Lighting

Automatically Max has default lights in the viewports which enable the user to see their models in a basically lit environment however you can add as many lights as you want for different affects.

To access the lighting panel go to the Create panel, and click on the small lighting symbol

I created a small scene, and clicked and dragged a few different objects on to it. I differed the objects so that you can see the different affects when using lighting.

I went to the create panel, and clicked on the small lighting symbol.

On the viewport I chose a target spot and placed a position for the light to be.

Target Spotlights are very useful for mood lighting, there are two types of spotlights, free target spotlights free target spots can be used when you want a small area to be lit. A good example of this would be for a cars headlamps, streetlamps etc.

Above I used directional lighting. This is good for creating shadows.

You can change the lighting in the parameters to Omli or Directional.

Omli light radiates light in all directions this is perfect if I were to need a lamp or a light above such as a simple light in a room. The light radiates from the one source. There are other lighting modes such as directional lights use a cone of illumination and the sides of the cone are parallel rather than radiating from a single source like spotlights. You can change the light to either an Omli light or Directional light easily.

I decided to create an empty room and see the difference with one room with the Omli light and another without.

Here is a room with normal lighting. There are two white walls and a cream carpet and a brown door.

I am now going to add an Omli lighting and see what differences it makes to the room and the colour in the room.

After selecting Omli lighting I positioned the light right in the middle of the room.

As you can see. There is a lot of difference between a plain room lit by 3Dmaxs default lighting and an Omli light. The Omli, makes the room look much whiter, and the floor look lighter. It looks much warmer and more realistic.