9

150 Chapter 17: Rendering
Component Options (Selected Eleme nts Unique
Settings)
Foranambientocclusionmap,youcansetthe
following unique settings:
Samples— Sets the number of r ays c ast. More rays
results in a smoother image. Default=16.
Spread—Sets the spread of the ray, creating a
cone shape. With a value of 0.0 a single point is
sampled; with a value of 1.0 the entire hemisphere
is sampled. Range=0.0–1.0. Default=0.8.
Note: You can set Spread to va lues g reater than
1.0, but only va lues within t he specified range are
useful.
Bright—Setsthecolorinthemapwhereno
occlusion occurs. The defa ult color is white. Click
theswatchtochangethecolor.
Max distance—Sets the range within which
geometry is probed. A value of 0.0 samples the
entire scene. For non-zero values, only objects
w ithin this range are sampled. D efault 0.0.
Dar k—Sets the color in the map where complete
occlusion occurs. The default color is black. Click
theswatchtochangethecolor.
Note: Colors b etween the Bright and Dark values
areusedtoindicatepartialocclusion.
Fa lloff—Defines the amount of falloff of the ray.
The greater the v alue, the greater the falloff.
Default=1.0.
Ta rget Ma p S lot Assignments
Select objects. > Rendering menu > Render to Texture >
Render to Texture dialog > Outpu t rollo ut > Target Map
Slot: drop-down list > Specify how baked textures appear
in the material.
When you bake textures (render to texture), you
have more control for how t he baked texture
displays in shaded viewpor ts. You set these in
the Output rollout (page 3–160) of the Render
To Texture dialog. Using the Target Map Slot
assignments, you can specify in detai l w hich maps
w i ll be rendered to w hich slots of the existing
material.
Note: ThefirsttimeyouuseRenderToTexture,
all Target Map Slot assignments are blank. After
you set them and render the baked texture, those
settings become the default Target Map Slot
settings for future modelling sess ions. 3ds Max
stores the Target Map Slot assignments in the
texturebake.ini file in the \3ds Max 9\plugcfg folder.
Cr eating a nd Us ing Nor mal B ump
Maps
Normal bump mapping is a way of adding
high-resolution detail to low-polygon objects. It
is especially useful for real-time display devices
such as game engines, and it can also be used in
rendered scenes and animations.
A normals map is a three-color map, unlike the
grayscale m aps used for regular bump mapping
(see Bump Mapping (page 2–1506)). The red
channel encodes the left-right axis of normal
orientation, the green channel encodes the
up-down axis of normal orientation, and the blue
channel encodes vertical depth.
Basic Workflow
3ds Max provides a number of d ifferent w ays
to create and use normal bump mapping, but