2008

solution, you can render a two-dimensional view of it. In your 3ds Max scene,
ray-tracing adds effects in addition to those that radiosity provides: lights can
provide ray-traced shadows, and materials can provide ray-traced reflections
and refractions. The rendered scene combines both techniques, and appears
more realistic than either technique alone could provide.
By integrating ray-tracing and radiosity, 3ds Max offers a full range of
visualization possibilities, from fast, interactive lighting studies to images of
exceptional quality and realism.
See also:
■
How Radiosity Works in 3ds Max on page 5986
■ Radiosity on page 5989
■ Animation with Radiosity on page 5994
■ Radiosity Controls on page 5995
■ Lighting Analysis on page 6028
■ Radiosity Preferences on page 7578
■ Advanced Lighting Override Material on page 5572
How Radiosity Works in 3ds Max
This is an overview of how radiosity works in 3ds Max:
1 Object by object, 3ds Max loads a copy of the scene into the radiosity
engine.
2 3ds Max subdivides each object according to the Global Subdivision
Settings in the Radiosity Meshing Parameters rollout, or according to the
object's individual object properties , if those differ from the global
settings.
3 3ds Max emits a certain amount of rays, based on the average scene
reflectance and number of polygons. The brightest light source will have
more rays to emit than the weakest light source.
4 These rays bounce around randomly in the scene and deposit energy on
the faces.
5986 | Chapter 18 Rendering