Autodesk 12812-051462-9011 User Guide 3 - Page 240

Ambient This is not the same as the standard ambient color. For Raytrace material, this controls an ambient absorption factor: that is, how much the material absorbs ambient light. Setting Ambient to white is the same as locking the ambient and diffuse colors in a standard material. Default=black. ■ Ambient Color check box When on, the material uses an ambient color. When off, the material uses a spinner to set a grayscale value only. Default=on. ■ Color swatch When on, the color swatch shows the ambient color. To change the color, click the swatch and then use the Color Selector on page 391. ■ Mono spinner When the check box is off, the ambient component is gray, and this spinner lets you adjust the gray value. Click the map button to assign a map to the ambient component. See Ambient Mapping on page 5458. This button is a shortcut: you can also assign ambient mapping on the Raytrace Maps rollout on page 5509. Diffuse Sets the diffuse color. This is the same as the standard diffuse color. It is the color that the object reflects, without specular reflection. Reflection and transparency effects are layered on top of the diffuse result. When Reflect is 100% (pure white), the diffuse color isn't visible. (This differs from the standard material.) Default=50% gray. Reflect Sets the specular reflection color. This is the color that the reflected environment (that is, the rest of the scene) is filtered through. The color's Value controls the amount of reflection. If your reflect color is saturated and the diffuse color is black, the effect is like colored chrome (for example, colored Christmas tree balls). Default=black (no reflection). If raytracing is off (on the Raytracer Controls rollout), the object still reflects the environment, but ignores other objects in the scene. The environment can be the background color, the environment map, or the map in the Raytrace material's Environment component. TIP If you turn off raytraced reflections, set the Reflect color to a color other than black, and use a Reflect/Refract map for the local environment (see the Environment parameter, below), you get the same effect as a reflection map in a standard material. This can improve rendering time. Raytrace Material | 5495