8

1512 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
Fr o m Fil e —
When on, you can specify the bitmaps
to use.
When From File is active, the controls in the
Render Cubic Map Files group are also available.
You can generate the six cubic reflection maps
automatically and save them to files, where you
can load them with the From Files controls.
Size—SetsthesizeoftheReflect/Refractmaps.
Thedefaultvalueof100producesdistinctimages.
Lower values lose progressively more detail.
Use Envi ronment Ma p—When off, environment
maps are ignored by Reflect/Refract map during
rendering. It’s useful to tur n this off when you
have mir rors in the scene and you’re rotoscoping
against a flat screen environment map. A screen
environment map does not exist in 3D space the
way the other environment-map types do, and will
not render properly.
Blur group
Apply—Turns on filtering to blur the maps.
Blur Offset—Affects the sharpness or blurriness of
the map without regard to its distance from the
object. Use Blur Offset when you want to soften or
defocus the details in a map to achieve the effect
of a blurred image.
Blur—Affects the sharpness or blurriness of the
generated map based on its distance from the
object. The farther away the map is, the greater
the blurring. Blur is primari ly used to avoid
aliasing (page 3–1001) .It’sagoodideatousea
smallamountofblurringforallmapsinorderto
avoid the s cintillation or aliasing that can occur
when pixel details are reduced off in the distance.
Default=1.
Atmosphere Ra nge s group
If your scene contains environment a l
Fog (page
3–278)
,thecubicmapsmusthavenearandfar
range settings to properly render the fog from the
point of vie w of the object assigned the material.
TheNearandFarspinnersinthisgroupletyou
specify a fog range relative to the object.
Near —Sets the near range for fog.
Far—Sets the f ar range for fog.
Get From Camera—Uses the Near and Far
atmosphere range settings of a camera in the scene.
Click this option, and then select the camera.
These values aren’t dynamically linked to the
camera object. T hey are simply copied from the
camera’s range values at the t ime you click the
camera. If the camera’s range values later change,
the map’s Near and Far values remain the sa me.
Automatic group
This controls are active only when Automatic is
the active source for the Reflect/Refract maps.
First Frame O n ly—Tells the renderer to create
automatic maps only on the first frame.
Ever y Nth Frame—Tells the renderer to create
animated auto maps based on the
framerate(page
3–1038)
set by the spinner.
From File group
These controls are active when From File is active
as the Reflect/Refract source. Here you assign the
six bitmaps to be used as the cubic maps.
Up/Down/Left/Right/Front/Back—Assigns one
of the six cubic maps. If the map is one of a set of
six with the correct file name, all six are loaded.
Ifthemapdoesn’tfollowfilenamingconventions,
or you assign it to a button of a different position
(_UP to Front, for example), only t hat map is
assigned. You must assign the others manually.
Reload—Reloads the assig ned maps and updates
thesampleslot.