Artificial Light in 3ds max with mental ray (2015)

Prepare your scene: load “DE render presets”, switch of daylight system

Basics: create a target or free light, use light lister, work with templates

Type A “uniform spherical” light distribution: basic settings for all lights like Intensity (Candela), Color (Kelvin), Dimming

Type A: Change shape of light to point, line, disc, sphere (light bulb), area light, cylinder (fluorence tube), use “visible in rendering”

Type B “uniform diffuse” light distribution: glows only in one direction (f.e. good for area light)

Adjust settings for using more than on light in scene: change exposure, use different “render presets”

Type C “spotlight” light distribution: use targetpoint, hotspot and falloff, use shape “disc” as visible in rendering

Type D “photometric web” light distribution: download and load ies-files

Type D: Use idrop files from companies like ERCO for illumination.

Type D: Load ies-file for idrop file on top