How to set up lights, exposure controls and materials in 3ds Max for use in the A360 Cloud Rendering Service

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023

Products and versions covered

Issue:

How to set up general lighting and Exposure Control values in 3ds Max for use in the A360 Cloud Rendering Service.

Environment:

3ds Max
A360 Cloud Renderer

Solution:

Lighting in A360 Cloud Rendering

The A360 cloud rendering system is not exactly the same as the Autodesk Ray Tracer (ART) renderer built into 3ds Max. Both render engines have some slight differences when setting up scene lighting, exposure controls and materials. Lighting used for ART-based scenes can also be used in the A360 Cloud Rendering service, however the lights need to be first created in 3ds Max.

When creating 3ds Max scene lighting setups for the A360 Cloud Renderer, note the following:

  • Only Photometric lights are supported. 

Note: The mr Sun and mr Sky options are supported using the Daylight System. However this system is only available in 3ds Max 2016-2018, due to the discontinuation of the Nvidia Mental Ray renderer. If submitting A360 jobs from 3ds Max 2019 which contain legacy Mental Ray elements, an error message may appear, saying "the mental ray Sun and Sky options are not supported."

  • Lighting should be set up within the scene file and use the supported lighting types for A360 Cloud Rendering. See Marion Landry's Autodesk University class on how to start using the render engine and lighting: Learn How to Use A360 Cloud-Rendering Service in 3ds Max
  • Lights (photometric sources) should be added as needed in the scene. If there is too little light to illuminate the entire scene, more scene lights need to be added. For more information on this topic, see: Getting Started: ART Rendering.

Setting Exposure Controls

Exposure Control can be adjusted in three (3) main ways:
  1. Globally in the Environment and Effects window, also noted as Exposure Value. This value affects the entire scene in 3ds Max renders.
  2. Physical Camera exposure control, which affects only the camera view being rendered.
  3. Exposure Value adjustment of the scene when rendered with the A360 Cloud Renderer. (See the following image example.)

User-added image

 

  • Render configurations should be set in the Render Setup window after switching the Target to the A360 Cloud Rendering Mode.

A360 Login Screen

For more information on the exposure controls used with A360 Cloud Rendering, see the section "Exposure Controls" in the article: Using the Autodesk A360 Cloud Rendering Service in 3ds Max

Materials in A360 Cloud Rendering

Material support for the A360 Cloud Rendering service consists of:

  1. Autodesk Materials
  2. Standard Material
  3. Arch & Design (A&D) Material (Mental Ray only. Included support in 3ds Max 2018 and prior versions.)

For more information on the supported materials used with A360 Cloud Rendering, see the section "Materials and Map Support" in the article: Using the Autodesk A360 Cloud Rendering Service in 3ds Max

Products:

3ds Max;

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