usInG lIGhtInG analYsIs | 751 33. Click the Render Production button on the Main Toolbar. After the rendering has processed, the Rendered Frame Window is updated with the results from the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay, as shown in Figure 14.83. Another win- dow, Lighting Analysis Data, also pops up; however, its content is not important. 34. Save your scene as MyMentalRayLightingA.max. Figure 14.82 The Lighting Anal- ysis Image Over- lay render effect options Figure 14.83 The Rendered Frame Window with the Lighting Analysis image overlay 752 | CHAPTER 14 adVanCed renderInG usInG Mental raY The values provided by the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay or the Light Meter helper objects will enable the architect or lighting designer to determine if the combination of natural and arti- ficial lighting is adequate for the type of environment being studied, or if additional fixtures or design changes are necessary. This was a very introductory look at the lighting-analysis tools in 3ds Max Design 2011. There are a number of very informative white papers on the Autodesk website that go into much greater detail about configuring and using the 3ds Max Design lighting analysis features. If you are interested in lighting analysis, you should study those resources thoroughly. The Bottom Line Apply final gathering Final gathering is an optional step in calculating global illumination that can reduce the appearance of unwanted variances or rendering artifacts in the lighting. Master It Apply final gathering to an exterior view of the Savoye project from Chapter 14, “Advanced Rendering with mental ray.” Create a contour rendering Contour renderings display dark strokes along the contours of a scene’s objects. This is an effect caused by using the mental ray Contour shaders and the parameters in the Camera Effects rollout. Master It Using the same techniques covered in this chapter, create a contour rendering of the interior of a condo scene from Chapter 6, “Creating AEC Objects.” Use the multi/sub-map material Creating a large number of unique maps to apply to repeti- tive objects in a scene to add a sense of variation or randomness can take a lot of effort. The Multi/Sub-Map rollout allows you to create one material with a number of internal variations that you can apply to objects in your scene to achieve that sense of natural randomness. Master It Create a 25 × 25 array of 1´ radius spheres, offset 3´ from each other, with a single material that will randomly change the color of the spheres through the use of the mental ray Multi/Sub-Map type of map. Use Skylight global illumination Global illumination can enhance the appeal of a scene by simulating bounced light. This can include the color bleeding effect where color is trans- ferred from one surface to another. Master It Add global illumination to an exterior shot of the Savoye scene from Chapter 8. Use mr Proxy objects Using mental ray Proxy objects in scenes that require a considerable number of identical high-poly objects can save you significant file size, system resources, and render time. Master It Create and render a 25 × 50 array of mr Proxy teapots using an eight-segment teapot as the source object. Use IES files Using Photometric Web distribution files for your photometric lights can greatly increase the realism and accuracy of your final rendered images. Master It Using the MyMentalRayIESLighting.max file you saved near the end of the chapter, change the light distribution type of PhotometricLight001 from Uniform Diffuse to Photometric Web, and select the cooper.ies file. Then render the scene. Use lighting analysis Proper accommodation of naturally available light can greatly benefit a building’s design. Using 3ds Max Design 2011’s lighting-analysis tools can help architects and lighting designers successfully study how lighting affects a project. Master It Using the MyMentalRayLightingA.max file you saved in the last exercise, cre- ate a Light Meter helper object on top of the coffee table, calculate the light meter, and render the scene, displaying the values of the Light Meter helper on the render. Chapter 15 Finishing It Off: Atmosphere, Effects, and Compositing 3ds Max Design 2011 has several features for adding the appearance of objects in your scene without actually adding any geometry. These features fall into one of two categories: atmospheric effects and rendering effects. Atmospheric effects are effects that appear to show particulate mat- ter in the air (such as mist, smoke, or even fire). Rendering effects change the appearance of a rendered scene by adding objects such as glows and starbursts, but they can also be used to add hair or fur to an object in the scene. The Hair and Fur effect can be used to simulate grass in a scene. You can also render images simulating such real-world camera effects as glare from extremely bright reflections or light sources and the depth of field created by adjusting the aperture of a camera lens. Included with 3ds Max 2011 is Autodesk Composite, a node-based compositing application that is based on the Autodesk Toxik compositor. Compositing is the process of layering image elements on top of each other and adjusting how they are blended together to create your final image. Autodesk Composite features a comprehensive toolkit to maximize your creativity, including keying, color correction, motion tracking, paint features, full HDR support, depth-of- field effects, all at resolutions up to 4K film resolution. This chapter cannot go into all the fea- tures of Autodesk Composite, but it will give you an idea how you can work with your images, and then you can use the Composite help and learning resources. In this chapter, you’ll learn to: Add an atmospheric effect •u Add a grass effect using Hair and Fur•u Add the Glare effect to a rendering•u Use DOF/Bokeh•u Create stereo-pair images•u Composite the stereo pair into an anaglyph image•u Adding Atmospheric Effects When a scene is rendered in 3ds Max, the renderer calculates, among other things, the effect of the scene’s lights on the surfaces of the geometry. By default, the scene is rendered as if the air surrounding the objects is clear and free of any particulates. In many cases, this is the correct assumption, and you wouldn’t want to add pollution, fog, or airborne particles to the scene. Yet 754 | CHAPTER 15 FInIshInG It oFF: atMosPhere, eFFeCts, and CoMPosItInG sometimes, adding atmosphere effects is necessary to make the scene look more realistic, which is particularly true when dealing with lighting, fog, and fire. 3ds Max has a set of features, called atmospheres, that can add the appearance of airborne par- ticles. Real-world lights cast light into their surrounding environment, and you can see the effect of the lights as both direct and indirect illumination, but you can’t see the actual light rays or light cone. When the light cone appears to be visible, such as a spotlight at a movie premier or a car’s headlights on a foggy road, what you’re actually seeing is the light rays diffusing after hit- ting airborne particles such as dust, smog, or water vapor. The Volume Light atmosphere adds the light diffusion effect to selected lights in a scene. Atmospheric effects are also helpful when adding fog to a scene, which can give the impres- sion of desolation, eeriness, or cold, wet weather conditions. In reality, fog is comprised of an immeasurable number of minute particles that capture and diffuse light rays. This would be dif- ficult to calculate and display accurately. You can represent fog in your scenes, including density changes and color variations, using the Fog atmosphere. As you can guess, the Fire effect renders as a ball or tendril type of combusting materials that can change color with distance from the fire’s center. Be aware that the Fire atmosphere, like Fog and Volume Light, appears only in rendered scenes and not in the viewports. Also note the Fire effect does not contribute any illumination to the scene. These effects are designed to work with the scanline renderer, and now that the default ren- derer is mental ray, you may find that the scanline effects don’t always work correctly. Volume Light in particular are best reserved for the scanline renderer. To create volume lights in men- tal ray, you can use a specialized shader called the Parti Volume Photon shader, placed on the Volume channel of the mental ray Camera Shaders group. The use of that shader is outside the scope of this book. Creating a Volume Light There are many times when you can use a Volume light. Any time a light beam is visible as an object in a scene, this is a chance to use a volume light. Whether it’s dappled light streaming through the leaves in a forest, rays casting through a window, or even car headlights or parking lot streetlamps at night, all of these are a good use of volume lights. In the following exercise, you’ll add the Volume Light atmosphere to existing lights in a 3ds Max scene. After adding the atmosphere in the Environment and Effects dialog box, you pick the lights that will display the effect and then render the scene. 1. Open Savoye15_A.max. This file is similar to the Savoye files you worked with in other chapters, but with a darker environment and downward-facing spotlights added to the overhang. File Load: Gamma Settings If you get a File Load: Gamma and LUT warning when you open this file, choose Adopt the File’s Gamma and LUT settings. 2. If it is not already the active viewport, right-click the Camera01 viewport, and then ren- der the scene. The Rendered Frame Window should look like Figure 15.1 and show the light pools beneath each spotlight. addInG atMosPherIC eFFeCts | 755 Render Camera or Perspective Viewports The result of atmospheric effects can be seen only in rendered Camera or Perspective viewports and not in rendered axonometric or orthographic viewports. 3. Press the 8 shortcut key, or choose Rendering  Environment to open the Environment tab of the Environment and Effects dialog box—or you can press the Environments And Effects button in the Rendered Frame Window. 4. In the Atmosphere rollout, click the Add button to open the Add Atmospheric Effect dia- log box, as shown in Figure 15.2. 5. Click the Volume Light option and then click OK. Volume Light is added to the Effects field in the Atmosphere rollout. Figure 15.1 The first rendering of the scene Figure 15.2 The Add Atmo- spheric Effect dialog box 756 | CHAPTER 15 FInIshInG It oFF: atMosPhere, eFFeCts, and CoMPosItInG 6. In the Lights section of the Volume Light Parameters rollout, click the Pick Light button. At this point, you could select each light in the scene by picking them in the viewports. Some of the lights aren’t easily selected in the viewports, so you’ll need to use the Pick Object dialog box. 7. Click the Select by Name button or press the H key to open the Pick Object dialog box shown in Figure 15.3. Because only lights can be assigned to the Volume Light atmo- sphere, only lights appear in the list. 8. Highlight all the lights with names that begin with TPhotometricLight and then click Pick. The names of all the selected lights can be displayed by expanding the drop-down list in the Lights area. 9. Render the scene again (see Figure 15.4). This time the light cone can be seen from the source half the distance to the ground. Figure 15.3 The Pick Object dialog box used to select lights Figure 15.4 The rendered scene after adding the Volume Light effect addInG atMosPherIC eFFeCts | 757 Photometric Volume Lights on 64-Bit Systems If you are using photometric lights with the Volume Light Atmospheric effect in the scanline ren- derer on a 64-bit system, be aware that there are reports of render artifacts or errors and that the volumetric effects don’t properly respond to the Noise parameters. We hope this will soon be rem- edied with a hot fix or a service pack. If you run into this error or any other errors, please submit a defect report against 3ds Max Design 2011 to Autodesk. Adjusting the Volume Light Parameters Like most features in 3ds Max 2011, there are many parameters that can be adjusted to tweak the appearance of the Volume Light effect. The most notable are those that modify the effect’s den- sity and color. You can change the color of the volume of light to inject emotion into a scene—for example, yellow for warmth or blue for moonlight. Use density to make the effect more visible if needed. Here you will experiment with each of those parameters: 1. In the Volume area of the Volume Light Parameters rollout, click the Fog Color swatch to open the Color Selector dialog box. 2. Select a pale yellow color (255,255,230 works well) and then click OK to close the Color Selector. 3. Render the scene again. This time the hue of the lights’ cones is shifted toward yellow. Not All Instances Are Affected All the lights selected in this exercise are instances; therefore, adjusting one light’s parameters adjusts that parameter for all lights. However, just because an instance is a volume light, not all the instances are volume lights, so each light must be added to the Volume Light effect. 4. Increase the Density value to 8 to increase the amount of light captured by the effect. Make sure the Exponential option is deselected and then render the scene again. With Exponential checked, the light’s density falls off exponentially with distance rather than linearly, as it does when the option is off. Your Rendered Frame Window (RFW) should look similar to Figure 15.5. Figure 15.5 The scene after adjusting the Density parameter 758 | CHAPTER 15 FInIshInG It oFF: atMosPhere, eFFeCts, and CoMPosItInG The Exponential check box is critical to use if you intend to render transparent objects within the Volume Light or Volume Fog. You can adjust the Volume Light’s parameters further as you want. One nice tip to know is that if you put a bitmap in the Projector Map channel, you will get the bitmap throughout the volume of the light. If you need to accentuate streaks of light in a scene, this is a helpful technique. Adding Fog 3ds Max fog comes with two different fog styles: Volume Fog and Fog. With Volume Fog, a spherical, cylindrical, or box-shaped gizmo called an atmospheric apparatus is added from the Helpers category on the Create tab. The fog is then created and constrained to the boundaries of that gizmo. This fog type is good for clouds or when representing a smoke or fog effect that must be limited to a specific volume. The other type of fog atmosphere, the one that is used in this exercise, is unlimited in its extents and fills the area viewed through the camera. ad d i n G t h e Fo G at m o S P h e r i c eF F e c t Fog is another atmospheric effect similar to the volume light but not constrained to a helper object. Let’s try it: 1. If you’ve closed any of the windows, you can reopen the Environment tab of the Environ- ment and Effects dialog box and then click the Add button in the Atmosphere rollout. 2. In the Add Atmospheric Effect dialog box, double-click the Fog option to select it, and close the dialog box. With the Fog option selected in the Effects window, the Fog Parameters rollout replaces the Volume Light Parameters rollout (see Figure 15.6). If you need to go back and adjust the Volume Light effect’s parameters, simply select Volume Light in the Effects window. Figure 15.6 The parameters for adjusting the fog addInG atMosPherIC eFFeCts | 759 3. Render the Camera01 viewport. As you can see in Figure 15.7, the Fog effect starts at the camera’s viewing plane and increases in density with distance. 4. Although this effect frames the leaves on the tree nicely, in this case you want to just show some ground fog around the building. In the Fog area of the Fog Parameters roll- out, click the Layered radio button. The Standard area grays out, and the Layered param- eters become available. 5. Layered fog has Top and Bottom parameters that set its vertical limits. Set the Top param- eter to 3´0.0˝ and leave the Bottom set to 0´0.0˝ by clicking and dragging the spinners. Don’t Obscure the Scene Make sure the camera is above the top level. If the camera’s Z position is between the Top and Bottom parameters, then it is within the fog itself, and much of the scene may be obscured. 6. Set the Falloff option to Top, so that the fog gets thinner as it reaches its upper limit. Render the scene again. Your RFW should look like Figure 15.8. The scene looks better, but you still need to work on the color and density of the fog. 7. Click the Color swatch in the Fog area, choose a dark gray/green color for the fog, and then click OK. Here we’re using RGB values 60,100,60. 8. In the Layered group, change the Density values, and render. Do this repeatedly until you find a good combination of density and color. Figure 15.7 The rendered scene after adding the Fog atmospheric effect 760 | CHAPTER 15 FInIshInG It oFF: atMosPhere, eFFeCts, and CoMPosItInG aS S i G n i n G Pa t c h e S o F oP a c i t Y Rather than controlling the density with the Density parameter, which results in an even den- sity throughout the fog, here you’ll use a map to randomly assign patches of opacity. This will add to the illusion of the fog, because it will not appear as an even computer-generated effect. Whenever you can add randomness to something, it tends to more naturally mimic reality. 1. Open the Compact Material Editor by clicking the Material Editor button or pressing M on the keyboard, select an unused sample slot, and then assign a Standard material to that slot. 2. Expand the Maps rollout and then click the None button next to the Diffuse color channel to open the Material/Map Browser. 3. Double-click the Noise Map option to select it, and close the Material/Map Browser and return to the Material Editor. 4. Click the Go to Parent button and then drag the Noise map from the Material Editor’s Maps rollout to the Environment Opacity Map button, as shown in Figure 15.9. 5. Choose Instance in the Instance (Copy) Map dialog box and then click OK. Because you chose Instance, any changes made to the map in the Material Editor are reflected in the scene when it is rendered. 6. Render the scene again. It’s a little better, but the changes in the fog’s density are spaced too far apart. 7. Click the Diffuse Color map button in the Maps rollout to get to the material’s noise map. 8. In the Noise Parameters rollout, set the Size value to 10 and the Noise type to Fractal to make the noise effect smaller and sharper. Then render the scene. Your RFW should look similar to Figure 15.10. 9. Close the Material Editor. Figure 15.8 The rendered scene after switch- ing to layered fog and adjusting the falloff [...]... it may be a good time to reboot the computer too 2 Start Autodesk Composite 2011 When you start Autodesk Composite 2011, you should be presented with the Composite Essential Skills Movies dialog box, similar to when you start Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011, as shown in Figure 15.38 Composite has a very different interface and workflow than 3ds Max, so it is highly suggested to watch all the movies Figure 15.38... go into all the features of Autodesk Composite, but it will give you an idea how you can work with your images and then you can use the Composite help and learning resources Thoroughly learning Autodesk Composite would require a whole book as long as or longer than Mastering Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 However, there are a few places to find help for Autodesk Composite 2011 The first is the built... when you load them into Autodesk Composite 2011 to create the red/blue Anaglyph Stereo Image Using Autodesk Composite 2011 This portion of the chapter will go briefly into how you can use Autodesk Composite 2011 to adjust and improve your final rendered images from 3ds Max Autodesk Composite is a fullfeatured node-based compositing application that is based on the acclaimed Autodesk Toxik compositor... Internet browser Some of the resources on the Help menu for Composite 2011 require Internet access to function You can also find resources for Autodesk Composite in the Autodesk Toxik/Combustion discussion forums at the Area (http//area .autodesk. com), Digital Entertainment & Visualization Community for users of Autodesk software 1 Close 3ds Max if it is still running If your computer system does not have... Composite can be rendered frames from Autodesk 3ds Max, including Render Elements files; Multi-Channel EXR; still | Using Autodesk Composite 2011   781 images from high-resolution digital cameras; footage sequences (as sequentially numbered frames) from HD or 4K digital film cameras; or even art that you create in 2D painting or drawing applications The data flow in Autodesk Composite progresses from... frames, you will lose the entire movie if 3ds Max or your system crashes Also, rendering directly to a movie file bakes the compression into the file You should render to a sequence of uncompressed frames (then if the system crashes, you haven’t lost too much time and can restart the rendering at the last completed frame) and then use the Video Post tool in 3ds Max 2011 or the Composite application to generate... or click the middle mouse button The Gate UI is intended to help you maximize you speed and efficiency when using Autodesk Composite Once you have opened the Gate UI, you sweep in a direction (usually north, east, west, or south) to access different components within the software Autodesk Composite features a comprehensive toolkit to maximize your creativity, including keying, color correction, motion... Key button to turn it off 8 Open the Render Setup dialog box and choose Active Time Segment in the Output area 9 Save your file as MySavoye15_B .max It’s always prudent to save your file before you begin a render If the computer crashes during a render, you haven’t lost any work on your Max file this way | Using Hair and Fur to Add Grass   767 10 Click Files in the Render Output section, give the... by selecting it and deselecting the Active option in the Atmosphere rollout You can force 3ds Max to not render any atmospheric effects by opening the Render Setup dialog box, selecting the Common tab, opening the Common Parameters rollout, going to the Options section, and deselecting the Atmospherics option 9 In the Add Atmospheric Effect dialog box, double-click the Fire Effect option to select... (the input sources) to right (the output nodes) The bottom of the Autodesk Composite interface is the tabbed workspace Each tab in the workspace is set up for the different phases of the compositing workflow The Autodesk Composite user interface is completely customizable for your workflow needs The primary interface for working with Autodesk Composite is the Gate UI To access the Gate UI, you can press . lighting-analysis tools in 3ds Max Design 2011. There are a number of very informative white papers on the Autodesk website that go into much greater detail about configuring and using the 3ds Max Design lighting. errors, please submit a defect report against 3ds Max Design 2011 to Autodesk. Adjusting the Volume Light Parameters Like most features in 3ds Max 2011, there are many parameters that can be adjusted. available light can greatly benefit a building’s design. Using 3ds Max Design 2011 s lighting-analysis tools can help architects and lighting designers successfully study how lighting affects