Rendering with mental ray: Sky Portal and Exposure Control

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Lighting and Rendering >

In this tutorial, you have an architectural scene of a retro-style lounge that you will bring to life with interesting, late-afternoon illumination. To accomplish this, you will create a daylight system and combine it with a Sky Portal object and an exposure control preset.

After completing these lessons, you will see how easy it is to visualize architectural subjects through the application of daylight conditions and simple rendering options.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

Use daylight systems to illuminate scenes.
Use the Sky Portal object to gather skylight and apply it to an interior scene.
Set scene exposure and apply exposure presets.
Set reflective, refractive, and diffusion properties of the Arch & Design material.
Set scene illumination based on geographic location, orientation, and time of day.

Skill level: Intermediate

Time to complete: 1 hour

Files for This Tutorial

All the files necessary to do this tutorial can be found on the program disc. Before doing the tutorials, copy the \tutorials\lights directory from the disc to your local program installation.

Lessons in This Tutorial

Adding Daylight Illumination

Using Sky Portal and Photographic Exposure Control

Time-of-Day Illumination

Topics in this section