Hi all,
 
I'm having problems rendering with lighting. I always have to turn up the exposure or lumens (to the point that the model looks white) in order for it to render with some indication of light. Otherwise it just goes black.
 
Any suggestions?
If you have any tips with this and mental ray that'd be fantastic too.
 
 Thanks!

I assume you're using Photometric lights?Are you using these lights in conjunction with the Daylight System?Have you selected an Exposure Preset, in the Environment dialog, which corresponds to the type of lighting you are applying to your scene, ie: Indoor Daylight or Outdoor Nighttime, etc.?

I've tried both standard and photometric. I've gone through every standard with and without mental ray. Tried sunlight, daylight, etc...Don't quite know what to put with what beyond that. Any ideas? Any suggestions as to how to at least get this obnoxious overexposure in the view windows?Thank you

There are too many variables, and without having access to your file, it would be impossible for me to figure out what the problem is. It could be your light settings or it could be your daylight system settings or it could be your environment settings or it could be your render settings or or it could be a combination of all these things. There are entire books devoted to lighting and rendering with Mental Ray inside 3DS Max. I recommend you get one and read through it. But in the meantime, have you checked out the tutorials that ship with Max? Go to the Help menu and click "Tutorials". There is a lot of very good information right there at your fingertips.

Okay.Well on a more specific note:I have to turn the exposure up really REALLY high which is a huge problem.Hair only renders white in mental ray.Imports from Rhino have patches that are black (and don't change color) which don't render.Thoughts?Thank youS

Again, without access to your file, I can only guess at what the problem could be.The problem with the black patches on the imported Rhino models could just be flipped polygons. Have you checked to make sure that all polygons are facing outwards?I don't have much experience with hair and fur. I've only played around with it a couple of times to make grass. Maybe one of these tutorials will help: http://www.cgrats.com/realistic-grass-using-the-hair-and-fur-modifier.htmlhttp://www.freeitsolutions.com/3ds/viewTutorial.aspx?id=4038As for the lighting problem, I really don't know. I'm sure it's something simple, like your exposure preset, but without seeing all of your settings, I can't really say for sure. Did you get a book like I suggested? Lighting and Rendering with Mental Ray can be a little complicated. You really need to learn the basics.There are also lots of free tutorials online: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1188&bih=724&q=3ds+max+rendering+tutorial&aq=1&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=3ds+max+rendering&gs_rfai=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1188&bih=724&q=mental+ray+rendering+tutorial&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=g2g-m2g-v3&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Cool.
 
yeah. mental ray and lighting is quite a pain... infinite variables it seems.
 
any suggestions on how to flip those polys back?
 
thanks for all the suggestions!

[QUOTE=fiors] 
any suggestions on how to flip those polys back?
 
[/QUOTE]Yeah, just switch to Polygon selection mode, click on the black polygons to select them and then hit the "Flip" button in the "Modify" panel "Edit Polygons" section.

Great! Thanks