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1430 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
2. Use the Reset Material Editor Slots or
Condense Material Editor Slots function.
3. Reset 3ds Max. When prompted to save
the scene, click No. Otherwise, you might
lose material definitions in the Material
Editor that were saved with the scene.
4. Open the Material Editor and choose
Utilities menu > Restore Material Editor
Slots.
The Material Editor status before step 2
is restored.
R eflectance a nd Tr ansmi ttance
Displ ay
Material Editor > Reflectance and Transmittance field s
(belowthesampleslots)
These fields show the reflectance and transmittance
oftheactivematerial.Boththeaveragevalueand
themaximumvalueareshown.
Note: These fields are not displayed unless you
turn on Display Reflectance & Transmittance
Information in the Advanced Lighting panel (page
3–836) of the Preferences dialog.
These fields can change according to the current
Show End Result setting (page 2–1446).When
Show End Result is off, the reflectance and
transmittance show the properties of the cur rent
element in the material hierarchy, not the
properties of the material overall.
The reflectance and transmittance va lues of a
mater ial are particularly important when you
are preparing a radiosity solution (page 3–51) to
obtain a physically accurate lighting simulation.
If a material’s reflectance or transmittance values
are not w hat your scene needs, you need to adjust
these values.
Note:
Materials and R adiosity
Upper left: Washed-out walls due to high reflectance.
Right: Better radiosity achieved by reducing the HSV Value (V)
of materia ls in the scene.
To get good radiosity results, keep these points in
mind as you design materials:
• Before you generate a radiosity sol ution, check
the reflectance value of al l materials in t he
scene, to make sure it is not too high. The
reflectance of a material determines how much
of the light energy it receives is subsequently
used in the radiosity calculation. Keep this
value within the range of the physical materials
youaresimulating. (Seethetableinthe
description of “Reflectance,” below.)
• Don’t be concerned if a material preview seems
too dark. For example, a white wall with the
maximum recommended reflectance of 80%
appearsgray.Thecolorbalancewillbeadjusted
correctly by the exposure control (page 3–293)
in the final rendering.
• Bitmaps used as diffuse textures have already
been i l luminated by the scanner, digital c amera,
or paint program in which you created them.
To bring them into t he proper reflectance range,
you might have to dim them by reducing the