3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [208]
The Wire section lets you specify a wire size or thickness. Use this setting if the Wire option or the 2-Sided option is enabled in the Shaders Basic Parameters rollout. The size can be measured in either Pixels or Units. Figure 16.13 shows materials with different Wire values from 1 to 5 pixels.
FIGURE 16.13
Three materials with Wire values of (from left to right) 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 pixels
Reflection Dimming controls how intense a reflection is. You enable it by using the Apply option. The Dim Level setting controls the intensity of the reflection within a shadow, and the Refl Level sets the intensity for all reflections not in the shadow.
SuperSampling rollout
Pixels are small square dots that collectively make up the entire screen. At the edges of objects where the material color changes from the object to the background, these square pixels can cause jagged edges to appear. These edges are called artifacts and can ruin an image. Anti-aliasing is the process through which these artifacts are removed by softening the transition between colors.
Max includes anti-aliasing filters as part of the rendering process. SuperSampling is an additional anti-aliasing pass that can improve image quality that is applied at the material level. You have several SuperSampling methods from which to choose. The SuperSampling method can be defined in the Material Editor, or you can choose the settings in the Default Scanline Renderer rollout of the Render Scene dialog box by enabling the Use Global Settings option.
Note
Anti-aliasing happens before raytracing when rendering, so even if the anti-aliasing option is enabled, the reflections and/or refractions will still be aliased. •
Cross-Reference
For more about the various anti-aliasing filters, see Chapter 23, “Rendering a Scene and Enabling Quicksilver.” •
SuperSampling is calculated only if the Anti-Aliasing option in the Render Scene dialog box is enabled. The raytrace material type has its own SuperSampling pass that is required in order to get clean reflections.
Note
Using SuperSampling can greatly increase the time it takes to render an image. •
In a SuperSampling pass, the colors at different points around the center of a pixel are sampled. These samples are then used to compute the final color of each pixel. The SuperSampling settings can be set globally in the Render Setup dialog box or for each material individually by disabling the Use Global Settings option. These four SuperSampling methods are available:
• Adaptive Halton: Takes semirandom samples along both the pixel's X-axis and Y-axis. It takes from 4 to 40 samples.
• Adaptive Uniform: Takes samples at regular intervals around the pixel's center. It takes from 4 to 26 samples.
• Hammersley: Takes samples at regular intervals along the X-axis, but takes random samples along the Y-axis. It takes from 4 to 40 samples.
• Max 2.5 Star: Takes four samples along each axis.
The first three methods enable you to select a Quality setting. This setting specifies the number of samples to be taken. The more samples taken, the higher the resolution, but the longer it takes to render. The two Adaptive methods (Adaptive Halton and Adaptive Uniform) offer an Adaptive option with a Threshold spinner. This option takes more samples if the change in color is within the Threshold value. The SuperSample Texture option includes maps in the SuperSampling process along with materials.
Tip
To get good reflections and refractions, enable SuperSampling for final renders. •
Maps rollout
A map is a bitmap image that is wrapped about an object. The Maps rollout includes a list of the maps that you can apply to an object. Using this rollout, you can enable or disable maps, specify the intensity of the map in the Amount field, and load maps. Clicking the Map buttons opens the Material/Map Browser where you can select the map type.