INSIDE 3DS MAX® 7 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

ActiveShade

This first form of rendering gives us a window to preview the scene with limited interactivity. You've probably already been looking at the scene in the Camera, Perspective, or User viewports using the Smooth + Highlights shading mode. While good for modeling and overall scene arrangement, Smooth + Highlights falls short in rendering the subtle interplay between lights and materials.

ActiveShade fills the gap between straight window shading and the Production render. It is a two-stage process, the first being Initialize. All the geometry is evaluated and prepped for the next stage. The Update Shading stage finalizes the render and throws it up on the screen. When changes are made to the materials or lighting, only the Update stage needs to be processed for the changes to show.

Using ActiveShade for test renders is an excellent habit to get into, because a complex final rendering, especially one using Advanced Lighting or mental ray, can be set up in the Production settings of the Render Scene dialog. Troubleshooting can then take place in ActiveShade without disturbing the settings. Late at night, after a hurried session of fixing the scene, it's all too easy to forget to turn back on the Save File option. But don't worry, as we'll be covering proper Production rendering in the next section.

Accessing ActiveShade

There are a number of ways to access ActiveShade, but first you must decide whether you want to convert a viewport or have a separate floating window. Each method has its pluses and minuses. An ActiveShade viewport keeps the workspace uncluttered, but it allows only a single object to be selected at a time (in that viewport), and won't automatically show changes in Transforms or advanced editing. Having a floating window leaves all of your views intact, but typically it must be created and destroyed many times before a pleasing edit has been accomplished (Figure 19.1). Only one ActiveShade window can be present at any given time, and it is set by the Output File Size setting in the Render Scene dialog.

Note

If you convert a viewport to ActiveShade, there isn't the familiar viewport title to right-click to change views. You can use one of two methods: choose the Customize > Viewport Configuration > Layout menu selection, and click the appropriate viewport to bring up the selection floater. Or, right-click the ActiveShade viewport, and from the Quad menu, select Close from the upper-left quadrant.

You can summon ActiveShade in one of three ways:

• Rendering Menu
  From the menu, select ActiveShade Floater or ActiveShade Viewport.

• Main Toolbar
  Click the Render Scene tool, and select ActiveShade at the bottom of the Render Scene dialog. Also, the Quick Render (ActiveShade) tool is available. You might have to click and hold the Quick Render (Production) tool and select it from that flyout menu.

• Right-Click Viewport Label
  Then choose Views > ActiveShade.

Tip

Once you've picked ActiveShade as your rendering option, pressing the Quick Render hot key Shift-Q will update the window.

A viewport-based ActiveShade is like an ActiveShade window sitting on top of the existing viewport. So, if you close the ActiveShade viewport, it automatically reverts to the previous viewport. ActiveShade windows and viewports cannot be maximized, either. A nice feature is that Materials can be dragged and dropped onto geometry, just as they can in a regular viewport. If you select an object first, ActiveShade will update only that object and not the rest of the viewport.

Commands and Limitations in ActiveShade

The toolbar on top of the ActiveShade window allows for a few unique functions. The rendering can be saved at full size. Additional copies of the window can be made with the Clone Rendered Frame Window tool. The red, green, and blue channels can be looked at individually, as well as the alpha channel and a monochrome version.

Tip

If you click inside an ActiveShade viewport, then press the spacebar, the toolbar will toggle on. Pressing the spacebar again will toggle it off.

Control-clicking will zoom in the view, while Shift-clicking inside the ActiveShade window or viewport will access the Pan tool for the zoomed image. Control-right-click zooms the view out again. Of course, if you have a wheel mouse, rotating the knob zooms you in and out, and pressing the knob pans the view, just as it will any of the 3ds max viewports.

Right-clicking inside the ActiveShade window or viewport brings up the ActiveShade Quad menu (Figure 19.2).

The upper-right area of the menu provides access to the Material/Map Browser and Material Editor, and supplies a shortcut for the Render Scene dialog and Render Last. The most commonly used selections are the View > Close in the upper-left quadrant and Initialize in the lower right. Choosing Close is the best way to dismiss an ActiveShade viewport, and Initialize is the choice you must make every time you change the scene in a way that ActiveShade can't update on its own.

Even though the ActiveShade window looks pretty good, it isn't a Production rendering. For one thing, there aren't any Atmospheric effects (fire effects, fog, or volume lights). Neither are there rendering effects or ray-traced shadows; the only shadows it can render are shadow-mapped shadows. Items like masks, reflections, and filters are degraded in the name of speedy rendering. A complete list is in the 3ds max Help system.