I just started learning max and I have a couple of questions regarding LFS renders.

1. How come when I import a .cmx into max I can see, in the shaded preview, the proper textures on the model eg. lights, number plates etc. Even thoughI have not assigned the textures yet?

2. Why do people use Brazil over default scan line renderer or Mental Ray renderer? I followed a tutorial using Brazil for importing and creating a CMX render and while it does look very good, I was wondering would it not be possible to achieve the same results given enough knowledge of setting up the other built in renderers?

cheers

sean

1. A material can be put onto a model without having assigned a material to them in the material editor.

2. The default renderer isnt really nice, you can do some basic renders with it which look ok (like mine, check the ZT gallery), but for better results you need more advanced renderers. Specially, Brazil, vray, etc are much faster - the rendering times are significantly lower.
Metal ray is very good (peple ay that, I have never used anything else than the scanline default), but very difficult to use.

you can use the 'light tracer' or 'Radiosity' with scanline renderer in 'Advance lighting', you can use Sky light with it, they do look pretty good for scanline renderings.

Brazil is overrated. Fantastic results can be achieved without it. Getting good results from any renderer is not as simple as adding a skin and pushing the render button. Brazil has a reputation of rendering good results faster than Max's default renderer, meaning it has real appeal in the professional production studio where time costs a lot of money. It takes a lot of time to learn lighting/shading, projection maps, and other aspects of setting up a scene for rendering.

It is just as easy to ruin a Brazil render as it is to ruin a default Max render. I recommend tutorials on lighting and shading to anyone who is truly interested in 3D. Dropping a skin into a pre-made scene won't teach you much. There are so many thousands of ways to improve a scene for rendering that one can not hope to become competent in a short time or without further study.
It is really worth doing some homework and practice with Max if you plan to continue your 3D adventure beyond mediocre renders.