3ds max lights ?– 463
Standard Lights
Standard lights will be the staple of your lighting diet for some time to come. They are the
only lights covered in this book. The lights in 3ds Max try to mimic the way real lights
work. For example, a light bulb that emits light all around itself would be an Omni light in
3ds Max. A desk lamp that shines light in a specific direction in a cone shape would be a
spotlight. Each of the different Standard lights cast light differently. We will look at the
most commonly used lights.
3ds Max has a total of eight light types in its Standard Light collection. The following
lights are in the collection:
Target Spotlight
Free Spotlight
Target Direct Light
Free Direct Light
Omni Light
Skylight
mr Area Omni Light
mr Area Spotlight
The last two on this list have the prefix ???mr??? to signify that they are mental ray??“specific
lights. mental ray is an advanced renderer that is commonly used in production today. It
offers many sophisticated and frequently complex methods of lighting that enhance the
realism of a rendered scene. Because mental ray is fairly complex, it will not be covered in
this book, so its lights will not be covered in this chapter.
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