| Lighting
- Let's bring in some light to our
3D Studio MAX ( 3DS MAX ) scenes |
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I
have already mentioned
that what we do in 3D
Modeling and animation
has got very much similarity
with the real world situations.
When it comes to lighting,
the same rule applies.
3D Studio MAX ( 3DS MAX
) provides illumination
of a scene and it's objects
through lights, as it
is in the real world.
Different types of lights
we have at our disposal
in 3D Studio MAX ( 3ds
max ). In this lesson
we are going to have the
foundation on lighting. |
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| Setting
up the scene for lighting in 3D
Studio MAX ( 3ds max ) - Tutorial
/ Lesson |
So
far in this tutorial, we had been
dealing with our simple teapot
alone. Here lets create a small
base for the teapot in 3D Studio
MAX ( 3ds max ) and put a material
to it. If you just want to directly
jump to lighting, then you can
download the scene that we are
going to create directly here
and use it. But i recommend doing
the scene yourself.
We start from
our single teapot scene. If it
is not currently with you, then
download it here
(chap3-mat-edit.max) . Now
that the file is opened in 3D
Studio MAX ( 3DS MAX ), let's
create a box below the teapot
to act as a base. We need a base
because we need a place to cast
our shadows of lighting. ok? From
the Create panel
 ,
within 'Geometry'
with Standard primitives
active, choose Box
to create a box. Click and drag
in the top viewport
until you created a box large
enough to act as the teapot's
base. Refer back to Chapter-1
if you don't remember the basics
of creating a box. The dimensions
do not actually matter for now
since we are going to modify the
values in the Modify Panel.
Now that we have
created the box in 3D Studio MAX
( 3ds max ), let's edit its size
in the Modify Panel. Click on
the Modify Panel 
tab and Enter the following values.
(Make sure that the Box you created
is the currently selected object
in the viewport). Length=150,
Width=150, Height= -15 . Now the
viewports should look like this |
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If
the box is overlapped with the
teapot or the positioning is not
right, select the box and use
the move tool 
to move it to the position shown
in the figure shown above.
Now let's assign
a texture to the box. Make sure
that the box is the currently
selected object. Click on the
Material Editor 
icon to open it. We have already
used the first slot in the Material
Editor with the Chrome texture
for our teapot. If we assign another
texture to that slot, our teapot
will lose its chrome texture.
Instead we can use the second
slot in the Material Editor. Click
on the second slot to select it
and click on Get Material
button. Choose Mtl_Library
in the 'Browse From'
category in the Material Browser
window. Within the list of available
materials, double click on the
'Bricks_Bricks_2' to
select it. It is a nice brick
texture. Now the second slot should
contain the brick material. With
the box selected in the scene,
and second slot selected in the
Material Editor, click on Assign
Material to Selection 
button in the Material
Editor. This assigns the brick
texture to our box object in 3D
Studio MAX ( 3ds max ). |
We
also need to remove the
reddish tint that we assigned
earlier in this tutorial
to the teapot in 3D Studio
MAX ( 3ds max ). So click
on the first slot in the
Material Editor (Refletcion_Chrome)
and click on the Diffuse
color box (now red in color)
to open up the color chooser.
Choose a pure white color
in the color chooser and
click close. (Please take
note that the Diffuse color
choosing is at the top of
the material properties
and you may need to pan
the material editor's property
page a bit, by click-dragging).
Now we are ready for a sample
render in 3D Studio MAX
( 3ds max ). Close the Material
Editor window if it is open.
Click on an empty space
within Perspective viewport
to select it and press Shift+Q
to perform a quick render
(you may also bring up the
Render dialog and render
from there). The rendered
result should look like
this. |
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This
was the rendering result in 3D
Studio MAX ( 3ds max ) without
any lighting applied. The scene
is by default illuminated by three
hidden lights that 3D Studio MAX
( 3DS MAX ) defines. It gives
just a generic lighting, which
may not always please our needs.
Save the scene under the name
'level3-lighting.max'.
The scene rendered looks just
ok. We will add lighting effects
to make it superb in
the next page>> of the
tutorial |
