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Part IV: Materials, Cameras, and Lighting Basics

Within the Material Editor are several different color swatches that control different aspects of the object’s
color. The following list describes the types of color swatches that are available for various materials:
l Ambient: Defines an overall background lighting that affects all objects in the scene, including
the color of the object when it is in the shadows. This color is locked to the Diffuse color by
default so that they are changed together.
l Diffuse: The surface color of the object in normal, full, white light. The normal color of an object
is typically defined by its Diffuse color.
l Specular: The color of the highlights where the light is focused on the surface of a shiny material.
l Self-Illumination: The color that the object glows from within. This color takes over any shad-
ows on the object.
l Filter: The transmitted color caused by light shining through a transparent object.
l Reflect: The color reflected by a raytrace material to other objects in the scene.
l Luminosity: Causes an object to glow with the defined color. It is similar to Self-Illumination
color but can be independent of the Diffuse color.

Note
Standard materials don’t have Reflectivity and Luminosity color swatches, but these swatches are part of the ray-
trace material. n
If you ask someone the color of an object, he or she would respond by identifying the Diffuse color, but all
these properties play an important part in bringing a sense of realism to the material. Try applying very dif-
ferent, bright materials to each of these color swatches and notice the results. This gives a sense of the con-
tribution of each color.

Tip
For realistic materials, your choice of colors depends greatly on the scene lights. Indoor lights have a result differ-
ent from an outdoor light like the sun. You can simulate objects in direct sunlight by giving their Specular color a
yellow tint and their Ambient color a complementary, dark, almost black or purple color. For indoor objects,
make the Specular color bright white and use an Ambient color that is the same as the Diffuse color, only much
darker. Another option is to change the light colors instead of changing the specular colors. n
Opacity and transparency

Opaque objects are objects that you cannot see through, such as rocks and trees. Transparent objects, on
the other hand, are objects that you can see through, such as glass and clear plastic. Max’s materials include
several controls for adjusting these properties, including Opacity and several Transparency controls.
Opacity is the amount that an object refuses to allow light to pass through it. It is the opposite of transpar-
ency and is typically measured as a percentage. An object with 0 percent opacity is completely transparent,
and an object with 100 percent opacity doesn’t let any light through.
Transparency is the amount of light that is allowed to pass through an object. Because this is the opposite of
opacity, transparency can be defined by the opacity value. Several options enable you to control transpar-
ency, including Falloff, Amount, and Type. These options are discussed later in this chapter.

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