2009

You can also add lights to emphasize secondary subjects in a scene. In stage
terminology, these lights are known as specials. Special lights are usually
brighter than the fill light but less bright than the main key light.
To design using physically based energy values, distributions, and color
temperature, you can create photometric lights on page 5005.
Ambient Light
Left: No ambient light
Middle: Default ambient light
Right: User-adjusted ambient light
Ambient light in 3ds Max simulates the general illumination from light
reflecting off diffuse surfaces. Ambient settings determine the illumination
level of surfaces in shadow, or those not receiving direct illumination from
light sources. The Ambient level on the Environment dialog establishes the
scene’s basic illumination level before any light sources are taken into account,
and is the dimmest any portion of the scene can ever become.
Ambient light is most often used for exterior scenes, when the sky’s broad
lighting produces an even distribution of reflected light to surfaces not in
direct sun. A common technique for deepening the shadows is to tint the
ambient light color to be the complement of the scene’s key light.
Unlike the outside, interior scenes typically have numerous lights, and a
general ambient light level is not ideal for simulating the diffuse reflection of
local light sources. For interiors, it’s common to set the scene’s environment
ambient level to black, and use lights that effect ambient only to simulate the
regional areas of diffuse reflection.
You set the scene’s ambient light using the Environment And Effects dialog
>
Environment panel on page 6689. You set a light to affect only ambient
illumination with its
Advanced Effects rollout on page 5108 > Ambient Only
check box.
Using Lights | 4989