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mr Area Spotlight 1299
3.
On the Utilities rollout, click MAXScript.
The MAXScr ipt rollout is displayed.
4. On the MAX Script rollout, choose “Conve rt To
mr Area Lights” from the Utilit ies drop-down
list.
The “Convert To mr Area Lights ” rollout is
displayed.
5. On the “Convert To mr Area Lights” rollout,
click Convert Selected Lights. A MAXScript
alertisdisplayed,thatsays"DeleteOldLights?"
Click Yes to delete the original light and replace
itwiththearealight. ClickNotoleavethe
orig inal light i n place. If you click No there are
now two lights in the scene: the original light,
and the area light b ased on it.
6. Click Close to dismiss the “Convert To mr Area
Lights” and MAXScript rollouts.
Inter face
On—Turns the area light on and off. When On
is on, the mental ray renderer uses the light to
illuminate the scene. When On is off, the mental
ray renderer doesn’t use the light. Default=on.
Show I con in R enderer —When on, the mental
ray renderer renders a dark shape at the light’s
location.Whenoff,thearealightdoesn’trender.
Default=off.
Ty pe—Changes the shape of the area light. The
choices are Sphere, for a spherical volume,
and Cylinder, for a cylindrical volume.
Default=Sphere.
Tip: You can use Rotate to adjust the orientation of
a cylindric al area om ni light. However, no gizmo
appears while you rotate the light.
Radius—Sets the radius of the sphere or c ylinder,
in 3ds Max units. Default=20.0.
Height—Available only when Cylinder is t he active
type of area light. Sets the height of the c ylinder,
in 3ds Max units. Default=20.0.
As you use these spinners to adjust the size of the
area light, a gizmo appears in viewports to show
the adjusted size. This gizmo disappears once you
finish adjusting the value.
Samples group
UandV—Adjust the quality of shadows cast by
the area light. These values specify how many
samplestotakewithinthelight’sarea. Higher
values can improve rendering quality at a cost of
rendering time. For a spherical light, U specifies
thenumberofsubdivisionsalongtheradius,and
V specifies the number of angular subdivisions.
For a cylindrical light, U specifies the number
of sampled subdivisions along the height, and
V specifies the number of angular subdivisions.
Default=5 for both U and V.
mr Area Spotlight
Create panel > Lights > mr Area S pot button > Area Light
Parameters rollout
When you render a scene using the mental ray
renderer (page 3–78), an area spotlight emits light
from a rectangular or disc-shaped area, rather
than from a point source. With the defa ult scanline
renderer, the area spotlight behaves like any other
standard spotlight.