How to take advantage of rendering in 3dsmax9?

[markham22]

Perhaps this has already been asked. sorry if it has.
Aside from rendering much quicker and being able to create much more complicated scenes in 3dsmax9, is there other rendering advantages in using 3dsmax9 as opposed to gmax?
Can I use all the advanced rendering tools that 3dsmax9 has to offer when using the batformax plugin? Perhaps there is a tutorial for rendering advanced scenes for sc4 while using 3dsmax9?
I am able to render using batformax in 3dsmax9 and put the scene into sc4 (whether a lot or plopable). However with the exception of having a little more lighting and reflection control in max the "quality" of the scene (when put into a lot and into the game) looks no different than in gmax.
I hope I'm making sense . I have used gmax for awhile but am new to 3dsmax.
Any help would be great 

[callagrafx]

The short answer is yes...there are advantages to using Max over Gmax.  The most advantageous thing is the much better modelling tools and better material editor, which opens the door to raytraced reflections, bump-mapping etc...

As for lighting, there are much better light controls (read the threads from Simfox over at ST about lighting) and the exclusion function actually works!

On a down-note, nightlighting BATs is much trickier, especially the nitewindow method.  This is wholly unsupported in Max 9 so you have to use other methods (my preferred is a target spot with excluded meshes).  Rendering for the game is also a bit long-winded and tricky, but IMO totally worth the aggro.

[SimFox]

To add to what Callagrafx said already one very, very, very useful feature is AntiAliasing - it allows smooth curves and diagonal lines, but more than that, it effectively raises resolution of bat. Now things could be say half a pixel in size.
Max also offers a choice of rendering engines. In addition to Scanline (more advanced sibling of rendering engine in GMAX) it has Mental Ray and version supplied with MAX9 is nothing short of fantastic. it can give run for their money to best of rendering engines on the market (V-ray, Final Render etc). It handles some of the more complex materials (with glossy reflections and refractions with remarkable speed and quality beating any competition on the market).
With MR you can handle vast scenes with hundreds of millions of polygons. Scanline would die on scene like that on count 1.
There is one more advantage on getting cozy with MAX. You get real marketable skill...
Callagrafx has actually sort of suggested getting new section dedicated to MAX issues. I think it would be great idea and I could do some tutorials to it. And sure some other people could also share their knowledge.

[markham22]

Thanks callagrifx and simfox.
Is it possible you could go into more detail on how I can use metal ray and anti-aliasing while rendering for the BAT in 3dsmax? Here are some pics of my Material options menu and my rendering menus. Can you help me to "optimize" for antaliasing and rendering using metal ray?
Thannks again:

[SimFox]

You have to set you render to be Mental Ray. It is done in Render Scene window in Common tab. I would really encourage you to read MAX help and to follow some small tutorials that are listed in it about using Mental Ray and about basic settings of Global illumination. It is much better to work through it once yourself then to read 10 times about it!
Speaking about AA - for things like bat best choice would be either Mitchell (a bit softer) or Lancsoz - sharper. Sampling should be min 1 max 16 or so about. But min can not go below 1 with BAT scripts. Also here is great tutorial on using MR (MentalRay) Sun and Sky: http://evermotion.org/index.php?unfold_exclusive=141&unfold=exclusive

[markham22]

Thanks SimFox
So are you saying that if the default renderer is Metal Ray the BAT will render my scene with the Metal Ray renderer and therefore create a more detailed BAT?

[mightygoose]

that site is too helpful for words...