Q: If I have both a metal and stone material in a scene do I render it in phong or metal rendering mode.

I have found that a material like marbel will only come up well if it is rendered in phong mode.
This is similar if i have a metal material. It only renders well while in metal mode. Can someone explain how to render both metals and stones so as to get the best results.

A: I believe you misunderstand the meaning of the Mode Settings in the Renderer dialog box. The only thing that tells a material how to render is the setting in the Material Editor. So you have to set the stone to be Phong, the metal to be Metal, and render ALWAYS at the default setting in the Renderer - Metal.

In R3 and R4 you have [Flat][Gouraud][Phong][Metal]

low-------------------->high Quality

(In MAX there is no Gouraud)

  • When set to Metal, everything renders as set in the Material Editor.

  • When set to Phong, everything renders as set in the Material Editor except for the metal materials - they render as Phong.

  • When set to Gouraud, flat renders as Flat, gouraud, phong and metal surfaces render as Gouraud.

  • When set to Flat, everything renders as Flat.

    So the settings in the Renderer dialog box are a kind of RESTRICTION. (They are called Shading Limits!!!) In some way you are right when thinking of the buttons as of different renderers. 3DS really uses different rendering codes for Flat,Gouraud and Phong/Metal. But the Metal Shading can render Phong,Gouraud and Flat aswell. The Flat cannot render Gouraud and Phong/Metal, but is much faster...