Each Lens Effects rendering effect has an Options panel that lets you choose how the effect is applied.
Interface
Apply Element To group
- Lights
- Applies the effect to lights picked in Lens Effects Globals under the Parameters tab in the Lights group box.
- Image
- Applies the effect to the rendered image using parameters set in Image Sources.
- Image Centers
- Applies to the center of an object or to portions of an object as determined by the Image Filters.
Image Sources group
- Object ID
- Applies the Lens Effect to particular objects in your scene that have a corresponding G-Buffer (or Object) ID. The G-Buffer is a geometry buffer and can be defined when you right-click any object and select Properties from the menu. Then, set the Object Channel ID under the G-Buffer ID controls.
- Material ID
- Applies the Lens Effect to an object or part of an object with a specific Material ID channel assigned to it. Assign the channel with the Material Editor
Material ID channel flyout. The effect is applied only to areas of the geometry where that ID channel is present. Tip: In some cases you might want to apply different Lens Effects settings to different pieces of geometry or IDs. To accomplish this, add additional Lens Effects entries to the Lens Effects Parameters list. Then set each different Lens Effect entry to affect a different Material ID or Object ID and proceed. - Unclamp
- An unclamped color is brighter than pure white (255,255,255). 3ds Max keeps track of these "hot" areas which tend to show up when your scene contains bright metallic highlights or explosions. This spinner lets you determine the lowest pixel value that the Lens Effect is applied to. Pure white has a pixel value of 1. When this spinner is set to 1, any pixels with a value above 255 will be glowed. You can invert this value by clicking the I button to the right of the spinner.
- Surf Norm
- Applies the Lens Effect to part of an object, based on the angle of the surface normal to the camera. A value of 0 is coplanar, or parallel to the screen. A value of 90 is normal, or perpendicular to the screen. If you set Surf Norm to 45, only surfaces with normal angles greater than 45 degrees will be glowed. You can invert this value by clicking the I button to the right of the spinner. This parameter can be animated.
- Whole
- Applies the Lens Effect to the whole scene, not just a particular piece of geometry. This, in effect, makes each pixel in the scene a potential Lens Effect source. The areas of the scene that have the Lens Effect applied to them are determined by the settings in the Image Filters group box.
- Alpha
- Applies the Lens Effect to the alpha channel of an image. The transparency of an alpha channel is interpreted opposite that of the Mask channel. Range=0 to 255.
- Z Hi / Z Lo
- Highlights objects based on their distance (Z-Buffer distance) from the camera. The Hi value is the maximum distance and the Lo value is the minimum. Any objects between these two Z-Buffer distances will be highlighted.
Image Filters group
Filters the Image Sources selections to let you control how the Lens Effect is applied. For example, you can have ten spheres in your scene, each with the same Object ID, but different colors. If you set the Image Source as the Object ID of the spheres, which selects all of the spheres, these will be the only objects in the scene that Lens Effects will apply an effect to.
However, now that Lens Effects knows where the pixels are that effects can be applied, it needs to know which ones to actually apply the effect to. Lens Effects uses the filter controls to find out which source pixels to apply the effect to.
- All
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Selects all source pixels in the scene and applies the Lens Effect to them.
- Edge
- Selects all source pixels along a boundary edge and applies the Lens Effect to them. Applying a Lens Effect along the edges of objects produces a soft halo that exists on both inside and outside edges of your object.
- Perim[eter] Alpha
- Applies the Lens Effect only to the perimeter of an object based on its alpha channel. Selecting this option applies the effect only on the outside of an object without any spill on the interior. Whereas filtering by Edge produces a spill onto the object, Perimeter Alpha keeps all of the edges clean because it relies on the scene alpha channel to derive its effect.
- Perim[eter]
- Applies the Lens Effect only to the perimeter of an object based on Edge interference. Although not as precise as Perimeter Alpha, you might need to use the Perimeter option at times when the alpha channel is unavailable.
- Bright
- Filters the source objects based on their brightness values. The effect is only applied to objects with a brightness above the spinner setting This option can be inverted by clicking the I button next to the spinner
- Hue
- Filters the source objects by their hue. Select the hue by clicking the color swatch next to the spinner. You can choose hue values from 0 to 255. The spinner beside the Hue color swatch lets you enter a variance level so that the glow can find several different hues in the same range as the chosen color
Additional Effects group
Additional Effects allows you to apply maps such as Noise to your Lens Effect. You can display the Material/Map browser by clicking the long button next to the Apply checkbox.
- Apply
- Applies the selected map when activated.
- Radial Density
- Determines where and how much you would like the additional effects applied. Clicking the Radial Density button displays the Radial Density dialog. Using the Radial Density dialog you can create points on a line and move those points along a graph to determine where the additional effect should be placed around the light. You can also use a map to determine where the additional effect should be placed.