Page 1143 - Kitab3DsMax

Using Atmospheric
and Render Effects

n the real world, an environment of some kind surrounds all objects. The CHAPTER
environment does much to set the ambiance of the scene. For example, an IN THIS CHAPTER
Ianimation set at night in the woods has a very different environment than
one set at the horse races during the middle of the day. Max includes dialog Using Exposure Controls
boxes for setting the color, background images, and lighting environment; these Using Atmospheric Apparatus
features can help define your scene. gizmos to position
This chapter covers Exposure Controls, atmospheric effects, including the likes of atmospheric effects
clouds, fog, and fire. These effects can be seen only when the scene is rendered.
Using the Fire effect
Max also has a class of effects that you can interactively render to the Rendered
Frame window without using any post-production features, such as the Video Working with fog
Post dialog box. These effects are called render effects. Render effects can save you Adding render effects
lots of time that you would normally spend rendering an image, touching it up,
and repeating the process again and again. Using the Lens Effects to add
glows, rays, and streaks

Using Exposure Controls Understanding the other types
of render effects
The Exposure Control rollout of the Environment panel lets you control output
levels and color rendering ranges. You can access the Environment panel from
the Rendering ➪ Environment menu command or by pressing the 8 key.
Controlling the exposure of film is a common procedure when working with film
and can result in a different look for your scene. Enabling the Exposure Controls
can add dynamic range to your rendered images that is more comparable to what
the eyes actually see. If you’ve worked with a Histogram in Photoshop, then
you’ll understand the impact that the Exposure Controls can have. The default
selection is Automatic Exposure Control.
The Active option lets you turn this feature on and off. The Process Background
and Environment Maps option causes the exposure settings to affect the back-
ground and environment images. When this option is disabled, only the scene
objects are affected by the exposure control settings. The Exposure Control

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