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the materials editor by assigning the material one of the eight Material Effects
channels that are available. See
G-Buffer on page 7795 . This parameter can be
animated.
The highlights are then only applied to areas of the geometry where that
particular ID is present.
NOTE In many instances, you may want to apply different highlight settings to
different pieces of geometry or ID's. To accomplish this, add additional Lens Effects
Highlight entries to the Video Post queue. Then set each different Highlight entry
to effect a different Effect or Object ID and proceed.
Unclamped An unclamped color is brighter than pure white (255,255,255).
3ds Max keeps track of these "hot" areas which tend to show up when your
scene contains bright metallic highlights or explosions. This spinner lets you
determine the lowest pixel value that is highlighted. Pure white has a pixel
value of 1. When this spinner is set to 1, any pixels with a value above 255
will be glowed. You can invert this value by clicking the I button to the right
of the spinner. This parameter can be animated.
Surf Norm Highlights part of an object, based on the angle of the surface
normal to the camera. A value of 0 is coplanar, or parallel to the screen. A
value of 90 is normal, or perpendicular to the screen. If you set Surf Norm to
45, only surfaces with normal angles greater than 45 degrees will be glowed.
You can invert this value by clicking the I button to the right of the spinner.
This parameter can be animated.
Mask Highlights the mask channel of an image. The spinner value represents
the level of grayscale present in a Mask. When this is set, any part of the Mask
images larger than the set value will be glowed in the final image. You can
invert this value by clicking the I button to the right of the spinner. This
parameter can be animated. Range = 0 to 255.
Alpha Highlights the alpha channel of an image. The transparency of an
alpha channel is interpreted opposite that of the Mask channel. Values range
from 0 to 255. This parameter can be inverted by clicking the I button to the
right of the spinner, and can also be animated.
Z Buffer Hi and Lo Highlights objects based on their distance (Z-Buffer
distance) from the camera. The Hi value is the maximum distance and the Lo
value is the minimum. Any objects between these two Z-Buffer distances will
be highlighted. These parameters can be animated.
6690 | Chapter 20 Video Post