Rendering menu > Raytracer Settings
Rendering menu > Render > Render Scene dialog > Choose Default Scanline Renderer as the active production renderer. > Raytracer
panel > Raytracer Global Parameters rollout
Main toolbar > Render Scene > Render Scene dialog > Choose Default Scanline Renderer as the active production renderer. >
Raytracer panel > Raytracer Global Parameters rollout
Parameters in the Global Raytracer Settings dialog globally control the raytracer itself. That is, they affect all Raytrace materials and Raytrace maps in your scene. They also affect the generation of Advanced Ray-traced shadows and Area shadows.
Note: These controls adjust ray-trace settings for the scanline renderer only. The settings of these controls have no impact on the mental ray renderer, which has its own ray-tracing controls.
Ray depth is also known as recursion depth. This is how many times a ray is allowed to bounce before it is considered lost or trapped.
Maximum Depth—Sets the maximum recursion depth. Increasing this value potentially increases the realism of your rendered scene, at a cost of rendering time. You can reduce this value to reduce rendering time. Range=0 to 100. Default=9.
Cutoff Threshold—Sets a cutoff threshold for adaptive ray levels. If the contribution of any ray to the final pixel color drops below the cutoff threshold, the ray is terminated. Default: 0.05 (5% of the final pixel color). This can speed up your rendering time considerably.
Color to use at Max Depth—As a rule, when a ray reaches the maximum depth, it is rendered the same color as the background environment. You can override the color returned at maximum depth by either selecting a color, or setting an alternative environment map. This can make the "lost" ray invisible in the scene.
Tip: If you are having trouble with getting complex objects to render, especially glass, specify the maximum recursion color to something obvious, like magenta, and your background color to something that contrasts, like cyan. The chances are that a lot of your rays are getting lost in either maximum recursion or just being shot off into the world, totally missing anything you think they should strike. Try rendering the scene again. If this is the problem, try reducing the Maximum Depth value.
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Specify—Specifies what color the raytracer returns when the ray is considered lost or trapped. Click the color swatch to change this color.
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Background—(The default.) Returns the background color when the ray is considered lost or trapped. For Raytrace material, the background color is the global environment background or the environment specified locally for the material. For Raytrace map, the background color is either the global environment background, or is set locally in the Raytracer Parameters rollout.
Controls in this group let you set global antialiasing for raytraced maps and materials.
Tip: Turning on Supersample for a Raytraced material (in the Raytrace Basic Parameters rollout) usually provides adequate antialiasing. Use one of the raytrace antialiasers (Fast Adaptive or Multiresolution Adaptive) when you want to blur reflections or refractions.
On—When on, uses antialiasing. Default=off.
Drop-down list—Chooses which antialiasing settings to use. There are two alternatives:
...—The button with the ellipsis to the right of the drop-down list displays another dialog to let you set antialiasing controls globally. The dialog displayed depends on which alternative you chose in the drop-down list, as follows:
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Fast Adaptive Antialiaser—Clicking ... displays the Fast Adaptive Antialiaser dialog.
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Multiresolution Adaptive Antialiaser—Clicking ... displays the Multiresolution Adaptive Antialiaser dialog.
These options are comparable to the local options on Extended Parameters rollout and the Raytracer Controls rollout. Their setting affects all Raytrace materials and Raytrace maps in the scene, unless you set local overrides.
Note: In versions prior to 3ds Max 5, these controls were found on the Raytracer Options dialog, which is no longer present.
Enable Raytracing—Turns the raytracer on or off. Default=on.
Even with raytracing off, Raytrace material and Raytrace map still reflect and refract the environment, including both the environment map for the scene, and the environment map assigned to the Raytrace material.
Raytrace Atmospherics—Turns the raytracing of atmospheric effects on or off. Atmospheric effects include fire, fog, volume light, and so on. Default=on.
Enable Self Reflect/Refract—Turns self reflection/refraction on or off. Default=on.
Can an object reflect itself? For example, a teapot's body reflects the teapot's handle, but a sphere will never reflect itself. If you don't need this effect, you can improve render time by turning off this toggle.
Tip: If you have a transparent object such as glass, and Enable Self Reflect/Refract is on, you don't have to make the object 2-sided. The raytracer sees back faces when exiting refractive objects.
Reflect/Refract Material IDs—When on, the material reflects effects assigned to material IDs in the renderer's G-buffer on or off. Default=on.
By default, Raytrace material and Raytrace map reflect effects assigned to a material's ID, so that G-buffer effects are not lost. For example, if a raytraced object reflects a lamp made to glow with the Video Post Glow filter (Lens Effects Glow), the reflection glows as well.
Render objects inside raytraced objects—Turns the rendering of objects inside raytraced objects on or off. Default=on.
Render atmospherics inside raytraced objects—Turns the rendering of atmospheric effects inside raytraced objects on or off. Atmospheric effects include fire, fog, volume light, and so on. Default=on.
Enable Color Density / Fog Effects—Turns the color density and fog features on or off.
Acceleration Controls—Click to display the Raytracing Acceleration Parameters dialog, which lets you adjust settings.
Exclude—Click to display the Raytrace Exclude/Include dialog, which lets you exclude objects from ray-tracing.