3ds max more lighting help needed

[Combine]

I have this scene, but whatever I do it turns out really shitty - no variation in shades and no shadows, even though I turned shadows on. Render:

The light fixtures overhead are a total of 27 (9 per fixture) omnilights within boxes with transparent material and self-illumination. These, as well as a test spot light within the room, are turned on, but you can’t even see a hint of the lights in the render. Any ideas? I’m killing myself over this

[double-z]

Something is definitely not right there! It does look like some light is coming through the boxes at the top.

I would guess that the boxes are blocking the light entirely. Right-click on a box and disable its shadow casting. This will allow the lights to shine through, but may not be ideal for what you are trying to achieve.

Depending on which render engine you are using, self-illumination might do nothing more than brighten the texture, and not actually cast light.

Are you using scanline, or mental ray?

[Combine]

I’m not sure what render engine I’m using. I just click the Render button and the pic pops up. How do I check?

I also don’t think it’s the matter of self-illum. For this render, nothing is self-illuminated, and there is a spot light aimed directly at the fixture. However there is no shadows cast whatsoever on the plane. “Cast shadows” was checked.

Any ideas? Thanks again double-z.

[p0rt1r]

stupid question but do you have the individual lights set to cast shadows?

Ill tell you how todo it anyway, someone out there might benefit from this.

Theres 2 ways of turning on shadows. You can go to the modify —> shadows, ‘on’ tickbox. The quick way to edit basic light settings is this.

click tools --> light lister. Theres a catagory called shadows. Click on the tickboxes next to all of the lights.

Now i cant figure out how to make the cast shadows blury like the skylight does so your gonna have to find a tutorial for that.