Texturing and Lighting in Discreet 3ds max 6

Global illumination tugs along cool products for the modern people. They are geared toward hard core production and fill just about any visualization, animation and visual effects’ needs.

Texturing and Lighting in Discreet 3ds max 6 by George Maestri as published in Computer Graphics World, covers everything needed to texture, light, and render realistic scenes in 3ds max. The title steps you through designing materials, mapping textures, and lighting scenes as well as creating shaders, lights, and cameras for both Mental Ray and Max’s Scanline renderer. Advanced topics include complex mapping, multi-pass rendering, caustics, and global illumination.

GEORGE MAESTRI, as written in rubberbug.com, in which he is the president, has worked as a writer, director, and producer in both traditional and computer animation for such companies as Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, Disney, Comedy Central, Film Roman, Curious Pictures, MGM, ABC, CBS, and Fox, among others. He has written and edited several books and dozens of articles on computer animation for magazines such as Computer Graphics World, DV, Publish, and Digital Magic, among others.

Maestri also authored Splutterfish's 3ds max Renderer. He writes: In addition to global illumination, Brazil can calculate the scattering of light within a room as well as the scattering of light through objects such as glass and water. Brazil can also calculate the scattering of light within a surface. Called subsurface scattering, this is terrific for materials that are only slightly transparent, such as marble, wax, and human skin. Brazil has its own camera, which mimics real-world cameras. The camera supports depth of field and even allows you to match the f-stop of your real-world camera. Brazil's custom lights can mimic all the standard 3ds max lights, but also add the ability to create area lights. Unlike 3ds max's lights, Brazil's allow you to focus, and give you more robust options in calculating the falloff of a particular light source. Of course, the test of a renderer is its final output. The images I created with Brazil were excellent and highly realistic. Not only that, but I found it fairly easy to get decent results the first time I used the product. This renderer produces highly realistic images and would be excellent for anyone doing photoreal work.

Technology, really is taking us to a different level of technological advancement especially in the virtual space and digital world where a thin line separates reality from fantasy…More to expect in the coming years huh!