by Didik Wijaya
This tutorial needs you to understand basic use of 3dsmax.

We have created scene in Part 1 and radisosity solution in Part 2 tutorial. You may already knew that Radiosity is work best with material design specifically for global illumination. We can use Photometric light and Advanced Lighting Override Material to increase result when using Radiosity. Photometric will be discussed in another tutorial. This tutorial will discuss about Advanced Lighting Override Material only.

1. Continue your previous tutorial, or download max file here (zipped, 88kb, 3dsmax8 format). This file has a scene already assigned with Radiosity. Let's begin by creating a text in Left viewport. For example, I create an X letter. After that I apply Extrude modifier and add thickness to this letter.

2. Open Material Editor. Select unused material slot. While letter object still selected, click Apply Material to Selection button to assign this material. Then, clcik Standard button. In Material / Map Browser window, click Advanced Lighting Override twice. A small window will appear. Click OK to keep old material as sub-material. Now, you have new type of material applied.

3. Advanced Lighting Override Material only added radiosity properties to base material. In Advanced Lighting Override Material rollout, there are several parameters. We can set Reflectance (how much light is reflected from an object, usually we set brightness of a material using this values), Color Bleed (how much color is spilled onto other objects) and Transmittance (how much light is transmit into object, usually applied for transparent material). What we will change in this rollout is Luminance values. Luminance is used when we want to create glowing effects, like light bulb, glowing monitor screen or neon effects. Set Luminance values to 500-1000.

4. Now, we need to edit the base material. Click button right next to Base Material. In Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, change Diffuse and Ambient color to any color you want. Activate Self Illumination and drag color from Diffuce to Self Illumination to create a color copy.

5. When you finished, open Radiosity window (press F10 and click tab Advanced Lighting). You need to re-calculate Radiosity solution again. Click Reset All and click Start. Finally, click Render. Finished file can be downloaded here (zipped, 135kb, 3dsmax8 format)

Introduction to Radiosity Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Any question or comments regarding this tutorial should be sent to:
Didik Wijaya, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Discuss this tutorial