vnz 0311 foundation 3ds max 8 architectural visualization (2006)

Foundation 3ds Max 8
Architectural Visualization
Brian L. Smith
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page i
Lead Editor
Chris Mills
Technical Reviewer
Mark Gerhard
Contributing Author
Thomas Livings
Editorial Board
Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell,
Jason Gilmore, Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell,
James Huddleston, Chris Mills, Matthew Moodie,
Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser, Keir Thomas, Matt Wade
Project Manager | Production Director
Grace Wong
Copy Edit Manager
Nicole LeClerc
Copy Editors
Damon Larson, Heather Lang
Assistant Production Director
Kari Brooks-Copony
Production Editor
Laura Cheu
Compositor
Dina Quan
Artist
Kinetic Publishing Services, LLC
Proofreader

Lori Bring
Indexer
John Collin
Cover Image Designer
Corné van Dooren
Original 3D Cover Artist
Oleg Melnyk
Interior and Cover Designer
Kurt Krames
Manufacturing Director
Tom Debolski
Foundation 3ds Max 8
Architectural Visualization
Copyright © 2006 by Brian L. Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-557-2
ISBN-10: 1-59059-557-2
Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name,
we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of
infringement of the trademark.
Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013.
Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail , or visit www.springeronline.com.
For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710.
Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail , or visit www.apress.com.
The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the
preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any
loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work.

The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the Downloads section.
Credits
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page ii
This book is dedicated to my lovely wife, Shari, and our two
great kids, Laken and Kegan. Without their support,
this book would simply not have been possible.
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page iii
iv
About the Author
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
About the Technical Reviewer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
About the Cover Image Designer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Acknowledgments
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Introduction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
PART 1 GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Quick Start 1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1 Navigating the 3ds Max Interface
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter 2 Working with Objects
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
PART 2 MODELING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 3 Modeling Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 4 The Critical Compound Objects Types
(Loft, Boolean, Terrain, and Scatter)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Chapter 5 The Critical Modeling Modifiers
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
PART 3 MATERIALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Chapter 6 Material Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Chapter 7 The Critical Map Channels
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Chapter 8 The Critical Map Types
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Chapter 9 UVW Mapping
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page iv
PART 4 LIGHTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Quick Start 4 Getting Started with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Chapter 10 Basic Lighting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Chapter 11 Photometric Lighting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Chapter 12 Global Illumination
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
PART 5 CAMERAS AND ANIMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation . . . . . 323
Chapter 13 Camera Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Chapter 14 Animation Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Chapter 15 Animation Controllers

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
PART 6 RENDERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Quick Start 6 Getting Started with Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Chapter 16 Rendering Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Chapter 17 Scene Assembly
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Chapter 18 Effect Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
APPENDIXES
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
461
Appendix A Marketing Your Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Appendix B Top 20 Production Tips
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Appendix C Customizing 3ds Max
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Index
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
v
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page v
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page vi
74c27830997b0236f48fc25d2b37ea47
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
About the Technical Reviewer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
About the Cover Image Designer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Acknowledgments
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Introduction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
PART 1 GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Quick Start 1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1 Navigating the 3ds Max Interface
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The interface elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Command panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Lower Interface bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Quad menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Floaters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Dialog boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Using the Command panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Create panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Modify panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Hierarchy panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Motion panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Display panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Utilities panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Using the viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Perspective and axonometric views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Learning the viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Zooming, panning, and rotating in a viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

vii
CONTENTS
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page vii
Viewport refreshing and disabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Rendering levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Enabling Fast View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The viewport layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Undoing and saving view changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter 2 Working with Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Selecting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Select icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Select Objects dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Select by region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Selection filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Named selection sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Selection lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Other ways to select objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Isolate selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Displaying objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Display floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Using the Layer Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Transforming objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Transform Type-In dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Status bar type-in fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

PART 2 MODELING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 3 Modeling Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Setting up the work environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Display drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Configure paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Preference settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Working with shapes and splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Shapes and splines defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Shape basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The Rendering rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Interpolation rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Spline basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
CONTENTS
viii
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page viii
Working with meshes and polys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Creating mesh objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Editing mesh objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
The Selection rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Soft Selection rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The Edit Geometry rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Important features available anywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Attach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Explode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Remove Isolated Vertices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
View Align and Grid Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Important features available only in sub-object modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Detach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Weld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 4 The Critical Compound Objects Types
(Loft, Boolean, Terrain, and Scatter)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Creating Lofts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
The Creation Method rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
The Surface Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
The Path Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
The Skin Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
The Deformations rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Creating Booleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Intersection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Cut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Suggestions for creating Booleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Creating terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Creating scatter objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Distribution object parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
The Transform rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 5 The Critical Modeling Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
The Extrude modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
The Smooth modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
The Noise modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
The Optimize modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

The TurboSmooth modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
The Displace modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
The Lathe modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
The STL Check modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
The Cap Holes modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
CONTENTS
ix
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page ix
PART 3 MATERIALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Chapter 6 Material Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
The Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Sample slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Changing the sample slot background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Changing the sample slot object type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Magnifying a sample slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Naming materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Creating new materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Assigning materials to objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Loading materials in the sample slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Removing materials and maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Selecting objects by material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Showing maps in a viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Material Editor icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
The Material/Map Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Material libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
The Material/Map Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Material Editor rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

The Shader Basic Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
The Wire option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
The 2-Sided option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
The Blinn Basic Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular Color swatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
The Specular Highlights section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
The Self-Illumination section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
The Extended Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
The Advanced Transparency section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
The Wire section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
The SuperSampling rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
The Maps rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
The Dynamic Properties rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
The Mental Ray Connection rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Chapter 7 The Critical Map Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Maps rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
The Diffuse Color channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
The Opacity channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
The Bump channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
The Reflection channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
The Displacement channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
The Refraction channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
CONTENTS
x
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page x
Chapter 8 The Critical Map Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
The Bitmap map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
The Coordinates rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Offset and tiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Blur and blur offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
The Noise rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
The Time rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
The Output rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
The Gradient map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
The Gradient Ramp map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
The Mix map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
The Noise map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
The Smoke map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
The Waves map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
The Falloff map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Chapter 9 UVW Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Generating mapping coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
The UVW Map modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Working with the UVW gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Sizing and tiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Map channels and multi/sub-objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
PART 4 LIGHTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Quick Start 4 Getting Started with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Chapter 10 Basic Lighting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Standard lights vs. photometric lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
The standard light source types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Omni lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Spotlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Direct lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Creating lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Viewport navigation controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Light placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Align Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Place Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
CONTENTS
xi
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xi
Light parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
The General Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Shadow map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Area shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Raytraced shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Advanced raytraced shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
The Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Decay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Attenuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
The Advanced Effects rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
The Shadow Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Rollouts for specific shadow types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
The Shadow Map Params rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
The Area Shadows rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
The Ray Traced Shadow Params rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
The Adv. Ray Traced Params rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
The Optimizations rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
The Spotlight and Directional Parameters rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Chapter 11 Photometric Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Exposure control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Types of exposure control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Exposure control parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Photometric light types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Point, linear, and area lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Preset Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
IES Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
IES Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Daylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Standard lights vs. IES Sun and IES Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Sunlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Chapter 12 Global Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Principles of global illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Radiosity Processing Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Initial Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Refine Iterations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Light filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Radiosity Meshing Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Considerations when using radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
CONTENTS
xii
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xii
PART 5 CAMERAS AND ANIMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation . . . . . 323

Chapter 13 Camera Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Camera types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Creating cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Viewport navigation controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Camera placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Align Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Place Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Basic camera parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Lens length and field of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Environment ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Clipping planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Chapter 14 Animation Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Basic animation interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Time Configuration dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Time slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Animation playback controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Keyframing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Creating keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Creating basic motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Chapter 15 Animation Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Motion panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Assign Controller rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Assigning and changing controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
PRS Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Position XYZ Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Euler Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Key Info (Basic) rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Curve Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
CONTENTS
xiii
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xiii
PART 6 RENDERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Quick Start 6 Getting Started with Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Chapter 16 Rendering Basics
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
The Render Scene dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
The Common tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Time Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Output Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Render Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Email Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
The Renderer tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Antialiasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Global SuperSampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Object and Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Auto Reflect/Refract Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Color Range Limiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Memory management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Choosing file dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

High-definition and standard DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Internet images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Internet video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Additional rendering tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
The Print Size Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
The RAM Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
The Panorama Exporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Video Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Network rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Chapter 17 Scene Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Computer power vs. scene complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Transferring files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Instance vs. copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
Refreshing and rendering viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Assembly tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
Save Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Merge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Export Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
XRef Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
CONTENTS
xiv
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xiv
XRef Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
File Link Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
File Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Summary Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Archive and Resource Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Chapter 18 Effect Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Atmospheric effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
The Fire effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
The Fog effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Standard fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Environment ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Layered fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
The Volume Fog effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
The Volume Light effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
Render effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
The Lens effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
The Depth of Field effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
The Motion Blur effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Multi-pass effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
The Multi-Pass Motion Blur effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
The Multi-Pass Depth of Field effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
APPENDIXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Appendix A Marketing Your Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Your clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Architects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Continuing education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Contractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Real estate agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Your tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Brochures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Phone books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Phone calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
E-mails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
CONTENTS
xv
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xv
Appendix B Top 20 Production Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
1. Build a network of subcontractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
2. Inspect the architectural drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
3. Write a good script as soon as possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
4. Question poor designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
5. Master the keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
6. Use additional input devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
7. Write a good contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
8. Break up projects into smaller jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
9. Use the Loft feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
10. Save incrementally and save often . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
11. Use advanced raytraced shadows and know when to use advanced lighting . . . . 482
12. Purchase the best available model and material libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
13. Create assembly lines for doors and windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
14. Use material libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
15. Use standard scene elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
16. Use the top third-party plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
17. Use the Scatter command and Spacing tool to create vegetation . . . . . . . . . . 489
18. Use artificial shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
19. Participate in website forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
20. Attend trade shows, seminars, and classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Appendix C Customizing 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
The Customize menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
UI schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Custom UI and Defaults Switcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Customize User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Default keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Additional keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
CONTENTS
xvi
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xvi
Since 1997, Brian Smith has worked as a CAD manager and anima-
tion specialist in architectural, engineering, and landscaping firms in
southwest Florida. He started his own company in 2001, specializing
in the production of architectural animations and renderings in
3ds Max. He is the cofounder of 3D Architectural Solutions in
Sarasota, Florida, and is currently an instructor at the Autodesk
Authorized Training Center, Planet Digital Education, in Orlando
(www.planetdigital.com), where he teaches 3ds Max for the visual-
ization industry. A portfolio of his work can be seen at www.3das.com.
Brian graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with a
major in aerospace engineering. He served on active duty, and later
in the Florida Army National Guard, including two years as a battery commander, responsible for a
short range air defense battery of over 100 soldiers. Following 9/11, he served in Washington, D.C.
as an air defense artillery fire control officer, working closely with the US Secret Service, the
US Air Force, and the FAA to provide air defense coverage of our nation’s capital. In 2005, he
deployed numerous times with his unit to provide humanitarian relief to hurricane victims along the
Gulf Coast.

xvii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xvii
xviii
Mark Gerhard is a creative professional with over 15 years experience
in the field of 3D modeling and animation. He was the first artist hired
by Autodesk to test the initial release of 3D Studio in 1990, and spent
six years as the lead writer for the tutorials that ship with the product.
He has taught at Santa Rosa Junior College, Napa Valley College,
Academy of Art University, Sonoma State University, Sonoma Country
Day School, and Petaluma High School; and has lead countless classes
and demonstrations of this software throughout the world. He has also
been an author, illustrator, and technical editor for books on 3ds Max
for Pearson Education, Wiley, Macmillan, and other publishers. He
holds a BA in Practice of Art from UC Berkeley.
ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWER
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xviii
Corné van Dooren designed the front cover image for this book.
Having been given a brief by friends of ED to create a new design for
the Foundation series, he was inspired to create this new setup com-
bining technology and organic forms.
With a colorful background as an avid cartoonist, Corné discovered
the infinite world of multimedia at the age of 17—a journey of dis-
covery that hasn’t stopped since. His mantra has always been “The
only limit to multimedia is the imagination,” and this mantra keeps
him moving forward constantly.
After enjoying success after success over the past years—working
for many international clients, as well as being featured in multimedia magazines, testing software,
and working on many other friends of ED books—Corné decided it was time to take another step in
his career by launching his own company, Project 79, in March 2005.

You can see more of his work and contact him through www.cornevandooren.com or
www.project79.com.
If you like his work, be sure to check out his chapter in New Masters of Photoshop: Volume 2 (friends
of ED, 2004).
xix
ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE DESIGNER
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xix
xx
I would like to thank the entire team at friends of ED for making my writing sound far more intelli-
gent than it originally started: Grace Wong, Nicole LeClerc, Damon Larson, Heather Lang, Kari
Brooks-Copony, and Laura Cheu.
A special thanks to Chris Mills for believing in my idea of a book dedicated to the architectural visu-
alization industry, and for helping make that dream a reality.
Thanks to my mom for beating proper English into me from the time I could write. Before any of
these chapters ever made it to the team at friends of ED, she got first crack at correcting my
writing—and she made plenty of markups.
Thanks to my long-time friend and business partner Brian Zajac, who keeps me steered in the right
direction with all things graphical.
Thanks to my friends at Visarty and Catapult, whose 3D services helped my business stay in produc-
tion during the crunch phase of this book. If you need some good subcontracting work done, these
are two of the best companies out there. Their work can be seen in the gallery of this book.
Last but not least, I would like to thank Randall Stevens (ArchVision/VisMasters) and Jeff Mottle
(CGarchitect.com) for their support of this book and the donation of valuable content.
Brian L. Smith
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xx
I feel fortunate to be part of the 3D world at a time when it appears that the real world is com-
pletely embracing our work. My long-time friend Brian Zajac started in the 3D business a long time
ago, when a typical workstation cost $100,000, and a simple animation that today would take only
minutes to render took weeks. He gave up 3D and turned his sights to a career in web design where

he wouldn’t have to wait so long to see the fruits of his labor. Many architectural visualization com-
panies struggled to survive these early days of 3D, when the software lacked the quality that many
clients demanded, and the cost of equipment was a great a burden to manage. But just like the con-
version from hand-drawn architectural blueprints to computer-aided drafting in the 90s, 3D visual-
izations have gained the necessary backing to make our work the standard—before long it will be
the norm. Now anyone with enough drive and desire can start a 3D visualization business from their
own home with just a single computer. With new developments in chip technology on the horizon,
such as the much anticipated Cell chip, the near future promises even greater power for all of us to
build better scenes and render them in a fraction of the time it takes today. Before you know it, we
will be able to render our scenes in real time!
The idea for writing this book started sometime in the first few days of teaching myself 3D Studio
Release 4 for DOS. I was amazed at all the books available for users in the entertainment industry,
yet not one could be found for those of us in the visualization industry. I wasted countless hours
learning things I found out only later that I didn’t need to know, and I made up my mind that if
someone else didn’t have a visualization book on the market when I had learned the program, I
would write one myself. And here it is. I hope you can benefit from what I believe to be the foun-
dation for those of us using 3ds Max for architectural visualizations.
Tutorials
There are two types of tutorials in this book: the Quick Start tutorials that begin each major part of
the book, and the tutorials within the chapters.
The intent of the Quick Start tutorials is to take you through the process of creating an animation
from start to finish. Though the final product contains less detail and complexity than most visual-
izations, the process is still the same, and many of the steps are identical. Whenever possible, the
Quick Start tutorials were designed to provide visibility of as many features as possible in the short-
est number of steps, rather than having you redo the same steps over and over for the sake of
building up the scene’s content.
xxi
INTRODUCTION
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xxi
The tutorials within the chapters are designed to maximize the clarity of selected features

and the speed at which you can learn the material. Whenever possible, you’ll be asked to
reset 3ds Max and create scene elements from scratch, rather than simply opening precon-
structed scenes. By taking you through a tutorial that starts from scratch rather than a pre-
constructed scene, you'll be apt to feel a greater sense of confidence that the steps in the
tutorial work independently of any pre-arranged settings or elements. Also, I’ve kept the com-
plexity of the tutorials to a minimum and incorporated mostly simple objects (such as
primitives) so that you can gain a greater sense of clarity of what exactly is going on. The end
result is a tutorial that maximizes the transfer of knowledge in a minimal amount of time.
Layout conventions
To keep this book as clear and easy to follow as possible, the following text conventions are
used throughout:
Important words or concepts are normally highlighted on the first appearance in bold type.
Menu commands are written in the form Menu ➤ Submenu ➤ Submenu.
Screen text is used to draw your attention to on-screen elements in the 3ds Max interface.
INTRODUCTION
xxii
5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page xxii
GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX
Part 1
5572QS01.qxd 3/25/06 1:15 PM Page 1
5572QS01.qxd 3/25/06 1:15 PM Page 2