9

Enhancements to Standard Features 85
Inaddition,objectproperties,lights,andthe
Material Editor hav e additional controls to support
mental ray rendering.
Obj ect Pr oper t ies E nhan cement s
Several new parameters have been added to the
mental ray panel (page 1–126) of the Object
Properties dialog. These options support the
mental r ay indirect illumination features of caustics
(page 3–92) and global illumination (page 3–93).
LightObjectEnhancements
Along with the mental ray renderer , new area light
objects and new light settings are provided.
New Light O bjects
Area lights (page 3–910) are a feature of the mental
ray renderer. Instead of emitting light f rom a
point source, they emit light from a broader area
around the source. Th ere are two mental ray area
lights: mr Area Omni Light (page 2–1298) and mr
Area Spotlight (page 2–1299). Area lights create
soft-edged shadows. This c an help improve t he
realism of your rendering.
Note: To render soft-edged shadows, shadows
must be ray-traced, not shadow-mapped: see the
Renderer panel > Shadows & Displacement Rollout
(page 3–114).
In 3ds Max, area lights are created and
supported by the MAXScr ipt scripts,
light-mentalray_areaomni.ms and
light-mentalray_areaspot.ms.Bothscripts
are found in the \stdplugs\stdscripts\ folder within
the program install directory. Because of this,
when you create an area light, you actually create
atargetspotoromnilightforwhichthemental
ray renderer uses the parameters on the Area
Light Parameters rollout. If you render with the
defaultscanlinerenderer,thelightbehaveslikeany
other t arget spot or omni lig ht. ( You can change
a light from one type to another using the Type
drop-down list on the light’s General Parameters
rollout.)
For area lights rendered with the mental ray
renderer, you can still set and use other lighting
parameters,suchascolor,theMultipliervalue,
the spotlight cone, and so on. Shadow m aps are
an exception. The mental ray renderer ignores
the light’s local shadow map settings. Area lights
always use r ay-traced shadows.
Tip: Yo u c a n u s e a M A X S c r i p t u t i l i t y t o c o nv e r t
standard 3ds Max light objects to area lights, as
described in this procedure (page 2–1298).
New Light Settings
The mental ray Indirect Illumination rollout
(page 2–1343) has been added to light objects
to support the mental ray renderer’s indirect
illuminat ion effects of caustics (page 3–92) and
global illumination (page 3–93).
The mental ray Light Shader rollout (page 2–1345)
has been added so you can add mental ray light
shaders to light objects.
Impor tant: To see the mental ray rollouts for lights, you
must use mental ray Preferences (page 3–837) to enable
mental ray extensions. These rollouts ap pear only on the
Modify panel. They don’t appear on the Create panel.
Camera Enh ancements
On the Parameters rollout (page 2–1373),a“Depth
Of Field (mental ray)” choice has been added to
the Multi-Pass Effect drop-down list to support
the mental ray renderer’s depth-of-field effects.
To use this, turn on both Enable in the camera’s
M ulti-Pass Effect group (default=off), and Depth
Of Field on the Render Scene dialog > Renderer
panel > Camera Effects rollout (page 3–101).
You can also assign mental ray lens, output,
and volume shaders to cameras. These controls
are also on the Render Scene dialog’s Camera