Lit Sphere in 3dsmax viewport directx mental ray screenshot-2

Creating Lit sphere material in 3dsmax

In this article I’d like to go back to the trend of previous years – Lit Spheres materials (also called matcap/Spherical Environment Mapping (SEM), etc.). The essence of this material is that all shader parameters: color, reflections, and so on are located on the image, where the sphere is depicted. To use such a image as material you will need a special shader which can draw out from it the necessary parameters.
This kind of materials are very useful in modeling (especially organic objects) and allow to identify errors in the topology. They have proved themselves in programs such as Mudbox and Zbrush. Presence of the library with such materials and possibility of fast switching between them considerably lighten modeling.
Just creation of Lit Sphere materials and library with them in 3dsmax we’ll do now.

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