2009

Increasing the number of rays increases the quality of your image. However, it also
increases rendering time.
Ray Bias The closest distance at which objects can cast shadows on a given
point in the scene. Setting this value to 0 can cause the point to cast shadows
upon itself, and setting it to a large value can prevent objects close to a point
from casting shadows on the point.
mr Area Omni Light
Create panel > Lights > mr Area Omni button > Area Light Parameters rollout
When you render a scene using the
mental ray renderer on page 6230, an area
omni light emits light from a spherical or cylindrical volume, rather than
from a point source. With the default scanline renderer, the area omni light
behaves like any other standard omni light.
NOTE In 3ds Max, area omni lights are created and supported by a MAXScript
script. Only the mental ray renderer uses the parameters on the Area Light
Parameters rollout. See Enhancements to Standard Features on page 6241 for more
details.
TIP Area lights take longer to render than point lights. To create a quick test (or
draft) rendering, you can use the Area/Linear Lights as Point Lights toggle in the
Common Parameters rollout on page 6121 of the Render Setup dialog to speed up
your rendering.
5070 | Chapter 18 Lights and Cameras