9

1298 Chapter 15: Lights and Cameras
Render group
Note: If the renderer is not set to Default Scanline,
or if the Light Tracer is active, these controls are
disabled.
Cast Shadows—Causes the skylight to cast
shadows. Default=off.
Note: TheCastShadowstogglehasnoeffectwhen
using radiosity or the lig ht tracer.
Note: Skylight objects will not cast shadows in an
ActiveShaderendering(page3–17).
R ay s per Sa mple—The number of r ays used to
calculateskylightfallingonagivenpointinthe
scene. For animation, you should set this to a high
value to eliminate flickering. A va lue of around 30
should eliminate flickering.
Increasing the number of rays increases the quality of your
image. However, it also increases rendering time.
Ray Bias—The closest distance at which objects
can cast shadows on a given point in the scene.
Settingthisvalueto0cancausethepointtocast
shadows upon itself, and setting it to a large value
canpreventobjectsclosetoapointfromcasting
shadows on t he point.
mr Ar ea Omni Li ght
Create panel > Lights > mr Area Om n i bu tton > Area Light
Parameters rollout
When you render a scene using the mental ray
renderer (page 3 – 78) ,anareaomnilightemitslight
from a spherical or c ylindrical volume, rather than
from a point source. With the default scanline
renderer, the area omni light behaves like any other
standard omni light.
Note: In3dsMax,areaomnilightsarecreatedand
suppor ted by a MA XScript script. Only the mental
ray renderer uses the parameters on the Area Light
Parameters rollout. See Enhancements to Standard
Features (page 3–84) for more details.
Tip: Area lights take longer to render than point
lights. To create a quick test (or draft) rendering ,
youcanusetheArea/LinearLightsasPointLights
toggle in the Common Parameters rollout (page
3–27) of the Render Scene dialog to speed up your
rendering.
See also
mr Area Spotlight (page 2–1299)
Procedures
To create an area omni light:
1.
OntheCreatepanel,clickLights.
2. On the Object Type rollout, click mr Area
Omni.
3. Click in a v iewport.
4. Settheshapeandsizeofthearealightinthe
Area Light Parameters rollout.
Whileyouusethespinnerstoadjustthesize
of the area light, a gizmo (yellow by default)
appears in viewports to show the adjusted
size. T his gizmo disappears once you finish
adjusting the value.
Tip: YoucanuseRotatetoadjusttheorientation
of a cylindrical area omni light. However, no
gizmoappearswhileyourotatethelight.
To convert a standard 3ds M ax light to an area light:
1.
Selectoneormorelights.
2. Go to the Utilities panel.