering time, however some quality is lost. When you are ready to render at high quality, you can simply turn off Area Lights/Shadows As Points and render again.

Note - Scenes with radiosity are not affected by the Area Lights/Shadows As Points toggle, as area lights do not have a significant effect on the performance of a radiosity solution.

Interface

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Time Output group

Select which frames you want to render.

SingleThe current frame only.

Every Nth frameRegular sample of frames. For example, type 8 to render every 8th frame. Available only for Active Time Segment and Range output.

Active Time SegmentThe active time segment is the current range of frames as shown on the track bar.

RangeAll the frames between and including the two numbers you specify.

File Number BaseSpecifies the base file number, from which the file name will increment. Range= –99,999 to 99,999. Available only for Active Time Segment and Range output.

FramesNonsequential frames separated by commas (for example, 2,5) or ranges of frames, separated by hyphens (for example, 0-5).

For example, if you set the range to 0-3, Every Nth Frame to 1, and the File Number Base to 15, the output files are file0015, file0016, file0017, file0018.

You can specify a negative number base, as well. For example, if you're rendering frames 50–55, and set the File Number Base to -50, the result is file-050, file-051, file-052, file-053, file-054, file-055.

Note - If you begin render a range of frames, but haven't assigned a file in which to save the animation (using the Files button), an alert box appears to warn you about this. Rendering animations can take a long time, and usually it doesn't make sense to render a range without saving all frames to a file.

Output Size group

Choose one of the predefined sizes or enter another size in the Width and Height fields (in pixels). These controls affect the image's resolution and aspect ratio.

[drop-down list]

The Output Size drop-down list lets you choose from several industry-standard film and video aspect ratios. Choose one of these formats and then use the remaining group controls to set the output resolution. Alternatively, to set your own aspect ratio and resolution, use the default Custom option. These are the options you can choose from on the list:

Custom

35mm 1.316:1 Full Aperture (cine)

35mm 1.37:1 Academy (cine)

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35mm 1.66:1 (cine)

35mm 1.75:1 (cine)

35mm 1.85:1 (cine)

35 MM Anamorphic (2.35:1)

35 MM Anamorphic (2.35:1) (Squeezed)

70mm Panavision (cine) (Image Aspect: 2.20)

70mm IMAX (cine) (Image Aspect: 1.36420)

VistaVision (Image Aspect: 1.50)

35mm (24mm X 36mm) (slide) (Image Aspect: 1.50)

6cm X 6cm (2 1/4" X 2 1/4") (slide) (Image Aspect: 1.0)

4" X 5" or 8" X 10" (slide) (Image Aspect: 1.250)

NTSC D-1 (video) (Image Aspect: 1.3333)

NTSC DV (video) (Image Aspect: 1.350)

PAL (video) (Image Aspect: 1.3333)

PAL D-1 (video) (Image Aspect: 1.3333)

HDTV (video) (Image Aspect: 1.77778)

Note - The values of the Image Aspect and Width and Height buttons can change, depending on which output format you choose from this list.

Aperture Width (mm)

Lets you specify an aperture width for the camera that creates the rendered output. Changing this value changes the camera's Lens value. This affects the relationship between the Lens and the FOV values, but it doesn't change the camera's view of the scene.

For example, if you have a Lens setting of 43.0 mm, and you change the Aperture Width from 36 to 50, when you close the Render Setup dialog (or render), the camera Lens spinner has changed to 59.722, but the scene still looks the same in the viewport and the rendering. If you use one of the preset formats rather than Custom, the aperture width is determined by the format, and this control is replaced by a text display.

Width and Height

Let you set the resolution of the output image by specifying the width and the height of the image, in pixels. With Custom format, you can set these two spinners independently. With

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any other format, the two spinners are locked to the specified aspect ratio, so adjusting one alters the other. The maximum width and height is 32,768 x 32,768 pixels.

Preset resolution buttons (320x240, 640x480, and so on)

Click one of these buttons to choose a preset resolution. You can customize these buttons: right-click a button to display the Configure Preset dialog, which lets you change the resolution specified by the button.

Image Aspect

The proportions of the image: the ratio of width to height. Changing this value changes the Height value to maintain the correct dimensions for the active resolution. When you use a format other than Custom from the drop-down list in this group, the aspect ratio is fixed and displays as a read-only field.

In 3ds Max, the Image Aspect value is always expressed as a multiplier value. In written descriptions of film and video, often aspect ratio is also described as a ratio. For example, 1.33333 (the default Custom aspect ratio) is often expressed as 4:3. This is the standard aspect ratio for broadcast video (both NTSC and PAL) when letterboxing is not used. (Letterboxing shows the full width of a wide-screen film format, framed by black regions above and below.)

When using a custom output size, the lock button to the right of Image Aspect locks the aspect ratio at its current value. When it is on, the Image Aspect spinner is replaced by a label, and the Width and Height fields are locked together; adjusting one alters the other to maintain the aspect-ratio value. In addition, when the aspect ratio is locked, altering the Pixel Aspect value alters the Height value to maintain the aspect-ratio value.

Pixel Aspect

Sets the aspect ratio of the pixels for display on another device. The image might look squashed on your display but will display correctly on the device with differently shaped pixels. If you use one of the standard formats rather than Custom, you can't change the pixel aspect ratio and this control is disabled.

The lock button to the left of Pixel Aspect locks the pixel-aspect ratio. When it is on, the Pixel Aspect spinner is replaced by a label, and you can't change the value. This button is available only with the Custom format.

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Images with different pixel aspects appear stretched or squashed on a monitor with square pixels.

Note - For standard NTSC, the pixel aspect ratio is 0.9. If you are creating 16:9 (0.778) anamorphic images for NTSC, the pixel aspect ratio should be 1.184. (As in the previous discussion of Image Aspect, this assumes the image is not letterboxed.)

Options group

Atmospherics

Renders any applied atmospheric effects, such as volume fog, when turned on.

Effects

Renders any applied rendering effects, such as Blur, when turned on.

Displacement

Renders any applied displacement mapping.

Video Color Check

Checks for pixel colors that are beyond the safe NTSC or PAL threshold and flags them or modifies them to acceptable values.

By default, "unsafe" colors render as black pixels. You can change the color check display by using the Rendering panel of the Preference Settings dialog.

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Render to Fields

Renders to video fields rather than frames. Use this when creating animations for video.

Render Hidden Geometry

Renders all geometric objects in the scene, even if they are hidden.

Area Lights/Shadows as Points

Renders all area lights or shadows as if they were emitted from point objects, speeding up rendering time.

When mental ray is the active renderer, this switch is also available on the Rendered Frame Window lower panel as the leftmost position of the Soft Shadows Precision slider. Alternatively, you can use the slider to adjust soft shadows globally, so that you can still see soft shadows while speeding up rendering.

Tip - This option is useful for draft renderings, as point lights render much faster than area lights.

Note - Scenes with radiosity are not affected by this toggle, as area lights do not have a significant effect on the performance of a radiosity solution.

Force 2-Sided

2-Sided rendering renders both sides of all faces. Usually, you'll want to keep this option off to speed rendering time. You may want to turn it on if you need to render the inside as well as the outside of objects, or if you've imported complex geometry in which the face normals are not properly unified.

Advanced Lighting group

Use Advanced Lighting

When on, 3ds Max incorporates a radiosity solution or light tracing in the rendering.

Compute Advanced Lighting When Required

When on, 3ds Max computes radiosity when required on a per-frame basis.

Normally, when rendering a series of frames, 3ds Max calculates radiosity only for the first frame. If, in an animation, it might be necessary to recalculate the advanced lighting in subsequent frames, turn this option on. For example, a brightly painted door might open and affect the coloring of a nearby white wall, in which case the advanced lighting should be recalculated.

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Bitmap Proxies group

Displays whether 3ds Max is using full-resolution maps or bitmap proxies for rendering. To change this setting, click the Setup button.

Setup

Click to open the Global Settings and Defaults for Bitmap Proxies dialog.

Render Output group

Save File

When on, 3ds Max saves the rendered image or animation to disk when you render. Save File is available only after you specify the output file using the Files button.

Files

Opens the Render Output File dialog, which lets you specify the output file name, format, and location.

You can render to any of the still or animated image file formats that are writable.

If you render multiple frames to a still-image file format, the renderer renders individual frame files and appends sequence numbers to each file name. You can control this with the File Number Base setting.

Put Image File List(s) in Output Path(s)

Turn on to create an image sequence (IMSQ) file, and save it in the same directory as the rendering. Default=off.

3ds Max creates one IMSQ file (or IFL file) per render element. The files are created when you click Render or Create now. They are generated before the actual rendering.

Image sequence files can be created by the following kinds of rendering:

The Render Setup dialog The Render command Batch rendering Command-line rendering MAXScript rendering ActiveShade rendering

They are not created by the following kinds of rendering:

Rendering to textures Video Post rendering

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Rendering a panorama

Create Now Click to create the image sequence file ―by hand.‖ You must first choose an output file for the rendering itself.

[image sequence file type]

Choose one of the following:

Autodesk ME Image Sequence File (.imsq)When chosen (the default), creates an Image Sequence (IMSQ) file.

Legacy 3ds max Image File List (.ifl)When chosen, creates an Image File List (IFL) file of the kind created by previous versions of 3ds Max.

Use Device Sends the rendered output to a device such as a video recorder. First click the Devices button to specify the device, for which an appropriate driver must already be installed.

Rendered Frame Window

Displays the rendered output in the Rendered Frame Window.

Render Output File Dialog

Main toolbar- (Render Setup) -Render Setup dialog -Common panel -Common Parameters rollout -Render Output group -Click Files. -Render Output File

The Render Output File dialog lets you assign a name to the file that the rendering will output. You can also determine the type of file to render. Depending on your choice of file type, you can also set up options such as compression, and color depth and quality.

Procedures

To name the render output file:

1. Choose Rendering Render Setup, and then in the Render Output group of the Common Parameters rollout, click Files.

This opens the Render Output File dialog.

2. Use the Save In field near the top of the dialog to choose the directory in which to save the rendered file.

3. In the File Name field, enter the name for the file to be rendered.

4. Choose the type of file you want to render from the Save As Type drop-down list.

5. Click Save to close the Render Output File dialog.Clicking Save also opens a dialog that lets you set the options for the file format you chose. Adjust these settings (or leave them at their defaults), and then click OK.

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6. On the Render Setup dialog, click the Render button to render the scene and save the file.

To set up options for the render-output file:

1. Choose Rendering Render and then in the Render Output group of the Common Parameters rollout, click Files.

The Render Output File dialog opens.

2. In the File Name field, enter the name for the file to be rendered. 3. Navigate the Save In field to choose the directory where you want the rendered

file to be saved. 4. Choose the type of file you want to render from the Save As Type drop-down list,

then click Save.

A dialog is displayed that lets you set the options for the file format you chose. Adjust these settings (or leave them at their defaults), and then click OK.

Note - You can also view the setup dialog by clicking Setup, if this button is available.

Warning - Make sure the file name extension in the File Name field matches the file type in the Save As Type field. Changing the file type does not update the file name automatically. The file options dialog depends on the type indicated by the file name, not the type indicated by Save As Type.

5. If the Render Output File dialog is still open, click Save.

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Interface

History

Displays a list of the most recent directories searched. Whenever an image is selected, the path used is added to the top of the history list as the most recently used path.

The history information is saved in the 3dsmax.inifile.

Save in

Opens a navigation window to browse other directories or drives.

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View Menu

Provides several options for how information is displayed in the list window:

Thumbnails: Displays the contents of a directory as thumbnails, without the details.

Tiles: Displays the contents of a directory as large icons, without the details. If you widen the dialog, these tile across the width.

Small Icons: Displays the contents of a directory as small icons, tiled across the width, without the details.

List: Displays the contents of a directory without the details.

Details: Displays the contents of a directory with full details such as size and date.

[list of files]

Lists the contents of the directory, in the format specified by the View menu.

File name

Displays the file name of the file selected in the list.

Save as type

Displays all the file types that can be saved. This serves as a filter for the list.

Save

Sets the file information for saving upon rendering. Closes the dialog if you haven't changed the output file type.

If you've changed the file type, clicking Save opens the Setup dialog for the specified file type. Change the settings as necessary, and then click OK to close both the Setup and the Output dialogs, or click Cancel to return to the Output dialog.

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Cancel

Cancels the file save and closes the dialog.

Devices

Lets you choose the hardware output device; for example, a digital video recorder. To use the device, the device, its driver, and its 3ds Max plug-in must all be installed on your system.

Setup

Displays controls for the selected file type. These vary with each different file format. Change the settings as necessary, and then click OK or Cancel.

Info

If you highlight an existing file in the list, clicking Info displays expanded information about the file such as frame rate, compression quality, file size, and resolution. The information here depends on the type of information saved with the file type.

View

If you highlight an existing file in the list, clicking View displays the file at its actual resolution. If the file is a movie, the Media Player is opened so the file can be played.

Gamma group

To set up gamma options for the output file, Enable Gamma Correction must be on in the Gamma panel of the Preferences dialog (Customize – Preferences - Gamma). Otherwise, the Gamma controls are unavailable in the Render Output File dialog.

Use Image’s Own GammaThis option is not available when the dialog is in this mode.

Use System Default GammaUses the system default gamma, as set in the Gamma panel of the Preferences dialog.

OverrideSets a gamma value for the bitmap that differs from the system default.

Using Override is not recommended for bitmaps that you render. It is better to set a system default value, based on the graphic display you use, and use this same gamma value for all your renderings.

[sequence or preview]

Sequence

This is not available in the Render Output File dialog.

Note - To render a sequence of still images, choose the Active Time Segment or define a range of frames in the Common Parameters rollout of the Render Setup dialog. If you have

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selected a still image file type, each frame will append a four-digit number to the name you have selected, incremented with each frame.

Preview

When on, enables display of the image as a thumbnail.

[image thumbnail]

Displays a thumbnail of the selected file. Preview must be turned on.

If gamma correction or look-up table (LUT) correction is active, 3ds Max applies the correction to this thumbnail image.

Statistics

Displays the resolution, color depth, file type, and number of frames of the selected file.

Location

Displays the full path for the file.

Image File Formats

image files, also known as bitmaps, have a variety of uses in 3ds Max scenes. You can use bitmaps as textures for materials, as backgrounds to viewports, as environment maps, as Image Input events in Video Post, or as images projected from a light.

An image file can be a single still image, or a sequence of images that form a video sequence or animation. When you assign an animation for use as a bitmap, then the image changes over time when you render the 3ds Max scene.

Note - Bitmaps are reloaded automatically after they have been changed and resaved by a graphic editing program. See the Reload Textures On Change toggle in File Preferences.

When you render a scene, you can render a still image or an animation. You can render to most of the formats listed below. Some of the formats support various options. If there are output options, these appear in a dialog that is described along with the image file's format.

Note - To save loading time, if a map with the same name is in two different locations (in two different paths), it is loaded only once. This poses a problem only if your scene includes two maps that have different content but the same name. In this case, only the first map encountered will appear in the scene.

AVI Files

The AVI (Audio-Video Interleaved) format is the Windows standard for movie files. The .avi file-name extension indicates a Windows AVI movie file.

BMP Files

BMP files are still-image bitmap files in the Windows bitmap (.bmp) format.

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CIN (Kodak Cineon) Files

A file format that stores a single frame of a motion picture or video data stream. Each frame is saved as cineon version 4.5 with a CIN file-name extension. The file contains no user-defined data such as a thumbnail, and supports 10-bit log, and three colors per pixel. Alpha channels are not supported.

CWS (Combustion Workspace) Files

The file format for the Combustion™ software from Autodesk. CWS is a resolution-independent, vector/raster file format.

DDS Files

The DirectDraw ® Surface (DDS) file format is used to store textures and cubic environment maps, both with and without mipmap levels. This format can store uncompressed and compressed pixel formats, and is the preferred file format for storing DXTn compressed data. Microsoft ® is the developer of this file format.

EPS and PS (Encapsulated PostScript) Files

3ds Max can render images to Encapsulated PostScript ® format files, which have the .eps or .ps extension.

GIF Files

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is an 8-bit (256-color) format developed by Informix for the CompuServe ® information service. It was originally designed to minimize file transfer times over telephone lines.

IFL Files

An IFL (Image File List) file is an ASCII file that constructs an animation by listing single-frame bitmap files to be used for each rendered frame. When you assign an IFL file as a bitmap, rendering steps through each specified frame, resulting in an animated map.

IMSQ Files

The Autodesk ME Image Sequence (IMSQ) format is an XML file used by the Autodesk products Cleaner and Toxik. You generate IMSQ files in the Render Output group of the Render Setup dialog Common Parameters rollout by turning on Put Image File List(s) In Output Path(s) and then clicking Create Now.

JPEG Files

JPEG (.jpeg or .jpg) files follow the standards set by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. These files use a variable compression method that is called lossy compression because of the loss of image quality as you increase the compression. However, the JPEG compression scheme is extremely good and you can sometimes compress the file up to 200:1 without severe loss of image quality. JPEG is consequently a popular format for posting image files on the Internet for minimum file size and fast download time.

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MOV (QuickTime Movie) Files

QuickTime ® is a standard file format created by Apple ® for storing common digital media types such as audio and video. When you choose QuickTime (*.mov) as the Save As Type, your animation is saved as a .mov file.

MPEG Files

The MPEG format is a standard for movie files. MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group. MPEG files can have a .mpg or .mpeg file name extension. MPEG is supported only as an input file format. You can use MPEG files as texture maps.

OpenEXR Files

3ds Max can both read and write image files in the OpenEXR format. OpenEXR is both an image file format and a general open-source API for reading and writing such files.

PIC Files

3ds Max can import and export Radiance Picture (PIC) files. The PIC file is a lighting-analysis format used for the same purpose as LogLUV TIFF files. The PIC format differs from the LogLUV TIFF format by creating separate files for luminance and illuminance channel data (the LogLUV TIFF format creates one file containing both channels).

PNG Files

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a still-image file format developed for use with the Internet and World Wide Web.

PSD Files

PSD is the filename extension for graphics files native to Adobe ® Photoshop ® . This image format supports multiple layers of images superimposed to get the final image. Each layer can have any number of channels (R, G, B, Mask, and so on). It is a powerful file format because multiple layers can contribute to a variety of special effects.

Radiance Image Files

The Radiance image file format is used for high-dynamic-range images (HDRI). Most cameras don't have the capability to capture the dynamic range (the gamut of luminances between dark and bright regions) that is present in the real world. However, the range can be recovered by taking a series of pictures of the same subject with different exposure settings, and combining them into one image file.

RLA Files

The RLA format (Run-Length Encoded, version A) is a popular SGI ® format that supports the ability to include arbitrary image channels. While setting up a file for output, if you select RLA Image File from the list and click the Setup button, you'll go to the RLA setup dialog. Once there, you can specify what channels (and what format) you want to write out to the file.

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RPF Files

RPF (Rich Pixel Format) is the format that supports the ability to include arbitrary image channels. While setting up a file for output, if you select RPF Image File from the list, you'll go to the RPF setup dialog. Once there, you can specify what channels you want to write out to the file.

SGI Image Files

The SGI™ Image File format is a bitmap file type created by Silicon Graphics ® . SGI Image File support in 3ds Max lets you load and save files in both 8- and 16-bit color depth, with alpha channels, and RLE Compression.

TGA (Targa) Files

The Targa (TGA) format was developed by Truevision for their video boards. The format supports 32-bit true color; that is, 24-bit color plus an alpha channel, and is typically used as a true color format.

TIFF Files

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a multiplatform bitmap format originating on the Macintosh® and in desktop-publishing applications. TIFF is a common choice if you plan to send your output to a print service bureau or import the image into a page-layout program.

YUV Files

YUV files are still-image graphics files in the Abekas ® Digital Disk format. YUV is supported only as an input file format. You can use YUV files as general-purpose bitmaps, but you can't render to a YUV file.

Rendering Types

The Default Scanline Renderer is a versatile renderer that renders the scene as a series of scanlines that are generated from top to bottom.

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Default Scanline Renderer Rollout

This rollout sets parameters for the default scanline renderer.

Note - If your scene includes animated bitmaps (for example, AVI files), including materials, projector lights, environments, and so on, each animation file is reloaded once per frame. If your scene uses multiple animations, or if the animations are themselves large files, this reloading can hamper rendering performance. To improve performance, use image sequences (each animation frame in a separate image file) instead.

Environment Alpha Toggle and Filtering

To control whether the renderer uses the environment map's alpha channel in creating the alpha for the rendered image, choose Customize - Preferences - Rendering, and then turn on Use Environment Alpha in the Background group. If Use Environment Alpha is off (the default), the background receives an alpha value of 0 (completely transparent). If Use Environment Alpha is on, the alpha of the resulting image is a combination of the scene and the background image's alpha channel. Also, when you render to TGA files with premultiplied alpha turned off, turning on Use Environment Alpha prevents incorrect results.

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You can also control whether a background image is affected by the renderer's antialiasing filter. Choose - Customize - Preferences - Rendering, and then turn on Filter Background in the Background group. Default=off.

Tip - If you plan to composite 3ds Max objects in another application such as Combustion or Photoshop, render the objects against a black background. Otherwise, a fringe of environment or background color can appear around the 3ds Max objects.

Plate Match Filtering

This section describes the Plate Match/MAX R2 antialiasing

In versions of 3ds Max prior to R2.5, antialiasing affected only geometric edges, with the filtering of bitmaps being controlled in the Bitmap Map parameters (pyramidal, summed area, or no filtering). Current antialiasing filters affect every aspect of the object, filtering textures along with geometric edges.

While the method used in R2.5 and subsequent versions provides superior results, this method also produces inconsistencies when rendering objects that are supposed to match the environment background, because the antialiasing filters do not affect the background by default (FilterBackground=0 in the [Renderer] section of the 3dsmax.ini file or Customize menu – Preferences - Rendering tab - Background group -Filter Background). In order to correctly match an objects map to an unfiltered background image, you need to use the Plate Match/MAX R2 filter so the texture is not affected by the antialiasing.

There are three ways you can render objects to blend seamlessly into a background environment:

Assign a matte/shadow material.

Assign a 100% self-illuminated diffuse texture to an object using Camera Mapping.

Assign a 100% self-illuminated diffuse texture using Environment/Screen projection (see Coordinates Rollout (2D)).

Use Plate Match/MAX R2 antialiasing when you need to match foreground objects with an unfiltered background, or when you need to match the antialiasing qualities of the 3ds Max 2 renderer.

Procedures

To set up an object for motion blurring:

1. Select the object to blur. 2. Right-click the object, and then choose Properties from the quad menu.

3ds Max opens the Object Properties dialog. 3. In the Motion Blur group, click By Layer to change it to By Object.

The other Motion Blur controls are now enabled. 4. In the Motion Blur group, choose either Object or Image.

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5. If you chose Image, you can adjust the Multiplier spinner. This increases or decreases the length of the blurred object's streak.

6. Click OK.

To add motion blur when you render the animation:

1. Click Render Setup.

3ds Max opens the Render Setup dialog

2. On the Default Scanline Renderer rollout, turn on Apply in the Object Motion Blur group or the Image Motion Blur group.

For Object Motion Blur, set Duration, Duration Subdivisions, and Samples. Increase Duration to exaggerate the motion blur effect. Decrease it to make

the blur more subtle. If Samples is less than Duration Subdivisions, the slices used are selected

randomly, giving a grainy look to the blur. If Samples equals Duration Subdivisions, the blur is smooth. The smoothest blur results from larger, equal values of these two parameters, but be aware that this can slow down rendering by a factor of three to four.

For Image Motion Blur, adjust Duration and Apply to Environment Map. Increase Duration to exaggerate the streaking. Decrease it to make it more

subtle.

3. Turn on Apply to Environment map to have camera orbit movement blur the environment map. This works only with Spherical, Cylindrical, or Shrink-Wrapped environments.

4. Set other rendering parameters, and then click Render.

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Interface

Options group

Mapping

Turn off to ignore all mapping information to speed up rendering for tests. Affects automatic reflections and environment maps as well as material mapping. Default=on.

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Auto Reflect/Refract and Mirrors

Ignores automatic reflection/refraction maps to speed up rendering for tests.

Shadows

When off, cast shadows aren't rendered. This can speed up rendering for tests. Default=on.

Force Wireframe

Set to render all surfaces in the scene as wireframes. You can choose the thickness of the wireframe in pixels. Default=1.

Enable SSE

When on, rendering uses Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE). (SIMD stands for Single Instruction, Multiple Data.) Depending on the CPU (or CPUs) of your system, SSE can improve render time. Default=off.

Antialiasing group

Antialiasing

Antialiasing smoothes the jagged edges that occur along the edges of diagonal and curves lines when rendering. Turn off only when you are rendering test images and speed is more important than image quality.

Turning off Antialiasing disables the Force Wireframe setting (see preceding). Geometry renders according to the assigned material even if Force Wireframe is turned on.

Turning off Antialiasing also disables render elements. If you need to render elements, be sure to leave Antialiasing on.

Filter drop-down list

Lets you choose a high-quality table-based filter to apply to your rendering. Filters are the last step in antialiasing. They work at the sub-pixel level and allow you to sharpen or soften your final output, depending on which filter you select. Below the controls in this group, 3ds Max displays a box with a brief description of the filter and how it is applied to your image.

Tip - Render Region and Render Selected give reliable results only when rendered with the Area filter.

The following table describes the available antialiasing filters.

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Filter Maps

Turns on or off the filtering of mapped materials. Default=on.

Tip - Leave Filter Maps turned on unless you are making test renderings and want to speed up rendering time and save memory.

Filter Size

Allows you to increase or decrease the amount of blur applied to an image. This option is available for only some of the Filter choices.

Setting the Filter Size to 1.0 effectively disables the filter.

Note - Some filters show additional, filter-specific parameters below the Filter Size control.

When you render separate elements, you can explicitly enable or disable the active filter, on a per-element basis.

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Global SuperSampling group

Disable all Samplers

Disables all supersampling. Default=off.

Note - SuperSampling settings are ignored by the mental ray Renderer, which has its own sampling method.

Enable Global Supersampler

When on, applies the same supersampler to all materials. When turned off, materials set to use the global settings are controlled by the settings appearing in rendering dialog. All other controls in the Global SuperSampling group of the rendering dialog will become disabled, except for the Disable All Samplers. Default=on.

Supersample Maps

Turns on or off supersampling for mapped materials. Default=on.

Tip - Leave Supersample Maps on unless you are making test renderings and want to speed up rendering time and save memory.

Sampler drop-down list

Lets you choose which supersampling method to apply. Default=Max 2.5 Star.

The options for a supersampling method are the same as those that appear on the SuperSampling rollout in the Material Editor. Some methods offer expanded options that let you better control the quality of the supersampling and the number of samples taken during rendering.

Object Motion Blur group

You determine which objects have object motion blur applied to them by setting Object in the Motion Blur group of the Properties dialog for that object. Object motion blur blurs the object by creating multiple "time-slice" images of the object for each frame. It takes camera movement into account. Object motion blur is applied during the scanline rendering process.

Apply

Turns object motion blur on or off globally for the entire scene. Any objects that have their Object Motion Blur property set are rendered with motion blur.

Duration

Determines how long the "virtual shutter" is open. When this is set to 1.0, the virtual shutter is open for the entire duration between one frame and the next. Longer values produce more exaggerated effects.

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The effect of changing duration.

Samples

Determines how many Duration Subdivision copies are sampled. The maximum setting is 32.

When Samples is less than Duration, random sampling within the duration occurs (which is why there might be a slight granular look to the motion blur). For example, if Duration Subdivision=12 and Samples=8, there are eight random samples out of 12 possible copies within each frame.

When Samples=Duration, there is no randomness (and if both numbers are at their maximum value (32), you get a dense result (which costs between 3–4 times the normal rendering time for that specific object).

If you want to obtain a smooth blur effect, use the maximum settings of 32/32. If you want to cut down rendering time, values of 12/12 will give you much smoother results than 16/12.

Because sampling happens within the duration, the Duration value always has to be less than or equal to Samples.

Duration Subdivisions

Determines how many copies of each object are rendered within the Duration.

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Left: Same value for Samples and Subdivisions.

Right: Samples value is less than Subdivisions.

Image Motion Blur group

You determine which objects have image motion blur applied to them by setting Image in the Motion Blur group of the Properties dialog for that object. Image motion blur blurs the object by creating a smearing effect rather than multiple images. It takes camera movement into account. Image motion blur is applied after scanline rendering is complete.

The coin on the right has Image Motion Blur applied

You can’t put image motion blur on objects that change their topology.

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Tip - When blurred objects overlap, sometimes blurring doesn't work correctly and there are gaps in the rendering. Because image motion blur is applied after rendering, it can't account for object overlap. To fix this problem, render each blurred object separately, to a different layer, and then composite the two layers using the Alpha Compositor in Video Post.

Note - Image motion blur doesn't work for NURBS objects that are animated so their tessellation (surface approximation) changes over time. This happens when sub-objects are animated independently of the top-level NURBS model. Nor does image motion blur work on any of the following:

Anything with an Optimize.

Any primitive with animated segments.

MeshSmooth of any type with a "Smoothness" value (under iterations) other than 1.

MeshSmooth on polygons with Keep Faces Convex on.

Anything with Displacement Material.

In general, if you have objects with changing topology, use scene or object motion blur rather than image motion blur.

Apply

Turns image motion blur on or off globally for the entire scene. Any objects that have their Image Motion Blur property set are rendered with motion blur.

Duration

Specifies how long the "virtual shutter" is open. When this is set to 1.0, the virtual shutter is open for the entire duration between one frame and the next. The higher the value, the greater the motion blur effect.

Apply to Environment Map

When set, image motion blur is applied to the environment map as well as to the objects in the scene. The effect is noticeable when the camera orbits.

The environment map should use Environment mapping: Spherical, Cylindrical, or Shrink-Wrap. The image motion blur effect doesn't work with Screen-mapped environments.

Transparency

When on, image motion blur works correctly with transparent objects that overlap. Applying image motion blur to transparent objects can increase rendering time. Default=off.

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Auto Reflect/Refract Maps group

Rendering Iterations

Sets the number of inter-object reflections in non-flat automatic reflection maps. Although increasing this value can sometimes enhance image quality, it also increases rendering time for reflections.

Color Range Limiting group

Color Range Limiting allows you handle over-brightness by toggling between either Clamping or Scaling color components (RGB) that are out of range (0 to 1). Typically, specular highlights can cause color components to rise above range while using filters with negative lobes can cause color components to be below range. You choose one of two options to control how the renderer handles out of range color components:

ClampTo keep all color components in range Clamp will change any color with a value greater than 1 down to 1 while any color below 0 will be clamped at 0. Any value between 0 and 1 will not change. Very bright colors tend to render as white when using Clamp since hue information can be lost in the process.

ScaleTo keep all color components in range Scale will preserve the hue of very bright colors by scaling all three color components so that the maximum component has a value of 1. Be aware that this will change the look of highlights.

Memory Management group

Conserve Memory

When on, rendering uses less memory at a slight cost of memory time. Memory saved is in the range of 15 to 25 percent. The time cost is about four percent. Default=off.

iray Renderer

The NVIDIA ®

iray ®

renderer creates physically accurate renderings by tracing light paths. It requires little setup compared to other renderers.

The principal approach of the iray renderer is time-based: You can specify the length of time to render, the number of iterations to compute, or you can simply launch the rendering for an indefinite amount of time, and stop it when you are satisfied with the appearance of the result.

Early iterations of the iray renderer appear more grainy than the results from other renderers. The graininess becomes less apparent, the more passes you render. The iray renderer is especially good at rendering reflections, including glossy reflections; it is also good at rendering self-illuminating objects and shapes that cannot be rendered with as much precision in other renderers.

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The same scene after an extended rendering time

A graphics card with a CUDA-enabled Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) will improve the performance of the iray renderer (CUDA stand for Compute Unified Device Architecture). However, the result is not the same as hardware viewport shading: The computation carried out by the iray renderer is physically correct, and the result of a hardware-assisted iray rendering is the same as the result when you render using the Central Processing Unit (CPU) only.

A rule of thumb for GPU usage is that one gigabyte (GB) of memory can store 5 to 10 million triangles (5–10M) of geometry. If textures (usually shared among face triangles) can also fit into GPU memory, that improves rendering performance as well.

The performance of a ray-tracing renderer such as the iray renderer is relatively independent of how complex the scene geometry is. The complexity of light paths is more important: A candle in a labyrinth, or light rays diverging from a narrow window, will take longer to yield a good-quality rendering than light shining through a broad skylight or picture windows. As with other renderers, performance is also proportional to the resolution of the rendered image. The complexity of materials in the scene also affects performance: The more textures, blending, and noise a material has, the longer it takes to calculate the results.

The version of iray provided with Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 has been upgraded to iray v2.1. This version includes a large number of improvements to iray: support for the Do Not Apply Bumps To The Diffuse Shading toggle, the round corner effect, and more procedural maps; improved sky portals, glossy refractions, translucency, and IOR (index of

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refraction); faster exterior scene convergence; and the ability to handle larger output resolutions.

Sky portals and iray 2.1:iray 2.1 fully supports Sky Portal objects. These can improve rendering quality, but in some cases they can slow down the renderer. These guidelines can help you decide whether to use Sky Portals:

If sunlight shines directly through a window, don't use Sky Portals, even for windows with no direct sun.

Small windows benefit more from Sky Portals than large windows.

Time permitting, run test renderings with and without Sky Portals, to compare the image quality and the render time. Run each test until the image is free of graininess.

Materials and Maps Supported by the iray Renderer

The iray renderer supports only certain material, map, and shader types. In particular, it does not support programmable shaders in the way the mental ray renderer does. If your scene contains an unsupported material or map, the iray renderer renders it as gray, and reports an error in the Render Message Window.

In general, the iray renderer supports only material and map or shader features that relate to physically based light-ray tracing. For example, the Arch & Design material settings that concern Ambient Occlusion, Round Corners, or Final Gather are simply ignored by this renderer.

Supported Materials

The iray renderer supports mainly the general-purpose mental ray materials:

Material Type Restrictions

Arch & Design material The iray renderer ignores the Main Material Parameters - Reflection settings Glossy Samples, Fast (Interpolate), and Highlights+FG Only. It also ignores the Main Material Parameters - Refraction settings Glossy Samples and Fast (Interpolate). It ignores settings on the Fast Glossy Interpolation rollout. It ignores most of the settings on the Advanced Rendering Options rollout. The exceptions are Refraction - Max Distance and

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Color At Max Distance; and Advanced Transparency Options - Glass/Translucency Treat Objects As and Back Face Culling. It ignores shaders specified on the "mental ray Connection" rollout.

Autodesk Materials Exception:Autodesk Metallic Paint is not supported. Note - Reflections on Autodesk Materials, particularly materials with a matte finish, can appear differently than they appear when rendered with renderers other than the iray renderer.

The following Autodesk Materials have Finish Bumps settings. The iray renderer treats Finish Bumps the same as Relief (bump) maps: It applies the bumps to the Diffuse component as well as to other components.

Ceramic Concrete Plastic Vinyl Stone

mental ray Renderer

The mental ray ®

renderer from NVIDIA ®

is a general-purpose renderer that can generate physically correct simulations of lighting effects, including ray-traced reflections and refractions, caustics, and global illumination.

Notemental ray and NVIDIA are registered trademarks, and photon map is a trademark of NVIDIA Corporation.

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Scene rendered with the default 3ds Max scanline renderer

Same scene rendered with the mental ray renderer

The second rendering, done with the mental ray renderer, shows caustics cast by refraction through the martini glass. Caustics are also visible in the reflection on the cocktail shaker.

Note For a discussion of using the mental ray renderer, especially with architectural models, see this white paper.

The mental ray renderer in 3ds Max supports the mental ray version 2 (mi2) and version 3 (mi3) formats. It does not support the mental ray version 1 (mi1) format.

Differences Between the mental ray Renderer and the Default Scanline Renderer

Compared to the default 3ds Max scanline renderer, the mental ray renderer relieves you of the need to simulate complex lighting effects "by hand" or by generating a radiosity solution. The mental ray renderer is optimized to use multiple processors and to take advantage of incremental changes for efficient rendering of animations.

Unlike the default 3ds Max renderer, which renders scanlines from the top of the image downward, the mental ray renderer renders rectangular blocks called buckets. The order in which the buckets are rendered can vary, depending on the method you choose. By default, mental ray uses the Hilbert method, which picks the next bucket to render based on the cost of switching to the next one. Because objects can be discarded from the memory to render other objects, it’s important to avoid having to reload the same object multiple times. This is especially important when you have enabled placeholder objects

If you use distributed rendering to render a scene, it might be hard to understand the logic behind the rendering order. In this case, the order has been optimized to avoid sending lots

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of data over the network. Each CPU is assigned a bucket as the bucket becomes available, so different buckets can appear in the rendered image at different times.

Procedures

To use the mental ray renderer:

1. Choose Rendering menu Render Setup. The Render Setup dialog opens.

2. On the Common panel, open the Assign Renderer rollout, and then click the ―...‖ button for the Production renderer.

The Choose Renderer dialog opens.

3. On the Choose Renderer dialog, highlight mental ray Renderer and then click OK.

Tip - After you make the mental ray renderer the active production renderer, you can make the mental ray renderer the default renderer for all new scenes by clicking Save As Defaults. This is a convenient way to avoid extra setup time.

Now the Render Setup dialog contains the mental ray controls. You can choose to render the scene with the built-in mental ray renderer, or simply to translate the scene and save it in an MI file that you can render later, perhaps on a different system. Controls for choosing whether to render, save to an MI file, or both, are on the Translator Options rollout.

Introduction to Camera Application and Utilities of Camera

Cameras present a scene from a particular point of view. Camera objects simulate still-image, motion picture, or video cameras in the real world.

With a Camera viewport you can adjust the camera as if you were looking through its lens. Camera viewports can be useful for editing geometry as well as setting up a scene for rendering. Multiple cameras can give different views of the same scene.

The Camera Correction modifier lets you correct a camera view to 2-point perspective, in which vertical lines remain vertical.

If you want to animate the point of view, you can create a camera and animate its position. For example, you might want to fly over a landscape or walk through a building. You can animate other camera parameters as well. For example, you can animate the camera's field of view to give the effect of zooming in on a scene.

The Display panel's Hide By Category rollout has a toggle that lets you turn the display of camera objects on and off.

A convenient way to control the display of camera objects is to create them on a separate layer. You can hide them quickly by turning off the layer.

Tip - The Camera Match utility allows you to start with a background photograph and create a camera object that has the same point of view. This is useful for site-specific scenes.

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There are two kinds of camera objects:

A Target camera views the area around a target object. When you create a target camera, you see a two-part icon representing the camera and its target (a white box). The camera and the camera target can be animated independently, so target cameras are easier to use when the camera does not move along a path.

A Free camera views the area in the direction the camera is aimed. When you create a free camera, you see a single icon representing the camera and its field of view. The camera icon appears the same as a target camera icon, but there is no separate target icon to animate. Free cameras are easier to use when the camera's position is animated along a path.

An example of a camera in a scene.

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The result after rendering through the camera.

You can create cameras from the Create menu - Cameras submenu, or by clicking the Cameras button on the Create panel. You can also create a camera by activating a Perspective viewport, and then choosing Views menu - Create Camera From View.

After you have created a camera, you can change viewports to display the camera's point of view. While a camera viewport is active, the navigation buttons change to camera navigation buttons. You use the Modify panel in conjunction with a camera viewport to change the camera's settings.

While you use the navigation controls for a camera viewport, you can constrain Truck, Pan, and Orbit movement to be vertical or horizontal only with the Shift key.

You can move a selected camera so its view matches that of a Perspective, Spotlight, or another Camera view.

Choosing a Camera for Vertical Views

If you need an animated camera to look vertically upward or downward, use a free camera. If you use a target camera you might run into a problem of unexpected movement. 3ds Max constrains a target camera's up-vector (its local positive Y axis) to be as close as possible to the world positive Z axis. This is no problem when you are working with a static camera. However, if you animate the camera and put it in a nearly vertical position, either up or down, 3ds Max flips the Camera view to prevent the up-vector from becoming undefined. This creates sudden changes of view.

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Camera Object Icons

Camera objects are visible in viewports unless you choose not to display them. However, the geometry that appears in the viewport is only an icon meant to show you where the camera is located and how it is oriented.

Target cameras create a double icon, representing the camera (a blue box intersecting a blue triangle) and the camera target (a blue box). Free cameras create a single icon, representing the camera and its field of view.

A free camera has no target. A target camera has a target sub-object.

You cannot shade camera objects. However, you can render their icons using Animation menu - Make Preview and turning on Cameras in the Display In Preview group.

The display of camera object icons is not scaled when you change the scale of the viewport. When you zoom in on a camera, for example, the icon size does not change. To change the size of camera object icons, you can use the Viewports panel of the Preferences dialog, and change the value of Non-Scaling Object Size.

Scale transforms have the following effects on a camera object:

Uniform Scale has no effect on a free camera, but does change the target camera's Target Distance setting.

Non-Uniform Scale and Squash change the size and shape of the camera's FOV cone. You see the effect in the viewport, but the camera's parameters do not update.

Mental Ray Camera Shaders

When you use the mental ray renderer, you can apply shaders to the camera used to render the scene. Specifically, you can assign shaders to modify the camera's lens, its output, or its volume (effectively making a volume out of the entire scene).

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A dimly lit scene

The scene's colors desaturated using the Night shader

Lens shader: lume Night shader with Multiplier set to 0.5

You assign camera shaders using the Render Setup dialog - Camera Effects rollout while the mental ray renderer is active.

Note - No camera output shaders are provided with 3ds Max. You might have access to light map shaders if you have obtained them from other shader libraries or custom shader code.

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Camera Concepts and Getting Previews

Procedures

To render a scene using a camera:

1. Create the camera and aim it at the geometry you want to be the subject of your scene. To aim a target camera, drag the target in the direction you want the camera to look. To aim a free camera, rotate and move the camera icon.

2. With one camera selected, or if only one exists in the scene, set a Camera viewport for that camera by activating the viewport, then press C. If multiple cameras exist and none or more than one are selected, 3ds Max prompts you to choose which camera to use.

You can also change to a Camera viewport by clicking or right-clicking the Point-Of-View viewport label, and then from the POV viewport label menu choosing Cameras the name of the camera of choice.

3. Adjust the camera's position, rotation, and parameters using the Camera viewport’s navigation controls. Simply activate the viewport, then use the Truck, Orbit, and Dolly Camera buttons. Alternately you can select the camera components in another viewport and use the move or rotate icons.

If you do this while the Auto Key button is on, you animate the camera.

4. Render the camera viewport.

To change a viewport to a Camera view:

1. In any viewport, click or right-click the Point-Of- View viewport label menu..

2. From the menu that opens, choose Cameras.

The Cameras submenu shows the name of each camera in the scene.

3. Click the name of the camera you want.

The viewport now shows the camera's point of view.

The default keyboard shortcut for camera viewports is C.

Making a camera viewport active does not automatically select the camera. To adjust a camera by using its viewport and the Modify panel at the same time, select the camera and then make the Camera viewport active.

As in other viewports, in Camera viewports you can opt to see a display of safe frame areas to help you compose the final rendered output.

Tip - Alternatively, you can automatically create a camera that matches the view in the active viewport and set the viewport to use that camera by pressing Ctrl+C.

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To match a camera to a viewport:

1. (Optional) Select a camera. 2. Activate a Perspective viewport. 3. Press Ctrl+C. 4. If no camera was selected, 3ds Max creates a new target camera whose field of

view matches the viewport. If you first selected a camera, 3ds Max moves the camera to match the Perspective view and changes the viewport to a camera viewport for the camera object.

To control the display of camera objects, do one of the following:

Go to the Display panel and in the Hide By Category rollout, turn Cameras on or off.

Choose Tools menu - Display Floater, and on the Object Level tab, turn Cameras on or off When Hide Cameras is off, cameras appear in viewports; when Hide - Cameras is on, they don't appear.

When camera icons are displayed, the Zoom Extents commands include them in views. When camera icons are not displayed, the Zoom Extents commands ignore them.

To change the display size of camera icons:

Choose Customize - Preferences - Viewports, and set Non-Scaling Object Size (default=1.0 in current units).

Note - This also changes the size of light icons, helper objects, and other non-scaling objects in the scene.

To use the Modify panel in conjunction with a Camera viewport:

1. In any viewport, select the camera. 2. Right-click the Camera viewport to activate the viewport without deselecting the

camera The Camera viewport becomes active, but the camera is still selected in the other viewports.

3. Adjust the camera using its Parameters rollout on the Modify panel, or the viewport navigation buttons. The Camera viewport updates as the parameters are changed.

To constrain Pan and Orbit to be vertical or horizontal:

Hold down Shift as you drag in the viewport.

The initial direction of the drag sets the constraint. If you drag vertically at first, the pan or orbit is constrained to be vertical; if you drag horizontally at first, the constraint is horizontal.

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The Zoom Extents All flyout and the Min/Max toggles remain visible. These controls aren't specific to camera views. Clicking Zoom Extents All affects other kinds of viewports, but does not affect Camera viewports.

To see the safe frame:

Click or right-click the Point-Of-View viewport label. From the POV viewport label menu, choose Show Safe Frame.

The safe frames are displayed in three concentric boxes. The outermost safe frame matches the render output resolution.

The safe frame matches the render output resolution.

Types of Camera

Free Camera

Free cameras view the area in the direction where the camera is aimed. Unlike target cameras, which have two independent icons for the target and the camera, free cameras are represented by a single icon, making them easier to animate. Free cameras can be used when the camera's position is animated along a trajectory, as in a walkthrough of a building or when the camera is attached to a moving vehicle. The free camera can bank as it travels along the path. If the camera needs to be directly overhead in a scene, use a free camera to prevent it from spinning.

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A free camera can move and be oriented without restrictions.

Initial Direction of a Free Camera

A free camera’s initial direction is along the negative Z axis of the active construction grid of the viewport you click.

In other words, if you click in an orthographic viewport, the initial camera direction is directly away from you. Clicking the Top viewport aims the camera downward, clicking the Front viewport aims the camera at the scene from the front, and so on.

Clicking in a Perspective, User, Light, or Camera viewport aims the free camera downward, along the negative Z axis of the World Coordinate System.

Because the camera is created on the active construction plane, where you also create geometry, you might have to move the camera before you can see objects in its Camera viewport. Check the camera’s position from several viewports to correct.

Procedures

To create a free camera:

2.Click the viewport location where you want the camera to be.

The kind of viewport you click determines the free camera's initial direction: the initial direction is along the negative Z axis of the active construction grid of the viewport you click.

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The camera is now part of the scene.

3.Set the creation parameters.

Common Camera Parameters

Most of the camera controls are common to both kinds of cameras. This topic describes those controls.

Procedures

To view a wider area, do either of the following:

1. Use the FOV spinner to increase the camera's field of view.

2. Click a button with a shorter focal length. Use the Lens spinner to give the focal length a value other than the preset "stock" values on the buttons.

To view a narrower area, do either of the following:

1. Change the FOV parameter to decrease the camera's field of view.

2. Click a button with a longer focal length. Use the Lens parameter to give the focal length a value other than the preset "stock" values on the buttons.

In a camera viewport, the FOV button lets you adjust the field of view interactively.

The camera viewport Perspective button also changes the FOV in conjunction with dollying the camera.

Note - Only the FOV value is saved with the camera. The focal length value is merely an alternative way to express and select the FOV.

To set the camera lens size:

1. In the Stock Lenses group, click a button to choose a stock focal length.

2. Set the Lens spinner to a custom focal length.

Tip - If you want to maintain the same lens, avoid using the FOV or Perspective controls among the navigation icon buttons, and don't change the FOV spinner.

Important - When a camera viewport is active, changing the Output Size or (custom) Aperture Width in the Render Setup dialog will change the camera's Lens setting.

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To match a camera to a film or video format:

1. On the Render Setup dialog, in the Output Size group, choose the type of output you want. Use either of the following methods.

Choose a preset, such as HDTV (video), from the drop-down list. The Aperture Width is locked to the preset's values.

Choose Custom, and then set the desired Aperture Width value. (You can adjust the other output values at any later time. They have no affect on the camera lens settings, although they do affect the cropping of the scene.)

2. After setting Aperture Width, set the Lens value for the camera to the type of camera lens you want to emulate (for example, 50mm).

To maintain the same lens, avoid using the FOV or Perspective controls among the navigation icon buttons

To find a lens's focal length:

To find the focal length of a lens based on changes in aperture width, open the Render Setup dialog, choose Custom from the Output Size drop-down list, and specify a value in the Aperture Width spinner. The new value of the camera's Lens parameter is based on the new Aperture Width value.

To display a camera's cone:

Turn on Show Cone.

The camera's field-of-view cone appears outlined in light blue.

Note - A camera's cone is always visible while the camera object is selected, regardless of the Show Cone setting.

To display a camera's horizon line:

Turn on Show Horizon.

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A dark gray line appears at the level of the horizon in the camera's viewport.

The horizon line shown in the viewport.

The horizon line might not be visible if the horizon is beyond the camera's field of view, or if the camera is tilted very high or low.

To change the environment range:

Adjust the value of Near Range or Far Range.

By default, the Near Range=0.0 and the Far Range equals the Far clipping plane value.

Environment ranges determine the near and far range limits for atmospheric effects you set in the Environment dialog.

To see the environment ranges in viewports:

Turn on Show.

The environment range displays as two planes. The plane closest to the camera is the near range and the one farthest from the camera is the far range.

To set clipping planes:

1. Turn on Clip Manually.

When Clip Manually is off, the camera ignores the location of the Near and Far clipping planes, and their controls are unavailable. The camera renders all geometry within its field of view.

2. Set the Near Clip value to position the near clipping plane.

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Objects closer to the camera than the Near distance are not visible to the camera and aren't rendered.

3. Set the Far Clip value to position the far clipping plane.

Objects farther from the camera than the Far distance are not visible to the camera and aren't rendered.

You can set the Near clipping plane close to the camera so that it doesn't exclude any geometry, and still use the Far plane to exclude objects. Similarly, you can set the Far clipping plane far enough from the camera that it doesn't exclude any geometry, and still use the Near plane to exclude objects.

The Near value is constrained to be less than the Far value.

If the clipping plane intersects an object, it cuts through that object, creating a cutaway view.

The effect of clipping planes

To apply a multi-pass rendering effect to a scene:

1. In the Multi-Pass Effect group, turn on Enable and choose either Depth Of Field or Motion Blur.

2. In the Multi-Pass Effect group, turn on Enable.

Depth Of Field is the only multi-pass effect that is provided with 3ds Max by default.

3. In the Multi-Pass Effect group, turn on Enable and choose Depth Of Field.

4. Use the Depth Of Field Parameters rollout or the Motion Blur Parameters rollout to set the values for the effect you chose.

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5. Activate a camera viewport.

6. In the Multi-Pass Effect group, click Preview to preview the effect in the camera viewport.

The Preview button has no effect if a camera viewport isn't active.

7. Render the scene or animation.

Parameters for Cameras Lenses and Coverage

Interface

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Lens

Sets the camera's focal length in millimeters. Use the Lens spinner to give the focal length a value other than the preset "stock" values on the buttons in the Stock Lenses group box.

Changing the Aperture Width value on the Render Setup dialog also changes the value in the Lens spinner field. This doesn't change the view through the camera, but it does change the relationship between the Lens value and the FOV value, as well as the aspect ratio of the camera's cone.

FOV Direction flyout

Lets you choose how to apply the field of view (FOV) value:

FOV

Determines how wide an area the camera views (field of view). When FOV Direction is horizontal (the default), the FOV parameter directly sets the arc of the camera's horizon, measured in degrees. You can also set the FOV Direction to measure FOV vertically or diagonally.

You can also adjust the field of view interactively in a camera viewport by using the FOV button.

Orthographic Projection

When on, the camera view looks just like a User view. When off, the camera view is the standard perspective-like view. While Orthographic Projection is in effect, the viewport navigation buttons behave as they ordinarily do, except for Perspective. Perspective function still moves the camera and changes the FOV, but the Orthographic Projection cancels the two out, so you don't see any change until you turn off Orthographic Projection.

Stock Lenses group

15mm, 20mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 135mm, 200mm

These preset values set the camera's focal length in millimeters.

Type

Changes the camera's type from a Target camera to a Free camera, and vice versa.

Note - When you switch from a target camera to a free camera, any animation applied to the camera's target is lost, because the target object goes away.

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Show Cone

Displays the cone (actually a pyramid) defined by a camera's field of view. The cone appears in the other viewports but does not appear in a camera viewport.

Show Horizon

Displays the horizon line. A dark gray line appears at the level of the horizon in the camera's viewport.

Environment Ranges group

Near Range and Far Range

Determine the near and far range limits for the atmospheric effects set on the Environment panel. Objects between the two limits fade between the Far % and Near % values.

Show

Displays rectangles within the camera's cone to show the Near and Far range settings.

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Top: Conceptual image of the Near and Far ranges.

Bottom: Result after rendering.

Clipping Planes group

Sets options to define clipping planes. In viewports, clipping planes are displayed as red rectangles (with diagonals) within the camera's cone.

Clip Manually

Turn on to define clipping planes.

When Clip Manually is off, geometry closer to the camera than 3 units is not displayed. To override this, use Clip Manually.

Near Clip and Far Clip

Sets near and far planes. Objects closer than the near clipping plane or farther than the far clipping plane are invisible to the camera. The limit of the Far Clip value is 10 to the power of 32.

With manual clipping on, the near clipping plane can be as close to the camera as 0.1 unit.

WarningExtremely large Far Clip values can produce floating-point error, which can cause Z-buffer problems in the viewport, such as objects appearing in front of other objects when they shouldn't.

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Conceptual image of Near and Far clipping planes.

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UNIT V

Creating Glows Objects

Glow Lens Effect

Rendering menu - Effects -Environment and Effects dialog Effects panel -Add -Add Effect dialog- Lens Effects -Choose Glow, and click the (>) arrow button.

Glow lets you add a glowing aura around any assigned object. For example, for an exploding particle system, adding a glow to the particles makes them seem as though they are brighter and hotter.

Adding glow to the light

Interface

Glow Element rollout, Parameters panel

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Name

Displays the name of the effect. With Lens Effects you can have many different effects under one instance of Lens Effects. To keep them in order, it is often necessary to name them to make sure that when you change parameters you are changing the parameters to the correct effect.

On

Applies the effect to the rendered image when activated.

Size

Determines the size of the effect.

Intensity

Controls the overll brightness and opacity of the individual effect. Higher values produce a bright, more opaque effect, and lower values produces a dim, transparent effect.

Glow Behind

Gives the effect the ability to be displayed behind objects in your scene.

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Occlusion

Determines how much the Lens Effects Scene Occlusion parameters will affect the particular effect. The value entered determines what percentage of occlusion set in the Lens Effects Globals panel will be applied.

Squeeze

Determines whether the effect will be squeezed. When activated the effect will be squeezed according to Lens Effects Globals under the Parameters panel in the Squeeze spinner.

Use Source Color

Mixes the source color of the light or object you are applying the effect to and the color or mapping set in the Radial Color or Circular Color parameters. A value of 0 uses only the values set in the Radial Color and Circular Color parameters while a value of 100 uses only the light or objects source color. Any value between 0 and 100 will render a mix between the source color and the effect’s color parameters.

Radial Color group

The Radial Color settings affect the inner and outer colors of the effect. You can set the color swatches to set the inner and outer colors of the Lens Effect. You can also use bitmaps such as Gradient or Cellular to determine the radial color.

Falloff Curve

Displays the Radial Falloff dialog in which you can set weights for the colors used in Radial Color. By manipulating the Falloff Curve you can make the effect use more of one color or map than the other. You can also use a map to determine the falloff when a light is used as a Lens Effects source.

Circular Color group

Circular Color determines the color of the effect by using four different color swatches that are matched to the four quadrants of the effect. A map can also be used to determine circular color.

Mix

Mixes colors set in Radial Color and colors set in Circular Color. Setting the spinner at 0 will only use values set in Radial Color while setting the spinner at 100 will only use values set in Circular Color. Any value between 0 and 100 will mix between the two values.

Falloff Curve

Displays the Circular Falloff dialog in which you can set weights for the colors used in Circular Color. By manipulating the Falloff Curve you can make the effect use more of one color or map than another. You can also use a map to determine the falloff when a light is used as a Lens Effects source.

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Radial Size group

Determines the radial size around the particular Lens Effect. Clicking the Size Curve button displays the Radial Size dialog. Using the Radial Size dialog you can create points on a line and move those points along a graph to determine where the effect should be placed around the light or object. You can also use a map to determine where the effect should be placed. A checkbox is used to activate the map.

Glow Element rollout, Options panel

Applying Video Post Effects

Video Post

Video Post, available from the Rendering menu, lets you combine (composite) and render output of various types of events, including the current scene, bitmap images, image-processing functions, and so on.

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A video post queue can include scene geometry, background images, effects, and masks for compositing them.

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The result of video post: a composited frame

Video Post is a self-contained, modeless dialog, similar in appearance to Track View. The edit window of the dialog shows when each event occurs in the finished video. Each event is associated with a track that has a range bar.

The Video Post dialog contains the following window components:

Video Post Queue: Shows the sequence of post-production events.

Video Post Status Bar/View Controls: Shows information about the active Video Post controls and lets you control the display of tracks in the event tracks area.

Video Post Toolbar: Provides Video Post commands.

Creating Contrast and Highlights

First, open 3ds MAX and create an object.

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Click Rendering menu >Effects.

Click "Add" button to open the "Add Effect" dialog. Select the "Brightness and Contrast" effect

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Here are the "Brightness and Contrast" parameters, you can do some changes. Brightness-----------------------Increases or decreases all color components (red, green, and blue). Range=0 to 1.0. Contras---------------------------Compresses or expands the latitude between maximum black and maximum white. Range=0 to 1.0. Ignore Background------------Applies the effect to everything in your 3ds Max scene except the background.

Click Rendering menu >Render to render the scene,.

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Glow on Objects

Procedures

Example: Make an object glow:

One of the most common things you'll want to do with the Glow filter is make an object glow. Here's how to do it in its simplest form.

1. In the Perspective viewport, create a Sphere with a radius of about 30.

2. Choose Rendering Video Post

3. Click Add Scene Event and set the view to Perspective. Click OK to close the Add Scene Event dialog.

4. Click Add Image Filter Event and choose Lens Effects Glow from the Filter Plug-In list.

Click OK to close the Add Image Filter Event dialog.

5. Click (Add Image Output Event) and then click Files. 6. Set the output file format to BMP Image File and enter a filename like MyGlow.

Click Save when you've set the name and format 7. Click OK to accept the default setting on the BMP configuration dialog.

Then click OK to close the Add Image Output Event dialog. 8. Right-click the Sphere to bring up the Quad Menus and select Properties. 9. Set the Object Channel in the G-Buffer group to 1 and click OK.

10. Click (Execute Sequence). 11. Click Render on the Execute Video Post dialog.

You'll see the a glowing sphere in the render window.

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Capturing Render Still and Animated Movies from Video Post

Create an animation from a series of still images: Another common process you'll use Video Post to achieve is taking a series of still images you've rendered and convert them to an animation. To accomplish this task, you need an IFL file.

1. Use the IFL Manager Utility to create an IFL file containing the sequentially number image files you want to process

2. Choose Rendering Video Post.

3. Click (Add Image Input Event), and then click Files. Choose the IFL file you created at step 1 and then click Open to close the selection dialog.

4. Click OK to close the Add Input Image Event dialog.

5. Click (Add Image Output Event), and then click Files. 6. Set the output file format to AVI File and enter a filename like MyAnimation.

Click Save when you've set the name and format 7. Select a codec from the Video Compression dialog and click OK.Then click OK to

close the Add Image Output Event dialog.

8. Click (Execute Sequence). 9. Click Render on the Execute Video Post dialog.

The final product is an animation.