Lighting Analysis

This feature enables architects and designers to visualise the effects of light on and in their designs. It can be used to simulate the impact of heat caused by the sun's interaction with a building, or to identify dark spots within a proposed design.

✱ Note: Lighting Analysis requires the Iray+ renderer to be set as your renderer; the Iray+ Interactive renderer does not support Lighting Analysis.

Using Lighting Analysis

Lighting Analysis is enabled and controlled from the Analysis tab, which can be accessed by selecting Rendering > Render Setup… from the 3ds Max menu bar. Settings on this tab affect both Production Rendering Mode and ActiveShade renders. If you wish to view the additional lighting elements (see below) then consider using the Iray+ Frame Buffer.

The Iray for 3ds Max Lighting Analysis tab

Enable: toggles Lighting Analysis on or off.

Additional Lighting Elements: lets you specify additional Render Elements, which can be displayed in the Iray+ Frame Buffer and will be saved out in Production Rendering Mode.

Direct Light: shows the direct illuminance from light sources only, ignoring reflected light.
Indirect Light: shows the illuminance from reflected light only, ignoring direct light sources.

Color Mapping: controls the mapping of illuminance values in the scene to the false color display and the scale of the color chart.

Units: use the dropdown to select the illuminance display units:
- Lux
- FC (Foot Candles)
Auto Range: maps the entire range of scene illuminance values to false color.
Custom Range: maps only illuminance values in the custom range set to false color:
- Min: sets the lower limit for the custom range. Lower illuminance values will be clamped to blue.
- Max: sets the upper limit for the custom range. Higher illuminance values will be clamped to red.

When using the Iray+ Frame Buffer (under either Production Rendering Mode or ActiveShade Mode), an additional toolbar will be displayed below the window when performing lighting analysis:

The Iray for 3ds Max Lighting Analysis Toolbar

This toolbar displays a color chart showing how the false color scale maps to either the Auto or Custom illuminance range, as well as the absolute minimum and maximum illuminance values in the view. When using the default 3ds Max frame buffer, a similar toolbar is displayed for the ActiveShade Mode window, but not for the Production Rendering Mode window.

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