3. Explanation of a new function of "Multilight"
The multilight is the most innovative and attractive function.
When this function is used, you can greatly shorten the amount of time you
spend for lighting and rendering your scene.
Please download this scene here(.max)
(Click to enlarge image)
Above you can see the scene preparations before using the multi light function.
| Object name | Material name |
| Sphere | jewels->Gold_ok.mxm |
| Teapot | jewels->Silver_ok.mxm |
| Torus Knot | jewels->copper_ok.mxm |
| Hose | rough metals vol.1->CyanLMetal,mxm |
| Shade | jewels->Aluminium_ok.mxm |
| Room | Default |
| Floor | Default |
| Bulb | Default (Don't adapt Emitter yet) |
In the render settings turn off "Physical Sun"
and turn on the "Multilight" option.
(The materials of the light source)
From left...
- sodium low pressure 180w.mxm
- metal halide hmi -2500w.mxm
- sodium low pressure 135w.mxm
- metal halide hmi -1200w.mxm
Adapt the first material to your light bulb on the very left and continue
to add the materials in this sequence from left to right.
I did my renderings with the following settings.
- Image size -> 480×360pic
- Spent rendering time -> 60min
- Sampling level -> 20
- Last sampling level -> 13.50
You notice the scene was lightened by different coloured lights.
I recommended saving the present rendering results before you add multilight
to the scene.
(Click to enlarge image)
Now select the Multilight tab inside the Maxwell stand alone interface.
You will now see 4 Emitter columns, each of them representing one light source
in your scene.
You can then adjust the Emitter values as well as ISO and shutter values with
the respective sliders.
You don't have to render the scene again! Simply click the refresh button to
apply the changes to your rendered image.
Sample of Emitter, ISO, Shutter settings
(Click to enlarge image)
| ISO: | 100 |
| Shutter: | 249 |
| Emitter 0: | 0 |
| Emitter 1: | 100 |
| Emitter 2: | 0 |
| Emitter 3: | 100 |
Red lights were turned off.
The scene became a little dark, and the shadow of the left ball has changed.
When the button "S" (I guess it stands for "Solo") -which is placed under
each Emitter- is turned on, only the effect of this light is calculated.
When you change the shutter value from 249 to 20 the image brightens up noticeably,
because now the virtual camera film is exposed 1/20s to the light and not only
1/249s.
This again is a good hint to see how accurately Maxwell Render mimics real
life circumstances.
●Conclusion
Obviously Multilight is a lot more efficient than rendering the same scene
over and over again.
Remember, each render on my machine took about 1 hour!
Download final scene from here (.max)
Thank you very much for reading my review.
Good luck friends and happy rendering!
My thanks go also to Next Limit Technologies for their awesome product and
continuous efforts to make CG graphics more and more realistic!