Lighting is one of the most important aspects
in 3D Studio Max. This tutorial will tell
you the basics of lighting and how it affects
your scene. This first picture is of a simple
face rendered with one spot light facing it.
There is no shadow and it looks pretty flat.
If you click on the spot light and go to
the shadow section in general Parameters you
can turn a shadow on. That picture has a shadow
map, which is basically like a bitmap shadow.
You can change it to be a raytraced shadow
which makes the shadow hard and crisp. If
you choose advanced raytraced shadow you can
change the bias of the shadow and make it
blurry and soft. I do not advise using area
shadows.
Using different lights will increase the
effect of your picture. The first light is
the omni light, which casts light in every
direction. The second light is a spot light
that casts light in one direction and is constantly
expanding. The last light is a direct light
which is a beam of light that is constant
in every direction.
omnilight from below
Direct light from the side
The next section is how to do outdoor lighting
and how to use the sunlight tool. This next
picture is of a simple outdoor city.
I used a direct light with a raytraced shadow.
When you are outside on a bright sunny day
the shadows are crisp, but sunlight still
bounces around so you can see. So I’ll
create a skylight over the city. To activate
skylights you will have to go into the rendering
menu and go to advanced lighting. And select
light tracer.
Notice how you can still tell that there
is light and it looks like its daytime. To
have an overcast day, get rid of the direct
light and just have the skylight.
There are no crisp shadows, so it looks
like an overcast day.
For indoor lighting you will need to play
with plenty of omni lights. What I did for
this picture was have a direct shine directly
into the room. Then I placed an omni light
at the base where the direct light shines.
I set the lights multiplier to about .5ish,
and then I set it to an ambient only. By scrolling
down to the advanced effects rollout and clicking
ambient only. I also made the near and far
attenuation to values that make sure the light
doesn’t travel too far when its cast.
I then threw in an omni light right above
that and make it’s a normal one with
a multiplier of .2 and a larger attenuation.
I also gave it a shadow map. I also copied
that again and placed it near the ceiling
and copied it 6 times into a circle and made
them have .05 multiplier, shadow map, and
very small far and near attenuation.
