3ds Max provides a number of renderers. Each supports a particular set of materials, and has its own advantages. It is a good idea to design materials with a particular renderer in mind. The main choice is whether you want your rendering to be physically accurate.
- Autodesk's ART renderer is a fast, physically based renderer; ideal for design visualization workflows. Its minimal settings, and fast interactive workflow in ActiveShade allow you to quickly manipulate your lights, materials and objects to see results progressively refine. ART also includes a noise filter to smooth the image and better control rendering time.
- If physical accuracy is not a concern, you can use the scanline renderer and the Standard material along with other non-photometric materials.
- You can also use the scanline renderer to create accurate lighting by using radiosity.
- The mental ray renderer assumes that lighting is physically accurate. It can also generate some effects the scanline renderer cannot. The mental ray renderer provides the best results when you model a scene with accurate units, photometric lights, and photometric materials such as Autodesk Materials.
- The iray renderer, like the mental ray renderer, assumes a physically accurate scene.
- The Quicksilver hardware renderer does not assume physical accuracy, but the set of materials it supports is similar to the set supported by the mental ray and iray renderers.
Note: Lights and Renderers
If you use the Standard material set, you can use Standard lights. For physically accurate rendering, use Photometric lights.