Skylight/Lightracer Norm map issue in Max

porkovich

Hi all,

I have just moved over to Max from Maya. I just created a model of a barn with diffuse, spec, and normal maps applied to it. I put in a skylight/lightracer
set up and rendered. My normal and spec maps are not showing up. I have the normals in the bump channel and the spec in the specular level channel.
Also, I have several diffuse layers in the composite texture channel.

Any suggestions why the normal/spec maps aren't showing up? They do show up when rendered with a spotlight.

Thanks

Porkovich

MoP

It's because you're using a skylight.
The skylight, by definition, is a dome of lights coming from all directions, it's basically like a shadow-casting ambient light. There is no specular highlighting from it, and while it will be using your normal-maps, they'll just be washed out.

The skylight should always be used in conjunction with some sort of directional light otherwise all you'll get is ambient.

Personally I'd just go with a couple of shadow-casting area lights with nice amount of colour bleed and diffuse bounces, you'll get a much nicer effect and it won't take as long to render.

porkovich

Thanks alot. I'll try out your suggestion.

Entity

Definitely try out MoP's suggestion. A couple of area lights with FG + bouncing turned on offers more control and is a notch faster than skylight



You can set the number of bounces here (in case you didn't know before)

porkovich

Thanks. I'll try this out. I'm looking for a good light set-up for daylight since this is a model of a building that would be outdoors. Are the lights your suggesting the mr area spot?

Entity

For daylight, i'd suggest using Max's daylight system. But then you'll have to worry about linear workflow, exposure controls etc. Using a regular mr area spot will do the trick too

EDIT: If you're going with the spotlight route, it might be best to combine that with a low intensity skylight with a blue sky color. That way you get the strong directional light from the spotlight (sun) and the blue color of the sky bouncing around and filling up your shadows.