2008

Glossary
This section of the Help system contains explanations of concepts and terms
used in the reference, arranged alphabetically.
2-Sided (Double Sided)
Rendering of a box with a double-sided material, and same box with a single-sided
material
In 3ds Max, faces are one-sided. The front is the side with the surface
normal
on page 7863 . The back side of the face is invisible to the Renderer; meaning
the face appears to be missing when viewed from the back. Objects are usually
created with the surface normals facing outward, but it is possible to create
objects with the faces flipped or to import complex geometry in which the
face normals are not properly unified.
There are two ways to render both sides of a face. Either turn on the Force
Two Sided option in the Render dialog, or apply a two-sided material to the
geometry.
Usually, you want two sided rendering turned off since it slows rendering
time. However, if you want to render the inside as well as the outside of objects,
or if you've imported complex geometry (for example, from AutoCAD) in
which the face normals are not properly unified, you can use one of the
Glossary | 7697