Ambient Lighting does not affect the render at all

[Anonymous]

I recently upgraded to 3DS Max 2021, and I'm having issues with Ambient Lighting with the Arnold Renderer.

I usually have my Ambient Lighting color set to RGB 200, 200, 200, and it looks like this in the viewport. Back when I used the Standard Renderer in 3DS Max 2015, this lighting would be present in the render as well.

However, when I try making a render of this scene, it looks like this, as if the Ambient Color was pitch black. To verify, I made a separate render where the Ambient Color actually was pitch black, and it looked identical.

How do I make it so that the Ambient Color actually affects the render and doesn't look so dark? I don't want to have to go back to using the Standard Renderer. Thanks!

[madsd]

Im not sure what you mean by ambient lightning, sounds like a legacy slot somewhere in the environment panel.

Add an Arnold skydome and disable shadow, may do what you want.

What you want is possible, I just need to understand what kind of looks you need.

[Anonymous]

In older versions of 3DS Max that did not have Arnold, changing the Ambient Light color in the Environment and Effects panel would affect shadow colors and how models were rendered when not really influenced by a light...I think. Here is what it looks like:

On the left is a render with an Ambient Lighting of RGB 0,0,0, and on the right is a render with an Ambient Lighting of RGB 200,200,200. Both were done with the Standard Renderer, as, again, Arnold did not exist in older versions of 3DS Max.

RGB 0,0,0 Ambient LightingRGB 200,200,200 Ambient Lighting

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Ambient Lighting appears to have no effect in the Arnold renderer, causing models to appear like the one on the left (but more extreme, as you can see in the first post) no matter what the Ambient Lighting color is. What I'm trying to do is determine how to make the lighting look more like the one on the right in Arnold.

[madsd]

The default lightning with some additional fake light feed from the opposit direction, right.

Just use a skylight and control the shadow density.

Here viewport  fake ambient lightning.

render as described above.

[Anonymous]

Where do you recommenced placing this skydome, and what scaling/rotation values should it have, if any?

I'm having trouble getting it to work right.

[madsd]

The light is omni directional, so no need to think about rotating or anything.

Find it under the light section, Arnold and make an Arnold light, then change type to Skydome and set the intensity to 1.0 and set the value 8 to 0.

Then play with shadow strength and maybe use a light feed additional light very low strength and disable shadows to get a tiny bit of highlight going.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Wow, that actually worked really well! 

I will keep experimenting with it more so I can get it to look better, but I will accept your solution once I don't have any more problems.