CompuServe Messages

Lee, >> use small spots tuned just right to the color and level you want, pointed at the "Key" subject. This will give you the [radiosity] effect you are looking for while not requiring an environmental map at all.<< I've use this technique too in the past, but I'm not satisfied with it anymore. The blurred global maps work better because they interact with with the object's Reflectivity brushes, and tend to *heighten* detail in the shadows rather than *washing it out* the way a fill light does, especially when there's a lot of specularity. The global mapping technique does not create a specular highlight in the shadowed areas, the way a fill light does. That highlight is a dead give away that you're faking the ambient reflections with light emanting from a single point source. The global map also adds in a wide range of hues that give a greater sense of `realism' or `being in an environment'. However the fill light technique you describe admittedly works a little better in 3.xx now that Imagine's lights have a CONTROLLED FALLOFF. Tim