What I believe you're looking for is the mia_portal_light. First, create a basic area light, then check Use Light Shape in its attributes. After that, scroll down to the mentalray section and click the checker box beside the "Light Shader" input. Choose the mia_portal_light, which is in the Mentalray Lights subsection.
After that, you are pretty much good to go, you can place it in front of windows to focus/optimise your outside light into a room better.
But if you're looking to do a sort of studio clay render type setup, then check "Use Custom Environment" in your "mia_portal_light", then plug a "mib_blackbody" into the environment spot. You can control the temperature of the light with this which gives great realistic natural light colors, just like how different temperature rated lightbulbs give off different hues of light. It's usually good to use a cool and a warm light facing from different directions. Also, you'll likely need to pump up the portal_light Intensity Multiplier to make the light show, depending on scale. Probably a few hundred, or even thousand.
Just did this in Maya, may be the same for Max:
in the Area Light attributes is a section that says "High Samples, High Sample Limit, Low Samples." My default High Sample was 8, bumping it to 64 fixed the shadow problem
Also, I probably should of mentioned to check "Use Ray Trace Shadows" in your Area light settings! haha
As for light noise, I use Unified Sampling, and only a tiny increase in the light samples, something like 8/1/4, pumping it up to 64 is quite inefficient. You get a better global control over quality this way, and area lights render a fair bit faster, among other things. You can read about that here near the bottom when it comes to area lights: http://elementalray.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/area-lights-101/
Hey all, I've been lurking this thread It's helped me A LOT to get a nice render... I was working on a light setup when I found out about this thread... just thought I'd share...
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there's also the Final Gather option
I'm not a Max user but these two option *may* be what you're after
is there a certain setting in final gather to make the shadows crisper
im trying to get something that looks almost like a clay render
THANKS!!
After that, you are pretty much good to go, you can place it in front of windows to focus/optimise your outside light into a room better.
But if you're looking to do a sort of studio clay render type setup, then check "Use Custom Environment" in your "mia_portal_light", then plug a "mib_blackbody" into the environment spot. You can control the temperature of the light with this which gives great realistic natural light colors, just like how different temperature rated lightbulbs give off different hues of light. It's usually good to use a cool and a warm light facing from different directions. Also, you'll likely need to pump up the portal_light Intensity Multiplier to make the light show, depending on scale. Probably a few hundred, or even thousand.
3 area light setup with blackbodies:
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
exactly what i was looking for
can you tell me what intestity and temperature you have ur 3 area lights set too..
i keep getting some weird shadows..
whoa, gonna try that next time I light something. Had no idea about it
thanks
in the Area Light attributes is a section that says "High Samples, High Sample Limit, Low Samples." My default High Sample was 8, bumping it to 64 fixed the shadow problem
I didn't save that scene, just threw it together quick for ya, so I don't remember the exact values I used...
But for the right side, I think it was something like 3100k, and the left/front was around 6700k, and the backlight was around 8000 or 9000.
You can use this chart here to get a sense of what colors are at what values:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature#Categorizing_different_lighting
Also, I probably should of mentioned to check "Use Ray Trace Shadows" in your Area light settings! haha
As for light noise, I use Unified Sampling, and only a tiny increase in the light samples, something like 8/1/4, pumping it up to 64 is quite inefficient. You get a better global control over quality this way, and area lights render a fair bit faster, among other things. You can read about that here near the bottom when it comes to area lights:
http://elementalray.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/area-lights-101/
And for unified sampling itself:
http://elementalray.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/unified-sampling-visually-for-the-artist/
(Also, I turned Final Gathering on, with 2 diffuse bounces.)