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| Tutorial 6. Lighting Your Scene and Using Materials. |
As with most things it's not that simple, not if we want it to look good too.
First we need to decide how we want to light the scene, is it outdoors, indoors,
studio, bright, dark, natural or artificial light to name but a few things to
consider. Once we know this we can add the appropriate light to the scene.
For this example we are indoors with a subtle incandescent light so an 'mr Area
Omni' light (which is non-directional) will do to start with. I choose to use Adv.
Ray Traced shadows too, you can experiment with these to see how they differ.
Why an 'mr Area Omni'?
Basically because anything labelled 'mr' is optimized to work better with the
'mental ray' renderer, and quicker too. You can of course use the standard Max
lights without any problems but the dedicated lights (and materials for that
matter) will have extra options not available to the standard Max lights. It just
makes sense to use 'mr' lights with 'mr' renderer.
The next consideration is what do we want this light to do? Well, light the scene
obviously but the placing of the light plays just as big a part as anything else.
Moving the light further away from the object will affect the shape and size of
any shadows for example. Distance from the object will also change the
intensity of the light, further away will reduce light output (unless 'no decay' is
selected, then the light output will be constant regardless of distance.)
Other things to consider are: Is the object reflective? Will the object have a dark
material applied, which will lessen the effect of any light falling on it. Will the
object 'bounce' light off of it? Will any other object 'bounce' light onto it? Does it
have any transparency that will create 'caustics'. Does the object move? All
these and more need to be given at least some thought when positioning lights.
In our example the material applied to the objects (speakers) will be fairly light in
colour, glossy, and slightly reflective. The objects have no transparency, do not
move, and may 'bounce' light. It therefore makes sense to place the light in front
of and above the object. This will both illuminate it and possibly reflect off of it,
until we render the scene it's all a bit 'hit and miss' for now.
So lets place one 'mr Area Omni' in front of and above the objects...........
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