ABSTRACT
The tools that the Lighting Analysis Assistant brings together allow the user to prototype daylight levels within a model, and to plan more efficiently the artificial lighting requirements of the development’s various spaces. As lighting analysis is totally dependent on physically correct settings, there are several areas of 3ds Max where specific tools must be used, so there are potentially quite a few pitfalls that could lead to the production of inaccurate results. This starts with the renderer, which must be the physically accurate mental ray and goes right through to materials, which must be either mental ray Arch&Design or ProMaterials, which again are mental ray materials that correspond to Autodesk Revit materials. The Analysis Output panel of the Lighting Analysis Assistant helps to manage Light Meter objects and the image overlay render effect, which combine to calculate and display lighting levels when we render the scene.
