Page 1125 - Kitab3DsMax

Working with
Advanced Lighting,
Light Tracing, and CHAPTER

Radiosity

f you were to walk into a dark room and reach for the light switch, you
would be confused if you found a separate switch that controlled the IN THIS CHAPTER
Iadvanced lighting. But in Max the advanced lighting controls are worth the
trouble. They enable you to take your lighting solution to the next level. Using advanced lighting
The advanced lighting controls in Max enable you to light scenes using two sepa- Understanding light tracing
rate global illumination techniques known as light tracing and radiosity. Both Setting local advanced lighting
solutions deal with the effect of light bouncing off objects and being reflected to
the environment. parameters
Light tracing is typically used for outdoor scenes where the light consists of a sin- Understanding radiosity
gle powerful light source at a far distance from the scene. Light tracing includes Setting global advanced
support for color bleeding between surfaces. Another aspect of light tracing is lighting parameters
that the shadows are softer.
Using the Advanced Lighting
Radiosity computes lighting solutions that are much more realistic than using
standard lights. As you learn to use radiosity, you quickly discover that it is a materials and the Lighting
complex system that takes lots of tweaking to get just right. Analysis Assistant

Selecting Advanced Lighting

You control the advanced lighting settings for the scene in the Advanced Lighting
panel, which is part of the Render Scene dialog box. You can access this panel by
selecting Rendering ➪ Light Tracer or Rendering ➪ Radiosity (or by pressing the
9 key). The Advanced Lighting panel includes a rollout with a single drop-down
list where you can select the lighting plug-in to use. The options are None, Light
Tracer, and Radiosity.

Note
The Light Tracer and Radiosity options aren’t available if the mental ray ren-
derer is enabled. n

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