9

164 Chapter 5: Creating Geometry
Sample Screen Color—Lets you pick a
new color from anywhere on the screen. After
clicking th is button, the mouse cursor changes to
the eyedro pper icon shown on the button. While
this cursor appears, use any of these methods:
• Click anywhere on the screen to replace the
current color with the color of the pixel under
the lower-right corner of the cursor.
• Drag to continually update the current color
w ith the color of the pixel under the lower-right
corner of the cursor. This makes it easier to
make sure you get the right color if the desired
color area is smal l (say, a one-pixel-thick line).
•Atanytime,pressandhold
Shif t to average
the current color with colors the cursor moves
over.
Instead of replacing the current color with
the new sampled color, smoothed sampling
gradually mixes the sampled color with
the current color, giving a smoothed color
transition during sampling. This is usef u l for
sampling noisy areas, where the variations
in colors are accumulated to provide a
representative general color .
Unlike the other methods, releasing the left
mouse button only does not exit the sampler
mode; you can move the mouse elsewhere
(w ithout sampling) and then st art dragging
again to continue smoothed sampling in other
areas. Releasing
Shi f t only returns to regular
sampling. Releasing both
Shi f t and t he
left mouse button exits the sampler mode,
returning the mouse cursor and behavior to
normal.
Sampling can occur under any conditions
anywhere within any windows that belong to the
current instance of 3ds Max. To sample anywhere
outside of 3ds Max (for example, the desktop),
drag the mouse from within one of these 3ds Max
windows.
The color sampler tool compensates for any
gamma applied to the color selector using the
Customize > Preferences > Gamma And LUT
(page 3–824) > Affect Color Selectors option. This
means that t he color-corrected, d isplayed sampled
visualcolorinthecolorselectoralwaysmatches
the on-screen visual color of the sampled location.
If the gamma of the color selector do es not match
the gamma of the sampled location, the true color
values (RGB/HSV) of the sampled color will differ
from the true color values of the sampled location.
This behavior applies to both regular gamma and
Autodesk LUT gamma correction modes.
Reset—Clicktorestorecolorsettingstothe
original color.
OK —Accepts any changes and closes the dialog.
Cance l—Restores the original color and closes the
dialog.
Color Selector for me ntal ray Materials and
Shaders
When you click a color swatch in the interface for
a mental ray material (page 2–1543) or mental ray
shader (page 2–1710),oraDirectX material (page
2–1613),youseeavariantoftheColorSelector.
This dialog differs from the standard Color
Selector in two ways:
• TheRGBandHSVvaluesappearasnormalized
values between 0 .0 and 1. 0 , r ather than as 8-bit
integers (0–255).