'Ello lads. Just thought I'd drop this lil' nugget of information.
At the bottom of this page, good ol' Boris released a 3DS Max scene which allows you to create a palette in 3DS Max. The amazin' thing? They are far and away better than anything you can make in Photoshop.
If you just compare the images themselves, there is no banding in the one produced by 3DS Max. This allows fer a much better range of darks and whites; say goodbye to the overpowering whiteness that appears on Specular surfaces.
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To make a palette, load up the scene. -
Select the nurbs surface in the top perspective view (bird's eye view). -
Click and hold the zoom extents box-icon-thing at the bottom-right of the screen. -
Click the other box-icon-thing that appears. This will change the icon to "Zoom Extents Selected" -
Click Render Setup -
Change render mode (or something to that effect) to "Selected" -
Look for a tab that says something along the lines of "Environment/Effects" -
Click Effects -
Add the "Color Balance", "Brightness/Contrast" and "File Output" effects. -
Specify the file to save in the, well, File Output effect. Be sure to save as a 24bit .bmp file. -
Bugger around with Color Balance and Brightness/Contrast, clicking "Update Effect" every now and then. -
You will now have a palette file. Rejoice.
Made a few for my own use. Mayhaps y'all will find 'em useful. I'm diggin' the "Pinky.bmp" palette.