3D Modelling & Animation

UFCEKT-20-33D Modelling and Animation

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 Window using current Settings

Render to IPR ‘Interactive Photorealistic Rendering’

Modify current settings in Render Globals dialogue boxes


Render Window


Render Window

UFCEKT-20-33D Modelling and Animation Drag a rectangle around the region to render

IPR Render Window


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.



3. Select Image Size

320 x 240 pixels a good size for rendering a preview



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


Vector renderer only available

if plugged-in here

Windows - Settings / Preferences - Plug-in Manager


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

Master

slaves

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



http://www.lamrug.org/presentations/oct2004/mental_ray_for_maya_render_farm_.htm

Some further information here...

Establishing Network Rendering with Maya and Mental Ray


Examples of Rendering usingMental Ray


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