290 likes | 519 Views
3D Modelling & Animation. Rendering. Agenda. Choices to make when rendering a scene Render workflow Renderer selection and related settings Network rendering Batch rendering Project folder structure. Choices for Rendering. Renderer - Hardware, Software, Vector
E N D
3D Modelling & Animation Rendering
Agenda • Choices to make when rendering a scene • Render workflow • Renderer selection and related settings • Network rendering • Batch rendering • Project folder structure
Choices for Rendering • Renderer - Hardware, Software, Vector • Image Format - avi, mpg, gif, jpg, • Resolution - width x height e.g. 640 x 480 • Sequence - start frame, end frame, nth frames to render • File name and extensions • Anti-aliasing Quality • Raytracing options (increases rendering times!) • Network Rendering - Mental Ray
Rendering Workflow • Preview rendering with playblast • Set project rendering configuration in render globals • Use IPR for preview and adjustments • Preview animation from batch-rendering n-frames • Batch-render sequence from command line
Select Rendering from here Render Icons
Rendering: Select Icon Render to IPR ‘Interactive Photorealistic Rendering’ Render to Window using current Settings Modify current settings in Render Globals dialogue boxes
IPR Render Window Drag a rectangle around the region to render
Render Globals: Common 1. Select Renderer • Render Using • Maya Software • Maya Hardware • Maya Vector (must be plugged-in)
Render Globals:Common 2. Select Image Format • IFF by default • Movie formats .avt. .mpeg etc. • Bitmap .jpg, .gif etc.
Render Globals: Common 3. Select Image Size 320 x 240 pixels a good size for rendering a preview
Render Globals: Common 4. Select Camera View to Render
Render Globals: Software Renderer 5. Select Render Quality Raytracing switched off by default. Switching on raytracing will increase rendering times substantially.
Render Globals: Vector Renderer 6. Select Vector Render Quality and Shading IPR rendering not available with vector renderer
Windows - Settings / Preferences - Plug-in Manager Vector renderer only available if plugged-in here
Depth - Sorting Problems at Render Time Clipping planes assigned values at render time of -1 (near) and 0 (far)
Displaying the camera clipping planes (Maya 8.5) Select the camera first to see the option to display its clipping planes
If clipping planes have very large limits precision can be lost when comparing depths of objects in close proximity of each other leading to rendering artifacts
If depth sorting errors occur one solution is to manually set the clipping planes to just encompass the nearest and farthest object in the scene and turn of Auto Render Clip Plane
Network Rendering • Rendering tasks shared between computers across a network • Requires a ‘master’ (server) and ‘slave’ machines (hosts) • Network rendering software server on master machine distributes rendering tasks to slave machines • Rendering server co-ordinates slaves return of rendered animation frames to master via network to common destination folder • Images then composted back into sequences - .avi .mpg in post production process - Premiere, After Effects etc. • Maya - network rendering setup a ‘mission’ - better third-party solutions. Number of slave machines restricted by licence type • 3DS MAX - network rendering out of the box since the early MSDOS versions - no restriction on number of network slaves
Network Rendering slaves Master Rendered animation frames returned to common folder on network
Establishing Network Rendering with Maya and Mental Ray • Choose a machine to use as the host (must have Maya installed) • Install Mental Ray Satellite on all slave machines • Try ‘pinging’ the hosts on the network to verify ip connectivity • list hostnames on master machine in the Maya.rayhosts file here: • /My Documents/maya/7.0/prefs/ (change the Maya version etc.) • Master and slave must communicate on same port - default is 7106 - port established during installation of Mental Ray - specified in: • windows\system32\drivers\etc\services (edited this file with care) • mi-ray 7106/tcp // Maya 7 • mi-raysat85 7106/tcp // Maya 8.5 • Each Mental Ray release is different - must use matching version for slave and host machines
Establishing Network Rendering with Maya and Mental Ray http://www.lamrug.org/presentations/oct2004/mental_ray_for_maya_render_farm_.htm Some further information here...
Batch Rendering • Preview animation from batch-rendering n-frames • Batch-render sequence from command line
Project Folder Structure Render output sent to the images folder by default