Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, 2nd Edition

5.2 Material/Surface shaders

Many of the mental ray shaders that pictures use in day-to-day production are material or surface shaders. They are used in changing the surface attributes of objects in a scene, such as color, shadow attributes, or the look of wet or dry materials.

While the Arch & Design and ProMaterials have many of the shaders built in with presets for many ordinary materials, you still need to learn some of the fundamentals of mental ray shaders that will allow you to create your own custom materials.

In this chapter you’ll learn to create a landscape material that automatically adapts itself to the steepness of the slopes and create a water material that allows more flexibility than the preset Arch & Design water option. You’ll ...