3D Studio Max Basic - Rendering

Rendering is basically put your 3D objects into end product, such as image or video. Analogous to printing in word processors, so is rendering in 3DSMax. Technically, when you render your work, 3DSMax (or Max) will compute the final output derived from models, lights, camera position, effects, materials, etc. Max has three types of renderer: Default Scanline Renderer, Mental Ray Renderer and VUE File Renderer. At first, we will just stick with Default Scanline Renderer, for it's simple and faster to process than later renderers.

1. First of all, open your previously created project for basic modeling. It should be look like this:

2. Click on the "Rendering" menu bar, then click "Render Setup". But make sure your active viewport is the Perspective Viewport.

3. The Render Setup dialog box will appear. There are five tabs inside: Common, Renderer, Advanced Lighning, Raytracer and Render Elements. For now, we will just stick with Common tab because most of basic render setting is there. Don't be confused by those gizmos.

Just make sure that there parameters are in place:

Time Output : Single

Area to Render : View

Assign Renderer : Default Scanline Renderer

View : Perspective

4. Now is the time for the real action: rendering. Click on the big button at the bottom right labelled "Render". Max will now render your Perspective Viewport and it will be like this:

You can save the image by clicking the Save Image toolbox (the one that looked like a diskette). Cool, huh? Not yet. The black background is quite off. Next we will try to add an image to the background.

5. Prepare your image to be used. Here we will use this image:

Close all the dialog boxes then open the Environment dialog box (Rendering -> Environment).

Environment dialog box will be like this:

6. Check the Use Map checkbox then click on the Environment Map: None. Next the Material/Map Browser dialog box will appear, like this:

7. Double-click at Bitmap then browse to the place where your image is. When you are finished, re-render your image again. If right, it will be like this:

This is the final output:

Pretty cool, huh? But that's not all Max can do, of course. Next we will play with Mental Ray renderer and Materials. See you again!

TheArtisticMonkey.

The author uses Autodesk 3D Studio Max 2010.