1.

Render Elements
Ambient Occlusion – Self shadowing / contact shadows

Diffuse – Flat render of all the colors in the scene. This

Render includes only Colors and textures. (Beauty Pass)

Lighting – Direct and Indirect Lighting

Reflection – Reflection in the scene

Self-Illumination – Self illumined objects or textures in

the scene

Specular – The Specular component of a rendering. Can

additionally be used for blooming.

Matte – Black and white images used as masks.

Zdepth – Grayscale image representing the depth of a

scene based on the z-axis. This can be used for depth of
field and color saturation based on depth.
2. Setting Up
Make sure all the texturing is complete and everything in
the scene is at its final stage.

Place the lights in the scene according to your personal

preference. Be sure to turn shadows on or off as
desired. For this tutorial I will be using a total of three
lights. Two key lights and one fill light.

Setup up camera to create a nice composition.

Save the file with the name Main ex. Main.max This is
done to stay organized and it leaves us with an
untouched file that we can always go back to if we have
any problems later on.

3. Rendering Passes

Ambient Occlusion
Save the file with the name “AO”
Change the render to Mental Ray
In an empty material slot make a Mental Ray Material
Under the Basic Shaders section click on the button that
says “none”. Then in the popup window choose the
Ambient/Reflective Occlusion (base)
In the samples slot you may need to change the number
according to the value desired. I choose between 200
and 300. The Max distance may need to be adjusted
depending on the scene as well. The Max distance is
very important for indoor scenes. For this tutorial I used
a max distance of 50.00
Apply this material to everything in the scene then
render.
Save this image with a file format that contains alpha
channel information. For this tutorial I save all my files
with the extension file type .tga
Save scene

Matte Zdepth Diffuse

Open Main.max
Save the file as Mat_Zd_Dif.max
Open the Render Dialog and go to the Render Elements
Tab
Click the button “Add” and add the following elements –
Matte, Zdepth, Diffuse
 In my tutorial I used the Matte element to separate the
foreground objects from the background. Simply click on
the element in the elements list and scroll down to the
Matte Texture Element. Here you can choose by
Material ID, Object ID, or Select by Object. Whichever
you decide to use be sure to click the check box next to
the option.
Click on the Zdepth element and scroll down to adjust its
settings. The Z Min number corresponds to the distance
from the camera that will be in focus. The Z Max number
corresponds to the end of your environment in relation to
the camera. In this tutorial the statue is around 210 units
from the camera. The back wall is 350 units from the
camera. 210 is my Z Min and the Z Max is 350. I used
the camera target distance to figure out these values.
Click on the Diffuse element. After selecting the element
scroll down to its settings and Uncheck the Lighting
option. We do not want lighting to be baked into the
diffuse texture. We only want solid flat colors in the
diffuse render.
Hit Render.
Save all the images. For this tutorial I saved mine as
Matte_1.tga, Zdepth.tga, Diffuse.tga
Save the scene Mat_Zd_Dif.max

Specular Reflection Lighting

Open Main.max
Save the file as Spec_Ref_Lite.max
Open the render elements tab and add the elements
Specular, Reflection and Lighting
Hit Render.
Save all the images with names that correspond to the
rendered element. I saved my files as Specular.tga,
Reflections.tga, and Lighting.tga
For more control you can render out each individual
light. Simply turn only one light on at a time and render
specular, reflection, and lighting elements. Save those
three images, then repeat the same process until all the
lights have been rendered out.

Shadows
Open Main.max
Save the file as shadows.max
Under the render elements tab add the element
Shadows.
Hit Render
Save the image. I saved mine as Shadows.tga
Save Scene
4. Alternatives
Hmatte
Open Main.max
Delete all the lights in the scene.
In an empty material slot change the diffuse to pure red
make the Self-Illumination 100
Do those same steps and create a pure green and blue
material as well.
Make sure there are no specular highlights.
These materials allow us to make several alpha
channels in one render based on red, blue and green.
Use these materials to separate major objects. Such as
a background or floor from a foreground object.
Then hit render and save. For example for this render I
saved the image as HMatte.tga

Specular Reflection Lighting

Open Main.max
Similiar to the HMatte colors we are going to change the
colors of our lights to Red, Green and Blue.
In the render dialog under the tab Render Elements click
the add button and add Lighting, Reflection and
Specular.
Hit render. Then save the renders corresponding to their
render element. For example for these renders I used
the names Lighting.tga Reflection.tga and Specular.tga
Save the scene!

5.Compositing
Order of elements when compositing
This is the order they should appear In the compositing
program. Zdepth being on the very top most layer of the
composite all the way through to the Diffuse which is on
the bottom (base) of the composite.
Along with the order of each layer there is the
corresponding layer blend mode listed as well.
Zdepth = adjustment layer
Specular = screen
Reflection = Add
Ambient Occlusion = Multiply
Shadows = multiply
Lighting = Screen or Multiply depending on scene
Diffuse (Beauty Pass) = Normal