Rendering Still Images

Introduction to Rendering

Creating an Animated Shadow Study

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Lighting and Rendering > Introduction to Rendering > 

Rendering an Animation

There are some specific techniques to learn for rendering your animation into a movie file. You can render directly to a movie format such as AVI, or you can render a sequence of still image files to file formats such as TGA and then use the RAM Player to save them into a movie. The latter method is the recommended choice. It's a few steps more than rendering directly into a movie, but it gives you more control over file size and quality of output, plus if you have frames with artifacts or other errors, you can repair or remove them.

Set up the scene:

• From the \tutorials\full_house directory, open full_house_walkin_start_render.max.

  If you get a Units Mismatch dialog, choose Adopt The File's Unit Scale and click OK. In general, when encountering this dialog, choose Adopt Unit Scale.

  This is a large file, so it will take a while to load. This file has stored all the radiosity rendering information, so the render times will be quicker.

  

  This file is similar to the one created in the earlier walkthrough lesson. It has been reduced from 730 frames to 257 frames to shorten the total rendering time.

Render to an image sequence:

1. If the Camera viewport isn't active, right-click in it to activate it.
2. From the Rendering menu, choose Render.

   Next, you'll define the animation range.

3. On the Common tab of the Render Scene dialog, in the Time Output group, choose Active Time Segment.

   This option automatically renders all currently playable frames. Alternatively, you could choose Range or Frames and set the frame range to render.

4. In the Render Output group, click the Files button.

   The Render Output File dialog opens.

5. Navigate to a directory where you want to save your work. You can use the Create New Folder button to establish a new location, if necessary.
   WarningMake sure you don't choose a directory on a DVD drive or some other write-protected location. Also make sure you choose a location with plenty of free space.

   Next you'll define the type of still image file to render.

6. In the Save As Type field, click the drop-down arrow and choose Targa Image File, (*.tga ...).

   This is a high-quality file type, good for this kind of rendering.

7. In the File name field, type my_walkin.tga, then click Save.

   After you click Save, you see a format-specific dialog that asks you to specify attribute and information settings. You can accept the default values, and then click OK.

   When you render an still-image sequence, as in this case, the software automatically appends the first part of the file name with a four-digit frame number. So the first frame will be my_walkin0000.tga, the second will be my_walkin0001.tga, and so on.

8. Make sure Save File is turned on in the Render Output rollout, and that the Viewport field at the bottom of the Render Scene dialog reads Camera03 (not Top, Front, or Left), then click Render.

   

   The Rendering dialog appears, or you may first see a Raytrace Messages dialog. Wait for a short while as the first frame is rendered. You will see the Last Frame Time, Elapsed Time, and Time Remaining values change after the first frame finishes.

   

   If you did see the Raytrace Messages dialog, click the Raytracer tab of the Render Scene dialog, and then turn off Show Messages.

9. Allow at least four frames to render.
10. At this point, you can go away and return once your rendering is complete.
    TipYou could also sit and watch the rendering for errors or improvements. In the real world, this can be a good idea; to study what you are creating.

    When the rendering is finished, the target directory contains the 258 output files.

Convert an image sequence into a movie:

1. From the Rendering menu, choose RAM Player.

   The RAM Player loads still image sequences into memory and plays them so you can watch them as a movie. It actually lets you load two different sequences and then compare them visually, but you won't use that functionality here. You'll simply use the RAM Player to save the files into an AVI file.

2. On the RAM Player toolbar, click Open Channel A.
3. In the Open File Channel A dialog, navigate to the sequence of TGA image files. Highlight the name of the first file in the sequence, then turn on Sequence, and click Open.

   

   Now the RAM Player will load the sequential image files, rather than just the first one.

   The Image File List dialog appears. Here you can use the Every Nth and Multiplier fields if you need to speed up or slow down your animation. If your animation is too slow, change Every Nth to 2 or 3. If your animation is too fast, increase the Multiplier.

4. Click OK.

   The RAM Player Configuration dialog appears. Here you can observe and adjust your memory usage. Loading this sequence takes about 57 MB. There are also tools here to resize your animation, specify a range of frames to use, and split the alpha (transparency) information into a separate file.

5. Increase the Memory Usage to its maximum for your system, then click OK.

   The RAM Player loads the file into memory. In the Loading dialog, observe how much memory is being used and remains available.

   If it looks like you are about to run out memory, click Stop Loading. If you have a low-memory system, reduce the number of frames to load and try again.

6. On the RAM Player toolbar, click the Play button and watch the movie play.

   

7. On the RAM Player toolbar, click the Save Channel A button.

   The Save File dialog appears.

8. Choose AVI as the file type, and give the animation the name my_walkin.avi. Click Save.

   The Video Compression dialog appears. Here, you can choose a codec (compression/decompression type) and adjust the quality of the file. To reduce file size, lower the quality.

9. Click OK to continue.
10. When the file conversion is finished, close the RAM Player, and then from the File menu, choose View Image File. Play your finished AVI file and observe the results.