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

1.

Reset max to change the light settings to the defaults. From the Main menu, choose Customize > Units Setup. In the Units Setup dialog, make sure your units are set to US Standard Feet w/Fractional Inches (Figure 12.9).

2.

Create several Box primitives, variously sized, to represent buildings.

3.

Create a Plane object under the boxes, and apply neutral colors to all the objects. View the scene through a camera (Figure 12.10).

Tip

When selecting a background color for your renderings, it is best to avoid using either black or white. Black detracts from the effect of shadows and dark areas, while a white background has the same effect on specular highlights.

4.

Go to the Create panel > Systems > Standard, and select Sunlight. Then, in the Top viewport, click and drag near the center of your buildings to create the compass rose. The size of the rose doesn't matterit's just a helper object used to orient the light.

5.

Once the compass rose is created, drag and click again to set the Orbital Scalethe distance from the light source to the target. Make sure that this number, also available in the Site section of the Create panel, is large enough to place the light above buildings. Once the light is deselected, then selected again, this field can be located in the Lights Control Parameters rollout under the Motion tab.

Architectural projects are generally laid out with the sides of the structures parallel to the axis in your coordinate system. It's more convenient for the artist to create, move, or copy objects using World coordinates than the local system to which the buildings are set. The Sunlight system allows the user to orient the compass (which is the parent) and the light (which is the child) to the real-world coordinates system.

6.

Select the Compass object, and rotate it until its North arrow points in the direction where you want true north to be in your scene, or where it would be in a real-world situation (Figure 12.11).

7.

Select the Sun01 light object, and open the Motion panel. Within the Location section, click the Get Location button to open the Geographic Location dialog. Choose a region from the Map drop-down list and a city from the City list. The City list is very extensive, and you should be able to find a city at or near the location where your scene is located. You can also click directly on the map to choose the nearest city, or enter Latitude or Longitude values back in the Motion panel. Figure 12.12 shows Cleveland, Ohio, selected as the location for the current scene.

8.

Click OK to close the Geographic Location dialog. In the Motion panel, set the time and date that you want the Sunlight to reflect, and check the Daylight Saving Time box if your location observes that standard.

9.

Switch to the Camera viewport and Quick Render your scene, set for Cleveland, Ohio, on June 22, 2005, at 11:00 a.m., with Daylight Saving Time being observed (Figure 12.13).

1.

Delete the compass and light from your current scene. Be aware that the relationship of the light and compass is only a parent/child link. Deleting only the compass object will leave a free directional light behind.

2.

From the Create panel > Systems > Standard, create a Daylight system in the same manner that you created the Sunlight system. Choose the same time, date, and location as well, and rotate the compass accordingly.

3.

Render the scene (Figure 12.14). The rendering is much too bright and washed out. It needs exposure control added to reduce the brightness to an acceptable level.

4.

Choose Rendering > Environment from the Main menu. Expand the drop-down list in the Exposure Control rollout, and choose Automatic Exposure Control. Close the Environment and Effects dialog, then render the scene again. It's much more appealing this time (Figure 12.15). If you want more contrast, try setting the Exposure Control to 0.5 or so.

5.

Select the Daylight object and open the Modify panel, where you'll find a large number of controls for adjusting every feature of both the direct light and skylight components of the Daylight system.

6.

Expand the Daylight Parameters and Skylight Parameters rollouts and minimize the others. We're going to verify and adjust the values in these two rollouts to make the scene a bit more appealing.

7.

In the Daylight Parameters rollout, ensure that a Standard light controls the sunlight and that a skylight (rather than a parametric IES Sky light) controls the Skylight functionality. (Your scene may show that the skylight is already the default.) In the Skylight Parameters rollout, increase the Multiplier to approximately 85. This may seem like an enormous number, but, taking into account the exposure control, smaller numbers may show no effect. In the Render section, enable Cast Shadows; then render the scene. This will take longer than your last rendering, because 3ds max is calculating the shadows generated by the skylight. Notice how the tall central building now receives shadows cast from the slightly lower building in front of it, even though the primary light source is from the rear (Figure 12.16).