2008

Choice of a Renderer
Three renderers are provided with 3ds Max. Additional renderers might be
available as third-party plug-in components. The renderers provided with 3ds
Max are:
■
Default scanline renderer on page 5949
The scanline renderer is active by default. It renders the scene in a series
of horizontal lines.
Global illumination options available for the scanline renderer include
light tracing on page 5963 and radiosity on page 5976 .
The scanline renderer can also
render to textures on page 6169 (“bake”
textures), which is especially useful when preparing scenes for game
engines.
■ mental ray renderer on page 6039
The mental ray renderer created by mental images is also available. It
renders the scene in a series of square “buckets.”
The mental ray renderer provides its own method of global illumination,
and can also generate caustic lighting effects.
In the Material Editor, a variety of
mental ray shaders on page 5801 provide
effects that only the mental ray renderer can display.
■
VUE file renderer on page 6143
The VUE file renderer is a special-purpose renderer that generates an ASCII
text description of the scene. A view file can include multiple frames, and
specify transforms, lighting, and changes of view.
Production and ActiveShade Renderers
In 3ds Max, there are two different types of renderings. One, called
“Production” rendering, is active by default, and is typically the one you use
for finished renderings. Production renderings can use any of the three
aforementioned renderers. The second type of rendering is called
ActiveShade
on page 5910 . An ActiveShade rendering uses the default scanline renderer to
create a preview rendering that can help you see the effects of changing
lighting or materials; the rendering interactively updates as you change your
scene. ActiveShade renderings are, in general, less precise than production
renderings.
Another advantage of production renderings is that you can use different
renderers, such as the mental ray or VUE file renderer.
5880 | Chapter 18 Rendering