Brazil comes with a new light and camera, both of which have a few different modes built into them. Let's get right down to it and start with the light.

The Brazil Light (blight from here on) can be found in the drop down menu under the lights section of the create panel. There is just one type of blight, but it has a few different modes built into it.

The way the light functions depends primarily on the way it is created, although the mode of the light can be changed after creation as well. The way you click-click, click-drag or click-move-click to create the light determines the light type, as follows:

Clicking twice in the same spot, gets you an omni blight:

Clicking once, moving the mouse and clicking again will get you a spot blight:

And clicking and draging, and then clicking again will get you a targeted area light:

Along with these three types, you have the option of choosing a few other light types from a drop-down menu. A bit about the various light types:

The Omni light type acts pretty much the same as a standard max omni light, casting light in all directions from a point source. The benefits with the blight are all the extra controls and shadow types that the blight has.

The spot blight is similar in that it acts like a max spot light, but has the extra brazil features.

The area light is the special one here. It acts as a true area light, illuminating from a broad area (depending on light size) and it casts true area shadows. There are two types of area light, rectangular and disc. The only difference between the two is the shape of the area that the light is emitted from.

You can also choose the Directional light type from the menu once the light is created. The directional light, like max's simply casts light in a single direction and the lights rays travel in parallel. By default, the lights have shadows turned off upon creation. Turning shadows on will allow us to see some of the differences in the various light types and how they cast light and shadows.

With that intro, let's get down to what all the controls in the modifier panel actually DO, once you have a light created.

The first rollout, the General Light Options rollout, has the basic controls for the light. There are checkboxes to turn the light on and off and turn shadows on and off. There are two new checkboxes for turning direct illumination on for that light, which just means that it acts as a regular light, and should be on by default. There is a checkbox for turning indirect illumination on for that light, which is also on by default. This just tells Brazil, should GI be activated, that this light should be taken into account in the GI solution/calculation. These two checkboxes really just allow you to have some lights that are direct only and some that are indirect only, if your scene calls for it. The last checkbox, Renderable, is only available when the light type is one of the area light types. This checkbox causes the area light to render as a rectangle or disc (depending on type). This can be handy for having the light in reflections etc.

The Lightsource Type area has the dropdown menu i spoke of earlier, which allows you to choose your light type. There is a checkbox for having a target for your light, which is equivalent to having a toggle between the max target spot and free spot, in that free spot is the same as target spot, but without a target.

Next is a big button labeled 'Photometric'. Pushing this sets the light to be a photometric light, allowing you to use IES files etc. More about this in a few paragraphs.

The last subsection here is the Object Include/Exclude list. This just lets you include and exclude objects from the lights illumination and shadow casting. Brazil gives two separate lists here as opposed to max's single list, but there is also the option to link the two lists (big brackety thing to the left), making it act like max's single list lights.

The COlor/Projector rollout has controls for the color of the light, it's multiplier, and if you want it to act as a projector.

The color and multiplier controls are pretty self-explainatory and if you need more help as to what these do, i'll refer you to the max help files, as these are some of the most basic light controls.

The projector section is fairly simple, but has a complicated side hidden just below the surface. Poking the checkbox will set the light to be a projector and allow you to put a map to project in the slot to the right. Below that are controls for the type of projection and the 'Area Factor'. The type drop-down menu controls how the image is projected out of the light. The options here change based upon the type of the light itself. For example, if the type of the light is omni, then you only hae one option, and it seems to work just like max's omni light projection. If you have it set to be a spot light, then you have two options, one that works like max's (central flat) and one that uses a slightly different mapping that allows you to do dome-like projections from a 180-degree light (central curve).

The surface flat and surface curve types are available if you are using an area light. These basically just blur the map being projected based upon the sie of the area light. The bigger the light, the larger the amount of blur. I think it is actually more complicated then this, but in practical use, it just makes it blurry ;)

The other option, Position, available with area light, also makes for a blurry projection, but in a different way. It does something like instead of projecting the image from many points on the area light surface (kinda what the surface types do) it only takes the color from the map at a given point and projects that. Kinda like when you sit in front of your monitor in the dark and everything has that blue wash of light on it, even though the image on your monitor is sharp.

There is also a checkbox and spinner for the 'Area Factor'. This is basically a spinner to control the blurriness of the projection. It kinda mixes the actual blurriness as determined by the above settings with the sharp version. Lower settings should give sharper projections.

The whole photometry section is next. This one appears when you hit that big Photometric button we talked about earlier.

To be perfectly honest, i havn't used this stuff much. This is commonplace stuff for architectural visualization folks, which is not something i have done much of at all. With that said, here's as much as i know:

The first area lets you choose from either a filter color or from a list of illuminant spectra. I believe these are ranges of color emitted from a light. This would be like a greenish range for a flourescent light or orangish for an incandescent blub etc.

Next down is the Intensity section. This acts like your light multiplier i believe, but it has real-world measurement units so you can be more exact.

Next is the Distribution section, which i believe will allow you to load in IES files, should you so desire. IES files are basically a file that defines the intensity of light emitted in a given direction, and can be used to acurately simulate real lighting fixtures. For more info on IES, check out http://www.cs.utah.edu/~kuzimmer/IES/section3.4.html.

Next section (at least on my rollout, yours may be in a different order) is the area light options. This will be all greyed out if your light type is not an area light. This rollout just contains the controls for the area light and the quality of shadows cast by the area light.

The first section is for the Dimensions of the area light. There are two types of area lights, rectangle area and disc area. They are simply the different shapes of surface from which the light is being omitted. If you have the rectangular type selected, you can control both the X and Y scale, which just amount to length and width of the rectangle. If you have the disc type selected, the X scale spinner changes to a diameter spinner and the Y scale one gets greyed out. You probably noticed that there is also a Z scale spinner there too, but it is greyed out. As far as i know there is nothing that can use that spinner and i believe it is there for future use, perhaps with a box or sphere area light?

Changing the diameter of the light makes for softer shadows the larger the light. Be aware though, that huge area lights will be slow to render because of the increased amount of calculation needed to compute the shadows. Below are images of shadows caqst by a disc area light of varying diameters.

Next down is the sampling/quality section. This section has the controls for the quality of the area shadows. The first drop-down menu has the choice of Regular or Adaptive Halton. These are the different types of sampling for the calculation of the shadows. Adaptive halton is, as the name implies, adaptive, allowing for more samples in some place and less in others. This makes it generally faster and cleaner then the regular setting.

Below this is the spinner for 'initial strat' which, when the sampling type is set to Regular, acts as a quality setting, higher values giving better quality. When the sampling type is set to Adaptive Halton, this spinner is better off left at a low setting, so that the adaptivity has the freedom to go this low where needed.

Next is a checkbox for turning adaptive sampling on or off. I'm not sure why you would want to turn it off, as turning it off just makes for lower quality images, in my experience. Below that checkbox is a drop down menu for selecting the error estimator. The three types are Mono, RGB, and HDR. Mono only takes basic luminance data into account, RGB checks color channels separately and the HDR one allows for high dynamic range sampling, perhaps for if you were projecting a hdr image from the light.

Next are three spinners labeled 'max samples', 'estimate intrvl' and 'max error (%)'. These three settings work together to control the quality of the area light shadow sampling. Here's a breakdown of what each does:

Max Samples: This is the maximum number of samples that can be used (per image sample, i believe). The default setting of 500 seems to work well for me. Lower settings will result in a grainier shadows edge and higher settings will make for a smoother edge IF some of the other controls are so set that they take advantage of the higher sample limit.

Estimate Interval: This one...um...estimates intervals...i guess... low values = low quality, high values = better quality, but are slower.

Max Error (%): This is the maximum error allowed during sampling. This amounts to the allowable difference between pixels (like grain). Setting this one high (like 50) will allow for alot of error, making for a grainy shadow. Setting it low (like 1) will result in a much smoother shadow, and slower renders (of course). This setting can interact with the max samples one too. Basically, what is going on here, is that the max error setting is telling brazil to keep sampling until it meets a certain maximum percentage of error (hence the name). But if Brazil hits the maximum samples number BEFORE it hits the maximum error percentage, then it will stops sampling anyway. So, if you are lower the max error setting in an attempt to get better quality and it isn't working, then you may need to increase the maximum number of samples, so that Brazil can keep sampling until it hits the max error %. Perfectly clear, eh? ;)

There is also a jitter checkbox and spinner which become active when the sampling type is set to Regular. Jitter is tough to explain, but i'll try anyway. If a sample for something is taken from the center of a pixel, for every pixel, then things that are on the edges, or are very thin, may slip between samples. This may also cause patterns to emerge due to the sampling. These things would be bad. What jitter does is randomly offset that sample position a given distance (based on the value of the spinner). This randomizing of the sampling should get rid of any patterns and be sure that nothing slips through the proverbial cracks.

Next up is the Hotspot/Falloff/Focus area. These allow you to control the cone of light for spots, directional and area lights. If you turn focus off on a spot light, it becomes a targeted omni light (acts like a regular omni, it just looks funny with a target).

The first drop down menu is for the falloff curve of the light edge. This is set to linear by default. Linear just means that the transition from the light cone to dark cone (hotspot to falloff) is a linear transition, so halfway inbetween the two cones should be 50% brightness.

The Cubic Spline option causes the falloff to behave differently. It acts in a much more cubicy and spliney manner...and stuff. It just looks different, and i think it has a exponential curve to the falloff, but i'm not sure. Just see the picture below.

The Custom option lets you set the curve any way you like. The image below shows how i set the curve to be zig-zaggy, making the light come in and out before falling to darkness completely.

Next is the Attenuation/Decay rollout.

This has alot of things in common with the Hotspot/Falloff/Focus (HFF) rollout and many of the controls do about the same things. Although instead of controlling the edges of the light, it is controling the distance the light travels. The drop down menu here has the same options as the HFF rollout, and they function in the same manner. The Near and Far attenuation controls function as they do with a max light: Near start is dark and near end is light, while far start is light and far end is dark. The exception here is that there are checkboxes labeled 'always show' which allow you to keep the brazil light attentuation plane indicators visible even when the light is not selected.

The Decay section, up next, is set to Auto by default, which, if you were using the photometric stuff, would allow the decay to be set according to your photometrics controls. Otherwise, you can turn it on or off manually. Decay basically just causes the light to get dimmer over distance (as it would in reality). This distance is based on the start distance (where it starts dimming) and the scale spinners. The scale spinner tells Brazil to treat the lights decay distance as though it were based on a given scale, giving you control of the distance the light reaches and its general brightness.

The way the light decays is based upon the drop down menu settings, which are Inverse (default) and Inverse Square. I believe that the Inverse is a fairly linear decay and Inverse Square (judging by the 'square' in the name) is an exponential falloff.

Next up is the Basic Shadow Params rollout. This rollout has all the general controls for shadows cast by the various light types. There is a dropdown menu listing a variety of shadows types to choose from. Brazil adds two to the list, Brazil Shadows and Brazil Ray Shadows. There are others available, but generally of the others, the only one you would want to use with Brazil is the shadow map type.

Using Max's own Adv. Ray Traced, Area Shadows, or (max 6) mental ray Shadow Map will cause some extra problems. Using max's shadows types will cause Max to call it's own raytracer to render the shadows, which, while it may work (it also may not) it can be far slower then Brazil's own shadow types, to get the same result. In my testing, though, in max 6, the other shadow types just didn't really work when used with a Brazil light.

Brazil Shadows are the default shadow type for a blight. They are the standard sharp-edged raytraced shadow, very accurate, but perhaps not very realistic. If used on an area light, Brazil Shadows will become area shadows and then be subject to the controls in the quality/sampling rollout (see below).

Brazil Ray Shadows are also ray traced shadows, but have a number of options to simulate different light types. We'll get to this in just a minute, first we will finish up the Basic Shadow Params rollout.

The Bias spinner, up next, sets the distance a shadow is offset from its casting object. By default this is set to 0.01, which keeps shadows looking accurate. If you want you can try changing this, but i recommend leaving it at the default setting

Next are two sections, for Object shadows and Atmospheric shadows. Object shadows are just normal ol' shadows, cast by objects. Atmospheric shadows are shadows cast through atmospherics, such as fog, volume light, etc. The object shadow section has two spinners, Level and Tint, and checkboxes to activate them.

The Level spinner basically acts as a shadow multiplier. Setting this lower then 1.0 will result in 'thinner' shadows, which are not as dark. Setting this higher then 1.0 theoretically would make the shadow darker then black, but it really just seems to stay the same as if it was set at 1.0.

The Tint spinner and color swatch just allow you to tint the shadows a different color and set the amount they are tinted.

Under the Atmospheric Shadows section, the opacity checkbox and spinner determine the opactity of the shadows cast through atmospherics, and the color amount spinner and checkbox determine how the fog color mixes with the shadow color.

The last section here is the Shadow Focusing area. Shadow focusing allows you to have a 'hotspot' and 'falloff' for just the shadow casting. There is a dropdown menu for the falloff type, which behaves just as the others do. There are also spinners for hotspot and falloff. See below for how the shadows are only being cast in the central area of the light, because of the private focusing of the shadows.

Next is the Affect Surfaces rollout, which functions pretty much just like the same settings on the Max regular lights.

The only addition here is the ability to play with a custom curve for the diffuse transition.

Next is the indirect illumination rollout:

This just allows you to toggle the indirect illumination (bounced light) ability for that particular light. This just determines whether that light will participate should GI with multiple light bounces be turned on. There are also controls for the level of indirect illumination that light will contribute and the ability to tint it.

Finally, there are the display options for the light object itself.

This just allows you to control the way the light itself is displayed in the viewports. Feel free to play around a bit with this and learn what it all does, but I'll not really cover it in depth, since it doesn't directly affect the render output.

There is also a photon maps rollout, which controls all the photon parameters for photon-based GI and for caustics, but that is best left to another tutorial. So that wraps up the Brazil light, so let's move on to the Brazil Camera:

Part Two: The Brazil Camera

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