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Contents
v
Clipping planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Create and use a camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Create a camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Adjust a camera’s attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Make an existing camera renderable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Turn scene view guidelines on or off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Adjust depth of field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Camera limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Look through (select) a camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Select the current scene view’s camera . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Look through another camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Frame your scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Move a camera to another location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Aim a camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Look at selected objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Frame selected objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Frame all objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Frame part of a scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Save sequential camera movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Troubleshoot Resolution Gate and Film Gate display
incorrectly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Using a stereoscopic camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Create a stereoscopic camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Edit the anaglyph attributes of a stereoscopic camera . . . . . . . 33
Render a scene with stereoscopic camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Create a custom rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
vi | Contents
Chapter 4 Visualize and render images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Rendering methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Render View rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Batch renders from within Maya (UI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Render from a command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Render output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
File formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Subfolders and names of rendered images . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
File output location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Pixel aspect ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Frames vs. Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Color, Depth, and Mask (alpha) channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Pre Render MEL and Post Render MEL scripts . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Layers and passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Render layer overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Working with render layers: different layer examples . . . . . . . 71
Render layer concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Mask and depth channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Render passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Compositing Interoperability Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Compositing Interoperability Plug-in for Toxik . . . . . . . . . . 80
Render tiles in the Maya Software renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Render tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Visualize scenes and render images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A typical rendering workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Choose a rendering method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Set scene options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Open the Render Settings window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Render all or some objects from a camera . . . . . . . . . . 85
Set the rendered image file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Set file name syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Set rendered images output location . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Set the resolution and pixel aspect ratio . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Enable color, depth, and mask channels for rendered
images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Create and view depth files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Modify a mask channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Specify frame or field rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Run Pre Render MEL or Post Render MEL scripts . . . . . . . 92
Adjust anti-aliasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Adjust output image filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Create and load a plug-in multipixel filter . . . . . . . . . . 94
Set raytracing quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Set motion blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Contents | vii
Maya software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Set IPR options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Set Paint Effects rendering options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Set per-material vector rendering options . . . . . . . . . . 99
Work with render layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Work with layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Work with layer overrides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Remove material overrides from objects in any render
layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Assign different component shading for each render
layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Work with attribute overrides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Preview layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Render layers to PSD format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Batch and command-line render with layers . . . . . . . . 116
Duplicate an existing render layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Naming render layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Recycling rendered images to save time . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Control visibility/reflection per layer . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Merging display layers or render layers when importing
files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Visualize a scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Visualize interactively with IPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
See shading and lights in a scene view . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Test render a low-res still or frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Test render a low-res animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Render selected objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Render a region of your scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Perform final renders from within Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Render a single frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Batch render a still or animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Render with several processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Perform command line rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Command line rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Render multiple scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Render multiple scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Work with the Compositing Interoperability plug-in . . . . . . . 135
Work with Autodesk Toxik 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Work with Autodesk Toxik 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Troubleshooting Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Troubleshoot image plane displays black swatch . . . . . . 140
Troubleshoot displacement is not displayed . . . . . . . . 140
Troubleshoot software-rendered is too bright . . . . . . . . 141
Troubleshoot Multi-UVs for NURBS don’t software
render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
viii | Contents
Troubleshoot NURBS surface does not appear when
rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Troubleshoot rendered image doesn’t match interactive
window display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Troubleshoot projection texture swims over an
animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Troubleshoot transparent blobby surface rendering
anti-aliasing problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Troubleshoot memory exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Troubleshoot highlight artifacts close to object edge . . . . 143
Troubleshoot background surfaces show through . . . . . 144
Troubleshoot objects vibrate when an animation is
rendered as fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Troubleshoot 2D Motion Blur problems . . . . . . . . . . 144
Troubleshooting Surfaces (Maya software) . . . . . . . . . 146
Troubleshoot edits in the Texture Editor don’t update in
IPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Troubleshoot looping renders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Troubleshoot render tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Troubleshoot assigning objects to Render Layers through
the Relationship editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Troubleshoot render layer color indicators do not appear
correctly (Linux only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Troubleshoot Interactive Photorealistic Rendering
(IPR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Contents | ix
Cache texture tiles using BOT (block ordered
texture) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Delete information not relevant to the renderer . . . . . . 164
Render parts of a scene separately . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Decrease file size (Maya Vector renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Strategies to decrease vector render file size . . . . . . . . . 165
Diagnose scene problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Run diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Sample diagnostic messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
x | Contents
Edit an approximation node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Unassign an approximation node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Delete an approximation node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Override approximation settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Obtain quads for subdivision surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Troubleshoot partial creases rendering as full creases . . . . . . . 208
Control Fine approximation triangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Setting Fine approximation cache limit . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Control Fine approximation triangles . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Tweak Approximation node settings . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Render time smoothing of polygon meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Smooth polygon meshes at render time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Rendering a smooth polygon mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Render a smooth polygon mesh using Smooth Mesh
Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Contour rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Adding a contour to your scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Work with multi-render passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Introduction to multi-render passes: a simple workflow
example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Sample workflow for multi-render passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Exporting the multi-render passes for compositing in Toxik . . . . . . 233
Set scene options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Open the Render Settings window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Modify a mask channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Adjust anti-aliasing in mental ray for Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Set motion blur in mental ray for Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Perform command line rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Rendering from the command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Export .mi files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Export a .mi file and render with mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Managing your scenes using render proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Using render proxies in your scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Material assignments for render proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Increase render speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Increase overall rendering speed in mental ray for Maya . . . . . 247
Increase surface rendering speed in mental ray for Maya . . . . . 249
Increase shadow rendering speed in mental ray for Maya . . . . 250
Diagnose scene problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
mental ray for Maya error handling and diagnostics . . . . . . . 251
Network rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Network render with mental ray for Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Set up mental ray network rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Set up a master machine with mental ray for Maya or mental
ray for Maya Satellite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Verify which hosts file is being read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Contents | xi
Change the set of slaves used for mental ray for Maya renders
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Set up a master machine with mental ray standalone (method
1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Set up a master machine with mental ray standalone (method
2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Slave machine setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Submit a job to render over the network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Dynamic Attributes for mental ray for Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Dynamic Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Troubleshoot mental ray for Maya rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Troubleshoot general mental ray for Maya rendering issues . . . 276
Troubleshoot render layers do not render correctly when
exporting a .mi file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Troubleshoot Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Troubleshoot Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Troubleshoot final gather causes flicker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Troubleshoot Network rendering with mental ray for
Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Troubleshoot exporting .mi files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
xii | Contents
Create > Cameras > Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Create > Cameras > Camera and Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Create > Cameras > Camera, Aim, and Up . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Window > Rendering Editors > Render View . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Window > Rendering Editors > Hardware Render Buffer . . . . . 318
Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings . . . . . . . . . . 318
Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Window > Rendering Editors > Rendering Flags . . . . . . . . . 319
Window > Rendering Editors > Shading Group Attributes . . . . 319
Window > Rendering Editors > Multilister . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Approximation
Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Custom Text
Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Render > Render Current Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Render > Redo Previous Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Render > IPR Render Current Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Render > Redo Previous IPR Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Render > Test Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Render > Run Render Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Render > Batch Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Render > Cancel Batch Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Render > Show Batch Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Render > Render Using > Maya Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Render > Render Using > Maya Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Render > Render Using > Maya Vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Render > Set NURBS Tessellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Render > Render Using > mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Render > Export All Layers to Toxik 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Render > Export Selected Layers to Toxik 2007 . . . . . . . . . . 335
Render > Export to Toxik 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Render > Export Pre-Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Panel menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
View > Select Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
View > Camera settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
View > Camera Attribute Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
View > Camera Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
View > Image plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Stereo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Stereo > Center Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Stereo > Active . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Stereo > Horizontal Interlace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Stereo > Checkerboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Contents | xiii
Stereo > Anaglyph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Stereo > Luminance Anaglyph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Stereo > Freeview (Parallel) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Stereo > Freeview (Crossed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Stereo > Background Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Stereo > Set Color Using Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Renderer > Default Quality Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Renderer > High Quality Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Renderer > <Custom Renderer> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
xiv | Contents
Transform node mental ray rendering attributes . . . . . . . . . 505
Object-specific mental ray attributes - Attribute Editor . . . . . . . . . 506
mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Object-specific render attributes - Attribute Editor . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Render Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Smooth Mesh Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Vector Renderer Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Texture Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Tessellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
NURBS objects tessellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
Contents | xv
xvi
About rendering and
renderers 1
Rendering
Introduction to rendering
As you build your scenes (shade and texture objects, light scenes, position
cameras, and so on), you’ll want to visualize your scene many times before you
produce the final rendered image or image sequence. This process may involve
1
(depending on your particular project) creating and setting up additional
cameras.
Visualize a scene during early iterations to detect and correct image quality
problems or to estimate and reduce the amount of time the final render takes
before you spend time performing the final render.
When you are satisfied with the results of your scene during test renders, you
can perform the final render.
You can visualize and final render a single frame, part of an animation
(multiple frames), or an entire animation in Autodesk® Maya®.
Software rendering produces images of the highest quality, letting you achieve
the most sophisticated results.
Computation occurs on the CPU, as opposed to hardware rendering, which
relies on the machine’s graphics card. Because it is not restricted by the
computer's graphics card, software rendering generally is more flexible. The
Hardware rendering
Hardware rendering uses the computer's video card and drivers installed on
the machine to render images to disk. Hardware rendering is generally faster
than software rendering, but typically produces images of lower quality
compared to software rendering. In some cases, however, hardware rendering
can produce results good enough for broadcast delivery.
Hardware rendering cannot produce some of the most sophisticated effects,
such as some advanced shadows, reflections, and post-process effects. To
produce these kind of effects, you must use software rendering.
Maya has the following hardware renderer:
NOTE
■ Maya displays a warning message if your video card is not qualified for
hardware rendering, which can affect the display in the scene view (for
example, Toon shading). In this case, shading in the scene view is what
you get with non-High Quality rendering, or when not using the
hardware renderer.
■ For information about the Hardware Render Buffer, see Hardware Render
Buffer window on page 484.
Vector rendering lets you create stylized renderings (for example, cartoon,
tonal art, line art, hidden line, wireframe) in various bitmap image formats
and 2D vector formats.
Maya has the following vector renderer:
Renderers
These features are processed natively on the graphics card to improve quality
and speed in many cases.
Supported features include:
■ Display a layered texture and create multiple UV sets for each different
texture
■ Negative light. Frame buffer format on page 455 must be set to floating
point. Select RGBA: 16-bit float per channel from the drop down list in
the Render Settings: Maya Hardware tab on page 454.
■ Displacement mapping
■ Shader translucency
■ Blinn shaders
■ Ramp shaders
■ Advanced transparency
■ Hardware particles
■ Instancing
■ Light linking
■ Specular highlights
■ Bumps
■ Reflections
■ Shadows
■ Motion blur
■ BOT files are not supported by the hardware renderer. BOT file textures
will be rendered black by the hardware renderer.
■ Hardware renderer does not support point light shadows. Shadows are not
created for point lights when the hardware renderer is used.
■ When displaying mental ray area lights, the hardware renderer does not
provide the same results as an actual render, but instead produces a very
rough approximation that can be viewed in High Quality mode.
The Maya hardware renderer supports the following configuration for
mental ray area lights:
■ A Maya area light must be used.
■ A fixed point sampling rate is used for both diffuse and specular
highlights. Sampling artifacts may occur, especially for specular
highlights where the area of the light is large and the light is close to
the surface.
■ Other light shapes and options such as High Samples, High Sample
Limit and Low Samples are not supported.
To select the Maya Vector renderer, see Select a renderer on page 11.
To set options for the Maya Vector renderer, see Render Settings window on
page 376.
Example Animations
helicopter.swf flowers.swf
boat.swf car.swf
NOTE
■ The Maya Vector renderer cannot render certain Maya features (see Maya
features that do not vector render on page 10).
■ If you are rendering SWF or SVG files for online delivery make sure you
read Strategies to decrease vector render file size on page 165. Otherwise
you may create files that are too large for online delivery.
The Maya Vector renderer cannot render the following Maya features.
Maya® Fluid Effects™ Not rendered. Use Modify > Convert >
Fluid to Polygons to convert fluid effects
to polygons for rendering.
Maya® Paint Effects™ Not rendered. Use Modify > Convert >
Paint Effects to Polygons to convert paint
effects to polygons for rendering.
Some Paint Effects may not render as ex-
pected. Many Paint Effects brushes use a
transparency texture on a single polygon
to achieve an effect (for example, the out-
line of a leaf). However, the Maya Vector
renderer only supports per object transpar-
ency.
Select a renderer
To find out more about Maya renderers, see the following:
■ Select the renderer from the drop-down list in Render View (Window
> Rendering Editors > Render View).
■ Select the renderer from the drop-down list in the Render Settings
window on page 376.
NOTE
The mental ray renderer and the Maya Vector renderer are plug-ins
that are loaded by default. If you do not see them listed in Render >
Render Using, choose Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in
Manager and make sure the Mayatomr and, or VectorRender plug-ins
are loaded.
2 Select the Rendering category, then set the Preferred Renderer option.
13
Maya camera types
Maya cameras have certain advantages over real world cameras, giving you
more creative freedom. For example, because Maya cameras are not restricted
by size or weight, you can move cameras to any position in your scene, even
inside the smallest objects.
Three types of cameras help you create both static and animated scenes:
■ Use a Basic camera for static scenes and for simple animations (up, down,
side to side, in and out), such as panning out of a scene. See Create >
Cameras > Camera on page 313 for more details.
■ Use a Camera and Aim camera for slightly more complex animations (along
a path, for example), such as a camera that follows the erratic path of a
bird. See Create > Cameras > Camera and Aim on page 317 to set its options.
■ Use a Camera, Aim, and Up camera to specify which end of the camera
must face upward. This camera is best for complex animations, such as a
camera that travels along a looping roller coaster. See Create > Cameras >
Camera, Aim, and Up on page 317 to set its options.
Stereoscopic Camera
■ As options for a camera as you create it. See Create > Cameras > Camera
on page 313.
Motion blur gives the feeling of motion. Motion blur is determined by the
shutter speed. The slower the shutter speed (sometimes deliberately done),
the harder motion is to stop. That is, fast motion (such as a moving car) appears
motion blurred at slower shutter speeds. At higher speeds, the moving car is
‘stopped’ and therefore in focus.
To set motion blur in Maya, see Motion blur on page 16.
For information on mental ray for Maya’s motion blur, see mental ray for
Maya motion blur on page 180.
Motion blur
Motion blur can be turned on and off on a per-object basis. If some surfaces
in the scene don’t move, or move only slightly, do not motion blur them.
Being selective about what you motion blur can decrease rendering times.
(See also 2D Motion Blur global attributes information about 2D motion blur.)
Camera aim
Aim a camera to frame objects in your scene.
To look through a camera, see Select the current scene view’s camera on page
26.
To frame your scene in other ways, see Move a camera to another location on
page 27.
Camera tools
Tumble
Track
Dolly
Moves the camera into the view, or backs the camera out of the view. When
you use the Dolly tool, you change the perspective; that is, objects far from
the camera change in relative size at a slower rate than objects which are close
to the camera. Compare to Zoom (see Zoom on page 18).
TIP You can also use platform-specific keyboard combinations for most camera
tools. See Selection, tools, and actions in the Basics guide for details.
Zoom
Changes the focal length (viewing angle) on the camera. The Zoom tool does
not change perspective like the Dolly tool does; all objects in the frame change
size at the same rate. The camera doesn’t move, but the effect is similar. To
move in or out of the view without changing the viewing angle, see Dolly.
To adjust the way in which the Zoom tool works, see View > Camera Tools
on page 354.
Roll
Rotates the camera around its horizontal axis, down the barrel of the lens.
To adjust the way in which the Roll tool works, see View > Camera Tools on
page 354.
Azimuth Elevation
Yaw-Pitch
Points the camera up or down (pitch, also called tilt), or left or right (yaw, also
called pan) without moving the camera. The scene in the camera’s view appears
to move in the opposite direction.
To move the camera up or down or side to side, use the Track tool.
To adjust the way in which the Yaw-Pitch tool works, see View > Camera Tools
on page 354.
Flies the camera through the scene with no constraints. The Fly Tool lets you
navigate your scene as if you were playing a 3D first-person perspective game.
To use the Fly Tool, Ctrl+drag up to fly forward and down to fly backward.
To change the camera direction, release the Ctrl key and drag.
TIP Tumble, track, and dolly are available while the Fly Tool is active.
The object’s size in the frame is directly proportional to the focal length. If
you double the focal length (keeping the distance from the camera to the
object constant), the subject appears twice as large in the frame. The size of
the object in the frame is inversely proportional to the object’s distance from
the camera. If you double the distance, you reduce the size of the object by
half in the frame.
As you adjust the camera’s focal length, the angle of view narrows and expands.
This is what causes objects to get larger or smaller in the frame. As you extend
the focal length, the angle of view gets narrower. As you shorten the focal
length, the angle of view gets larger.
You can display a guideline that indicates a region within which you should
keep all action or text if you plan to display the rendered images on a television
screen. Action and text within these guidelines is visible on every television.
Different TV manufacturers use different tubes and put them in different
boxes, so there’s a difference in what gets displayed; safe action and text region
are broadcast standards that assure action or text (respectively) is visible. Safe
text is 80% of the screen because the sensitivity to logotypes (fonts) is much
higher than the sensitivity to objects moving; that is, at the 10% edge of the
tube, text appears warped. Safe action is 90%.
To turn the safe action or safe title border on or off, see Turn scene view
guidelines on or off on page 24.
Safe action
The safe action view guide represents 90% of the rendering resolution (the
resolution gate).
The safe title view guide represents 80% of the rendering resolution (the
Resolution Gate). For example, in this image, the title DANCER does not fit
within the Safe Title area. Track the scene until the title fits within the border.
Clipping planes
Near and far clipping planes are imaginary planes located at two particular
distances from the camera along the camera’s sight line. Only objects between
a camera’s two clipping planes are rendered in that camera’s view. Any parts
of objects in the scene closer to the camera than the near clipping plane, or
farther from the camera than the far clipping plane, are not rendered.
If part of an object is in front of the near clipping plane, then only the part
of the object beyond the near clipping plane is rendered. If part of an object
Clipping planes | 21
is beyond the far clipping plane, the entire object is rendered, including the
part beyond the far clipping plane.
A completely opaque object which is behind the far clipping plane is clipped.
If that object’s transparency is greater than 0, the part behind the far clipping
plane is clipped.
NOTE For Maya software rendering, if refractions are toggled on, an object that
intersects the far clipping plane is not clipped regardless of the transparency value.
Create a camera
To learn more about Maya cameras, see Maya camera types on page 14.
1 Select Create > Cameras > camera type > , where Type is the type of
camera.
To find out about the type of cameras, see Maya camera types on page
14.
The Create Camera Options window appears.
NOTE If you’ve previously set the options for the type of Camera you want
to create, you can just select the camera type; you don’t have to set its options
each time.
1 Select the camera. To select a camera, see Select the current scene view’s
camera on page 26.
The camera’s Attribute Editor appears (unless it’s been hidden). If it does
not, click View > Camera Attribute Editor....
2 Set attributes.
For a description of the attributes, see View > Camera Attribute Editor on
page 345.
2 Click on the Common Tab and locate the Renderable Cameras section.
See Renderable Cameras on page 382 for more information regarding the
Renderable Cameras option.
■ For Maya software rendering, you can also select a camera (or several
cameras) to render from when you render from a shell or command line.
Use Render and the ?cam option. See Render from a command line on page
53 for information about command line rendering.
TIP You can display several view guides at the same time by opening the camera’s
Attribute Editor (View > Camera Attribute Editor...), and turning on options in the
Display Options section.
To learn more about the safe action and safe title border or the resolution
gate, see Safe display regions for TV production on page 20.
1 Select View > Camera Settings > Resolution Gate from the view’s menu
bar.
The resolution gate and the resolution values appear.
NOTE
■ To create an image that has wider depth of field (more area in front of and
behind the subject that is in focus) use high fStop values, such as f16, f22,
f32. To achieve narrow depth of field (less area in front and behind the
subject that is in focus) use low fStop values such as f2.8, f4 or f5.6. For
more information on fStops, see fStop (aperture) and shutter speed/angle
on page 15.
■ Depending on the fStop and Focus Region Scale values, parts of the object
may or may not be in focus.
3 Use the Distance from Camera value as the Focus Distance value in the
Depth of Field section for the current Camera.
If you select multiple objects, Maya uses the center of their bounding
box to calculate the distance from the camera.
Problems exist if the camera is not proportionally scaled. The view and render
will be skewed and manipulation may result in odd behavior.
■ To look through another camera, click Panels, then select the camera
name from either the Perspective or Orthographic submenus.
To move a camera
1 Select the camera, then use the Move tool. For more information on the
Move tool, see the Basics book.
Aim a camera
You can aim the current view’s camera with camera tools. Aiming is like
holding the camera up to your eye, then pointing up, down, or moving yourself
around your subject matter to frame objects in the scene.
To move a camera through which you are not looking, see Move a camera to
another location on page 27.
■ Click View > Camera Tools > , set the options, then click close.
■ For a description of the tool settings, see View > Camera Tools on
page 354.
■ TIP
■ You can use the keyboard combinations to Tumble, Track, and
Dolly the camera. See Selection, tools, and actions in the Basics
guide for details.
■ Select View > Default Home if you zoom and tumble the view
repeatedly and then need to see the default camera’s view.
5 Select the first locator and the curve and create a Motion Path
by selecting Animate > Motion Paths > Attach to Motion Path>
. In the Attach to Motion Path Options window, select Z as
the Front Axis. Make sure that Follow and Bank are checked;
then, click Attach.
8 Play the animation. The camera should stay aimed down the
curve path. If the camera is moving backwards along the curve,
try moving the locator to the other side of the curve.
2 The camera moves to show selected objects in the center of the camera’s
view.
1 Select View > Frame Selection (or press the hotkey f).
2 The camera moves to fill the camera’s view with selected objects.
1 Select View > Frame All (or press the hotkey a).
2 The camera moves to fill the camera’s view with all objects in the scene
(including lights and cameras, if their icons are displayed in the view).
NOTE View fit may have problems with some joints, where it will zoom out
too far.
2 The camera moves to fill the camera’s view with the selected region.
1 In the view panel, select View > Camera Settings > Undoable Movement.
With the stereo plug-in you can create three dimensional renders with the
illusion of a three dimensional depth of field.When rendering a stereoscopic
scene, Maya takes into account all of the stereoscopic camera attributes, and
performs calculations to produce an anaglyph or parallel image that can be
composited by another program.
In this section you will learn how to:
1 In this scene there are 3 NURBS Primitives, a cube, a cone and a sphere.
2 From the main menu bar, select Create > Cameras > Stereo Camera.
An icon with three cameras appear, indicating that a stereo camera has
been created.
TIP It is best to set up the scene first with your objects, then create a
stereoscopic camera.
5 Select the left and right cameras and rename them to exampleCameraLeft
and exampleCameraRight.
7 Move and rotate the camera so that you can view the Nurbs objects in
the viewport.
NOTE You may want to change your background color by selecting Stereo >
Background color to have a better view in stereo mode.
You have now created and named a stereoscopic camera for your scene. In
the next steps you will be adjusting the attributes of the cameras to fine tune
the anaglyph effect.
Use the Interaxial Separation and Zero Parallax settings to adjust the anaglyph
effect.
3 In the Attribute Editor under the Stereo section heading, set Interaxial
Separation to 0.
The red and cyan imaging of the grid and the Nurbs objects are
nowmerged.
NOTE You need colored anaglyph or red and cyan glasses to view the 3-D
effect.
Related topics
When rendering out a scene with a stereoscopic camera, Maya renders out
the individual left and right camera images. The images have to be composited
in order to apply the desired stereo effect.
1 Open the Render View window by selecting Window > Rendering Editors
> Render View.
3 To view your render output in other stereo modes select Display > Stereo
Display
There are two ways you can add a custom rig camera to a scene.
■ Method 1: Write a rig creation method using a MEL or Python script and
register the rig in Maya. This is the preferred method.
Method 1
2 Describe the hierarchy of your camera rig and define the relationship of
the your center, left and right cameras.
1 Select Window > Rendering Editors > Custom Stereo Rig Editor
The Custom Stereo Rig Editor window appears.
2 In the Register a new rig section, select a name for your custom rig. Select
the language that you used to create your custom rig, either Python or
MEL. Enter the Python or MEL procedure that you want to use to create
your custom rig, for example:
maya.app.stereo.stereoCameraComplexRig.createRig.
NOTE You can also register your custom rig by using the stereoRigManager
command. Refer to the stereoRigManager commands documentation for
examples on how to register a custom rig, query the default rig, or delete a
rig using this command.
Maya ships with a default stereo rig enabled. The source code is available in
the python module: …\Python\Lib\site-packages\maya\app\stereo. Within
this directory, you can also find the following code examples:
Method 2
If you have an existing rig, or if you need to create a rig outside of Maya, you
can make an existing rig compliant with Maya’s requirements. However, all
cameras must be parented under a common transform, called the rig root.
Call this Python code:
import maya.cmds as cmds
from maya.app.stereo import stereoCameraRig
where rigRoot, leftCam and rightCam are the names of the root transform,
and the left and right camera pair. rigNameType is a user defined string used
to identify the rig type.
If you have a rig with multiple left and right camera pairs, you can change
the default left and right pair, used for interactive display.
Call this Python code:
import maya.cmds as cmds
from maya.app.stereo import stereoCameraRig
# Make sure the stereo plug-in is loaded
cmds.loadPlugin("stereoCamera", quiet=True)
stereoCameraRig.setStereoPair(rigRoot, leftCam, rightCam)
39
Tessellation settings determine how many triangles are used, where the
triangles are concentrated, and what size they are. Numerous and concentrated
triangles increase the memory requirements (which in turn decrease
performance) of the renderer, so you must adjust tessellation settings to strike
a balance between smooth edges (quality) on objects that are closer to the
camera and renderer performance (the time it takes to render).
Tessellation strategy always is to adjust the settings, per-object (not globally),
only high enough to achieve a smooth surface. Distant and less-important
objects can have lower tessellation settings than objects closer to the camera.
Related topics
Maya tessellation
■ curvature tolerance affects the chord height ratio of the secondary attributes
■ u/v divisions affects the number U/V, and uses per-span # of isoparms
If basic tessellation doesn’t provide you with the required results, choose
advanced tessellation, and make adjustments accordingly.
You can set NURBS tessellation on all or selected objects (see Render > Set
NURBS Tessellation on page 327), or on an individual basis by selecting an
object and adjusting the settings in the object’s Attribute Editor.
Because the tessellation of NURBS surfaces has nothing to do with the material
assigned to the surface (unless the surface is displacement mapped), you can
start adjusting tessellation early in the process, anytime after the object is
modeled.
4 Select Render > Set NURBS Tessellation > to open the Set NURBS
Tessellation Options window.
5 Choose either Selected Surfaces or All surfaces (see Selected Surfaces, All
Surfaces).
TIP To prevent overtessellation of objects, use the Use Smooth Edge on page
330attribute in the Render > Set NURBS Tessellation on page 327 window to
increase tessellation only along the edge of the object.
■ If an object is far from the camera at all times, decrease the default settings.
■ If the object is middle distance away from the camera, leave the default
settings.
■ If the object gets close to the camera at some point during the scene,
increase the tessellation settings a little more, but only enough to achieve
an acceptable level of smoothness.
1 Select the polygonal object for which you want to set tessellation.
2 Click Modify > Convert > Subdiv to Polygons to convert the subdivision
surface to a polygonal surface to use as a temporary visualization object.
1 Select the subdivision object for which you want to set tessellation.
IPR, a component of the Render View rendering, lets you preview and adjust
lights, shaders, textures, and 2D motion blur quickly and efficiently.
IPR is ideal for visualizing your scene as you work because it almost immediately
shows the changes you make. You can also pause and stop IPR rendering and
select several rendering options to be included or excluded from the IPR process.
47
IPR works a little differently than regular software rendering; if you need to
know more about how it works, see How IPR works on page 48.
IPR doesn't support all software renderable features (for example, raytracing
or production quality anti-aliasing are not supported). See IPR Limitations
(for Maya software renderer) on page 49.
When you start an IPR session, Maya computes the initial IPR image, which
is a deep raster format that contains more than just the final picture. Maya
performs all the visibility calculations (only once), and stores the results in a
file in the iprImages directory.
An IPR image is an IFF image with additional data. It is larger than a regular
image file because it stores both visibility and shading data. The data is
computed in the following ways:
NOTE An IPR image is not part of the scene file; it only represents what the
scene looks like from a specific camera or light, at a specific time. You can reuse
an IPR image as you work on the scene, but remember that the IPR image may
be out of sync with the scene as you adjust it and move objects in the views.
The data in this format is used to efficiently adjust shading and lighting
parameters in an interactive way.
To adjust IPR options, see IPR Options on page 402.
NOTE An IPR default light source (created during IPR rendering) works in a similar
way to the software renderer’s default light source:
■ The IPR default light source is removed from the scene as soon as the IPR
session is terminated (for example, when you click the IPR stop button).
■ The IPR default light source is not saved with the scene, preventing you
from accidentally adding the IPR default light to the saved scene.
For more information, see Default lighting in Maya in the Lighting guide.
Visibility limitations
If you add surfaces to or remove surfaces from the scene, or if you change the
UV mapping values for a texture, you must perform another IPR render before
you see the change. Examples of these kinds of changes include:
■ When you select a new group of faces on a polygonal surface, even if the
surface is already in the scene. In IPR, selecting a new group of faces to
texture is equivalent to creating a new surface.
■ Turning Fix Texture Warp on/off changes how UV mapping values are
generated in an IPR render. This situation is analogous to modifying
polygon UVs by changing their placement.
■ particles
■ 3D motion blur
■ global override of Enable Depth Maps attribute (in the Render Settings
window on page 376) does not function properly
■ If you render an image successfully and then render it again with a lower
resolution, the rendered image does not reduce in size.
■ Changes to file mode do not IPR render properly unless you turn on
“Update Image Planes/Background” per change.
■ Changing tessellation.
■ Turning on/off Fix Texture Warp for the surface, or modifying any Fix
Texture Warp attributes.
TIP Consider using directional lights for preview rendering, especially when
using IPR. These lights are easy to transform to get the initial light effect you
need. Maya’s default light is the directional light.
Glow limitations
■ Light glow intensity may appear different because the light glow occlusion
is computed at the time of the IPR generation. If the light is moved where
the light glow occlusion changes, an inaccurate glow intensity could result.
■ Shader glow may look different because the IPR region (not covering the
entire scene) produces a different auto-exposure normalization.
■ Changing blur-by-frame does not update the IPR unless you re-render.
■ easy to use
■ Maya UI
NOTE Large scenes or image files may run out of memory. In this case, use
batch rendering to reduce memory usage.
■ easy to use
■ you can start a batch render while you continue to work within Maya
■ you can interrupt the render at any time from within Maya
■ can be scripted
■ for Maya software rendering, you can override render settings using
command flags (for other renderers, you must also write a MEL script)
For more information, see Command line renderer in the Rendering Utilities
guide.
Related topics
Render output
File formats
Maya can save rendered image files in several standard image file formats.
By default, Maya saves rendered image files in the Maya Image File Format
(Maya IFF). The Maya IFF is the most efficient format, in which no data loss
occurs. All other file formats are translated from the Maya IFF format.
For information about the File format syntax, see Subfolders and names of
rendered images on page 60.
To set the file format, see Set the rendered image file format on page 86.
Maya can render and save an image in either bitmap or vector format. A bitmap
image uses pixels (colored squares) arranged in a grid to describe the image.
When you zoom into a bitmap image, you can see the jagged edges of
individual pixels. Common bitmap formats include TIFF, GIF and BMP.
A vector image uses vectors (lines and curves) to describe the image. When
you zoom into a vector image, lines and curves remain smooth. Common
vector formats include SWF (Adobe Flash), AI (Adobe Illustrator) and SVG
(Scalable Vector Graphics).
NOTE
■ If Image Format is SWF or SVG, an animation renders as a single file.
Otherwise, an animation renders as a series of sequential files.
File formats | 55
JPEG (.jpg) Joint Photographic Experts Group file
format. Maya saves the image and depth
channels as separate files. (Maya does not
create a mask file or channel.) The JPEG
format is standard for compressed still im-
ages. JPEG uses DCT and offers data com-
pression of between 5 and 100%. Three
levels of processing are defined: baseline,
extended, and lossless. Maya supports only
JPEG formats containing RGB information;
Maya does not support JPEG formats con-
taining CMYK information.
Compression is controlled by the environ-
ment variable AW_JPEG_Q_FACTOR. Set-
ting it to 1 gives the lowest quality (most
compression) and setting it to 100 gives
the highest quality (least compression).
The default value is 75.
Maya IFF (.iff) Maya Image File Format with 8 bits per
color and mask channel. Additional chan-
nels (for example, depth, motion vector
data) are stored as floating point data.
Maya saves the image, mask, and other
channels in one file.
Maya16 IFF (.iff) Maya Image File Format with 16 bits per
color and mask channel. Additional chan-
nels (for example, depth, motion vector
data) are stored as floating point data.
Maya saves the image, mask, and other
channels in one file.
Not available when using the Maya Vector
renderer.
Apple® QuickTime® Image (.mov) This file format is available only on Mac OS
X.
On Mac OS X, all Apple QuickTime image
formats are supported, including any user-
written or user-added Apple QuickTime
plug-in formats. For the Maya software
renderer and the Maya Hardware renderer,
Apple QuickTime output supports over 20
different compression codecs for batch
rendering and Playblast.
Apple QuickTime movie file format. Maya
can store a sequence of images in an Apple
QuickTime file.
File formats | 57
Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) This file format is only available on Win-
dows 32-bit and Mac OS X, and only when
using the Maya Vector renderer.
Scalable Vector Graphics file format.
When rendering to SVG format, the back-
ground color is always white.
File formats | 59
Subfolders and names of rendered images
You can create subfolders as well as custom filenames for storing your rendered
images using the File Output section in the Render Settings: Common tab on
page 377.
This section describes the tokens that you can input to create the subfolders
and filenames. Should you decide not to input any of the tokens described
below, Maya creates default subfolders in which it saves the rendered images.
For more information regarding project file locations, see File > Project > New
of the Basics guide.
Scenes with more than one render layer and renderable camera
If your scene consists of more than one render layer, then a subfolder is created
for each layer.
Similarly, if your scene consists of more than one renderable camera, a
subfolder will be created for each camera.
For example, a scene with two render layers and two renderable cameras would
save out rendered images to subdirectories as follows:
layer1/camera1/
layer1/camera2/
layer2/camera1/
layer2/camera2/
By default, a layer subfolder is not created for a scene with only one render
layer. Therefore, a scene with two renderable cameras but only one render
layer creates subfolders as follows:
camera1/
camera2/
Similarly, a camera subfolder is not created by default for a scene with only
one renderable camera. Therefore, a scene with two render layers but only
one renderable camera creates subfolders as follows:
layer1/
layer2/
If a scene has only one render layer (or no layers at all) and only one renderable
camera, then subfolders are not created by default and Maya saves the scene
as MyScene.iff.
NOTE Explicitly entering tokens forces folders to be created. See Rendered image
filename options (tokens) on page 61 below for more information.
The following rendered image filename options and tokens can be combined
to create subfolders and custom image names for rendered images. Enter these
options in the File Name Prefix field of the Render Settings: Common tab on
page 377.
Use the tokens in conjunction with different separators between them. To
create subfolders, use the slash (/) separator as in
<RenderLayer>/<Camera>/<Scene>. Use any other separator, for example,
underscore (_) and dash (-), to separate the tokens in your image file name.
You can repeat options within the specification, and you can also specify any
text you like in the image file name or path (for example, .TEST or _final to
indicate the kind of render that you are performing).
<RenderLayer> Adds the layer name to the created subfolder or image file
name (for example, layer1).
When using render passes with the Maya software renderer, if more than one
pass is created for the layer, then pass names are appended to the layer name.
<Scene> Adds the scene name to your subfolder or image file name.
<Camera> Adds the renderable camera name to the created subfolder or image
file name (for example, camera1).
If your scene is set to render fields, then field names are appended to the name;
for example, camera_odd or camera_even.
<RenderPassFileGroup> Adds the render pass file group name to the created
subfolder or image file name (for example, IndirectIllum). See Pass Group
Name on page 501 for more information regarding the pass group name.
<RenderPass> Add the render pass node name to the created subfolder or
image file name(for example, diffuseNoShadow).
<Extension> Adds the extension to the created subfolder or image file name.
<Version> Adds the version label that you have selected to the created
subfolder or image file name. This option can be a numeric version number,
the current date, the current time, or any custom version label. Customize
this token using the Version Label attribute.
NOTE For more information regarding render tokens, see Render Settings:
Common tab on page 377.
Among the available multi-channel file formats, OpenEXR is the only file
format where multi-channel is being leveraged. Therefore, multiple render
passes can be concatenated into a single-multi-channel .exr file. Use the Frame
Buffer Naming and Custom Naming String attributes in the Render Settings:
Common tab on page 377 to customize the naming of your OpenEXR channels.
In order to use these attributes, your scene must contain at least one render
pass. Also, you must select OpenEXR as your file format for these attributes
to become active.
NOTE The OpenEXR filename has a 31 character limit. If your filename exceeds
this limit, it is truncated automatically. Therefore, when taking advantage of the
multi-channel capabilities of OpenEXR, you should keep the render pass name
and camera names as short as possible to avoid automatic truncation of the
filename.
NOTE Do not use the <RenderPass> token in your File name prefix field if you are
using the multi-channel OpenEXR format. Using the <RenderPass> token creates
a file for each render pass instead of writing to a multi-channel .exr file.
See Render Settings: Common tab on page 377 for more information.
Frame/Animation Ext
In addition to the rendered image filename tokens discussed above, you can
also use the Frame/Animation Ext drop-down list to customize your image
name by adding the frame number to your image name. For example, if you
choose name#.ext with a Frame padding of 4, and the scene name is MyScene,
then the rendered image would be named MyScene0001.iff.
Examples
1 If you choose not to enter any tokens in the File Name Prefix attribute,
the following subfolders are created by default:
<Layer>/<Camera>/IMAGENAME.iff
4 The following entry produces a scene name subdirectory, then the layer
subdirectory, then a camera subdirectory, and then adds the scene name
to the name of the rendered image, and adds ‘TEMP’ to the image name:
<Scene>/<Layer>/<Camera>/<Scene>TEMP
for example, MyScene/layer1/camera1/MySceneTEMP_01.iff
NOTE If you are rendering images with a mask or depth channel and the file
format of rendered images does not support mask or depth channels, Maya may
save the mask channel as a separate file in the mask directory of the current project,
and the depth channel as a separate file in the depth directory of the current
project.
The IFF and RLA file formats can hold mask and depth channel information.
For more information regarding the treatment of mask and depth channels
by various file formats, see Details of supported file formats on page 54.
Resolution
Image resolution is the total pixel size of a bitmap image. For example, 720 x
486 for NTSC video output. Display resolution is the number of pixels in 1
inch on the screen. Display resolution is measured in pixels per inch (ppi).
Most monitors have a display resolution of about 72 ppi. If your output is for
print, consider a display resolution of around 300 ppi.
To set the pixel aspect ratio, see Set the resolution and pixel aspect ratio on
page 88.
NOTE The terms pixels per inch (ppi), and dots per inch (dpi) are often
interchanged freely. Pixels per inch, however, applies only to screen resolution,
which display images in pixels. Dots per inch, applies only to paper-based images,
which are printed with dots of color.
NTSC and PAL video systems both use interlaced fields. NTSC video systems
display 30 frames per second, or 60 fields per second; PAL video systems display
25 frames per second, or 50 fields per second.
Because video systems display an individual frame in two stages, if you render
images as frames (that is, in one stage) and then display them on a video
system, fast moving objects may appear jerky or choppy. If post-production
process or final presentation formats involve interlaced video systems, render
images as fields. (If your animation does not contain fast moving objects, you
could try rendering images as frames.)
To properly view a frame or an animation rendered as fields, you must interlace
the two fields together.
Motion picture film projectors display an entire frame in one brief instant by
shining light through the film. Most motion picture film systems display 24
or 25 frames per second.
If your post-production process and final presentation format do not involve
interlaced video systems, render images as frames.
Each pixel in a bitmap image contains three color channels, each of which
represent the amount of red, green, or blue in the image. Each pixel might
also have an alpha (mask) channel to achieve transparency and a depth
channel that represents the distance from the camera.
By default, Maya generates an image file with three color channels and a mask
channel.
To enable specific channels to rendered images, see Enable color, depth, and
mask channels for rendered images on page 89.
NOTE Mask channels and depth channels are mainly used for compositing, so if
you don’t plan on compositing rendered images, you don’t have to generate mask
or depth channels (or files) during rendering.
The file size increases if an image contains a mask or depth channel. The
computation time may also increase.
For information about mask and depth channels and files, see Mask and depth
channels on page 78.
NOTE If you need to use multiple sets of quotations in the preframe MEL or post
frame MEL fields in Render Settings window, be sure to use \" for every quotation
mark except the first and last. For example,
print("Time to render my Maya scene, called\"bingo.mb"\");
A system of per layer and per object overrides means that objects can have
different shading and rendering attributes on different layers.
With render layers, you can assign any object to multiple layers with a different
material on each layer. This lets you create multiple images for each frame,
from any combination of Maya's four renderers, third party plug-in renderers,
and post- processes such as Fur and Paint Effects. Rendered images can be
efficiently organized for output to a compositor. Render layers can be also be
rendered to Adobe® Photoshop® (PSD) format, which supports multiple image
layers.
As well, a preview composite of all the layers can be viewed in the Render
View.
You can propagate changes across layers that exist in a single scene, rather
than having to manage multiple scenes. Render layer presets allow easy setup
of commonly-used passes, such as shadows and specularity. Render Layers
can also be used to prepare different layers in a scene for vertex baking or light
mapping.
Related topics
This image is made up of five composited layers that are rendered separately.
The background is one layer, as is the foreground airplane and the midground
airplane.
All these layers are composited together with different blend modes in order
to create the final image you see here. This simplifies the workflow and makes
it easy to re-render parts of the scene with different options.
A larger production may use different renderers for different passes as well as
modifications to lights, objects, and layer overrides. For example:
■ A Reflection layer rendered in mental ray using bright white lights. If there
weren’t reflections in all parts of the scene, this could be only rendered
for part of the scene (for example, only the middle 100 frames).
■ A Glow layer rendered in the Maya software renderer for glowing objects.
It can be rendered extra bright knowing it will be dialed down as needed
in the compositor.
■ A “Cool” layer rendered with mental ray final gather and no other lights.
As well, an exaggerated diffuse is rendered from this layer, achieved by
assigning a white Lambert to all objects and tweaking the diffuse).
■ Render post processes like Fur and Paint Effects are also rendered separately.
The following section describes basic concepts necessary to work with render
layers:
The Master layer contains all the objects and materials in the scene. There is
always a Master layer in your scene; it’s exposed in the Render Layer editor.
It is only visible in the Render Layer editor if there is more than one layer (in
which case it is non-renderable by default).
When you create new layers, you can make any objects or nodes (including
lights) members of only that layer, multiple layers, or all layers. Only objects
in a specific layer affect or contribute to that layer; this includes lights,
reflections, shadows, and so on.
In addition to segmenting your scene into render layers, you can change the
characteristics of each layer or object on a layer by creating layer overrides.
(By definition, you can't override the characteristics of the Master layer.) Maya
stores each of the layer and attribute overrides as changes between that layer
and the Master layer. See the next section.
There are two types of overrides for attributes: per layer and per object.
■ Manual overrides require you to explicitly tell Maya that you want that
attribute value to be different than the one specified on the Master layer.
■ Per layer auto-overrides include shader assignments (to all objects in a
layer); see Work with layer overrides on page 102.
■ Per object manual overrides include all other attribute change; see Work
with attribute overrides on page 109.
To facilitate changing the Master layer’s render settings (the base from which
all overrides are created), the Render Settings for the Master layer shows the
renderer-specific tabs for all four renderers: Maya Software, Maya Hardware,
Maya Vector, and the five mental ray renderer tabs.
Changing the settings on the Master layer means that all layers that use that
renderer and do not have overridden attributes inherit these settings.
Render layers affect the scene view, Hypergraph, Hypershade, and so on.
Switching layers means that lights, geometry, or nodes are visible or not
depending on whether those objects are in a particular render layer. (Previously,
objects always appeared in the scene view and were either present or not
present in a render.)
Visibility of Display layers and Render layers interact subtractively. That is, if
you have a Display layer that contains objects and turn off visibility on that
layer, you will also not see these objects in any of your Render layers.
Once you understand the basic concepts of Master layer, layer and object
overrides (auto or manual), render settings, and presets, you can do the
following on a layer-by-layer basis:
■ select the renderer (software, hardware, mental ray, vector, and any plug-in
renderer) and override Render Settings (formerly known as Render Globals)
both in the Common tab and in the renderer-specific tab.
■ create layer overrides. You can override settings that affect rendering; for
example, you can turn off Cast Shadows and turn on Visible in Refractions
and Visible in Reflections for a layer.
■ per object (for example, assign certain surfaces a different material for
any layer)
■ override any renderable attribute (for example, set a different value for
transparency on a object on a particular layer)
■ assign the blending modes for layers directly in the Render layer editor,
and preview the layer composite in the Render View.
Related topics
Rendering separate objects in layers and passes takes more time and effort to
plan, but it offers the following advantages:
Premultiplied images
When an image is stored not only with the three basic color channels but also
with the alpha channel, the presence of the alpha channel can modify the
color channels to some degree. For example, typically the color channels have
been multiplied by the value of the alpha channel to take transparency into
consideration.
Some compositors (as well as games engines) can use premultiplied images;
others require separate image and alpha information, especially when they
want to separate object color data from background color data. By default,
Maya premultiplies images, but you can turn premultiplication off.
To turn premultiplication on or off, see Premultiply on page 398.
Mask channels
Depth channels
When you render in layers the compositing application must be able to tell
which part of which object goes behind or in front of another one. Alpha
channels do not contain this information, so you can use the Black Hole mode
of the Matte Opacity feature in Maya to produce cutout regions that composite
correctly. See Modify a mask channel on page 90.
To set up layers and passes, see Render layer overview on page 68 and Render
passes on page 301.
Related topics
Render tiles
The Maya Software renderer renders an image as a series of tiles. The renderer
tries to use a tiling configuration that ensures memory is optimized. Thus, the
tiles are smaller in the regions of the image where the geometry is dense. The
renderer tries to ensure that the memory cap specified in Render Settings
window is respected.
See also Troubleshoot render tiles on page 149.
Related topics
To render a scene
1 Decide which renderer you want to use, and set scene options for it:
■ For detailed information about each of Maya’s renderers, see Maya
Software renderer on page 4, Maya Hardware renderer on page 5,
■ To learn more about some of the scene options you can set, see Open
the Render Settings window on page 84. For detailed descriptions of
the scene options, see Render Settings window on page 376.
2 If you plan to composite your work, you can render your scene in layers
and passes.
See Render layer overview on page 68 and Render passes on page 80.
4 Test iterations of your scene to visualize your the changes you make
materials, textures, lights, cameras, and objects.
■ To visualize your changes as you make them, see Visualize interactively
with IPR on page 123.
5 When you are satisfied with the results, render the final images.
■ See Render a single frame on page 131.
NOTE When working on the Linux platform and rendering with the Maya
Software renderer, you may choose to send the (rendering) output
messages to a file instead of to the shell. Use the command maya >&
logfile. A file with the name logfile is created and all output messages
are saved to this file upon rendering in Maya.
Visualize a scene
Though you can render a scene to see what it looks like, visualizing your scene
in the following ways can be faster:
To... Do this...
See what a still image or single frame of Use Render View, especially Render Re-
an animation (or a region of it) looks like gion.Render View has fewer limitations
as the render occurs. than IPR, so you can see more, but it takes
longer to render.Render regions of a scene
to reduce the amount of time you spend
visualizing the scene. For more informa-
tion, see Render View rendering on page
52.
See lights, objects and textures in the scene Use hardware texturing.This does not actu-
view without rendering. ally perform a render; it just lets you see
an approximation of what your scene looks
like when rendered. For more information,
see See shading and lights in a scene view
on page 126.
See what a fully rendered still image, single Render at lower resolutionsFor more inform-
frame of an animation, or an animation ation, see Test render a low-res still or
looks like quickly. frame on page 127 and Test render a low-
res animation on page 128.
To render... Do this...
A still image or single frame of an anima- Use Render View.For more information,
tion. see Render a single frame on page 131.
A still image or single frame of an anima- Batch render.For more information, see
tion, or an animation. Batch render a still or animation on page
131.
A still image or single frame of an anima- Command line render.For more informa-
tion, or an animation. tion, see Command line rendering on page
133.
■ whether you are preview rendering or producing the final rendered image(s)
NOTE The changes you make in the Render Settings window affect the entire
scene. Often, it makes sense to adjust settings on a per-object setting.
Render settings for the Hardware renderer, the mental ray for Maya renderer,
the Maya software renderer, the Maya Vector renderer are available from the
Render Settings window.
The Common tab of the Render Settings window contains the attributes
common to most of the renderers, which decreases the number of parameters
■ Click the Display Render Settings Window button on the main toolbar
or in Render View.
You can edit settings in the Common tab and the renderer-specific tab.
For more information, see Render Settings window on page 376.
2 In the File Output section of the Render Settings window on page 376,
select the camera from the Renderable Camera drop-down list.
NOTE For image formats that cannot include mask or depth channels, Maya
generates a separate mask or depth file.
1 In the File Output section of the Render Settings window on page 376,
select the Image Format from the drop-down list.
NOTE You can also set the file name of rendered files when you render from a
shell or command line, using Render and the -im option.
See Render from a command line on page 53 for information about command
line rendering.
1 In the File Output section of the Render Settings window on page 376, set
the following:
■ File name prefix, (for example, rocket):
Option Example
name rocket
name.ext rocket.iff
name.#.ext rocket.1.iff
name.ext.# rocket.iff.1
name.# rocket.1
name#.ext rocket1.iff
IMPORTANT
■ If you select an option that does not contain #, Maya renders a
single frame.
■ Start Frame to the first frame you want to render and End Frame to the
last frame you want to render.
1 The file format extension is the standard file format extension for the
current Image Format setting. To change that, in the File Output section
of the Render Settings window on page 376, turn on Use Custom Extension
and type the extension you want to use.
1 From the main Maya window, select File > Project > Edit Current.
2 In the Project Data Locations section of the Edit Project window, change
the directory for Images and click Accept.
TIP You can also set the location where rendered files are saved when you
render from a shell or command line using Render and the -rd option.
See Render from a command line on page 53 for information about
command line rendering.
1 In the Image Size section of the Render Settings window on page 376,
select a preset render resolution from the Presets attribute(for example,
640 x 480).
If you do not see an appropriate preset Render Resolution, you must set
the following attributes manually to output to an unlisted device:
■ Width, Height
1 In the File Output section of the Render Settings window on page 376,
select the camera from which you want to render from the Renderable
Camera drop-down list.
3 In the camera’s Attribute Editor, select a Depth Type from the Output
Settings section (Closest or Furthest Visible Depth).
FCheck does not let you view the z-depth data of an .IFF file. To view
z-depth data, use a non .IFF file format and then view the z-depth data
stored in the separate file.
If the output format is not IFF or RLA, Maya writes a separate depth file
containing a black RGBA image with depth values.
TIP The settings you use for rendering images as fields may depend on the video
standard you are using for the images, and how fields interlace together (for
example, NTSC or PAL).
Before you render an animation as fields, perform a test render and use the
test rendered images through your entire post-production process.
1 Choose the Field option from the Maya Render Settings window on page
376. Interlacing is automatic.
1 In the Render Settings window on page 376, set the By Frame value to 0.5.
This results in twice as many frames being rendered.
2 Turn on the Renumber Frames Using option and set Start Number and
By Frame values to 1.
IMPORTANT
When you render a scene from within Maya, make sure you do not specify a
MEL command or script that includes delete operations or you may accidently
delete objects in your scene.
NOTE You may not need to adjust quality settings for an entire scene. Adjusting
settings on a per-object basis is often more efficient and has less of an impact on
rendering speed.
For more information on aliasing artifacts and strategies on how to fix them,
see Anti-aliasing and flicker on page 154.
The options in the Presets drop-down list and the Edge Anti-Aliasing Quality
drop-down list drive each other; when you change one, the other changes,
and values for the Anti-aliasing subsections are automatically filled in. You
can fine tune any of these settings.
Do one of the following:
The options in the Presets drop-down list drive values for other settings in the
Quality section of the Render Settings window on page 376. You can fine tune
any of these settings.
Do one of the following:
■ In the Quality section of the Render Settings window on page 376, select a
preset.
■ In the Quality section of the Render Settings window on page 376, select
adjust any of the settings in the section.
Related topics
TIP
■ In most cases, you should test render a file texture in Render View when
filtering because you may not be able to see the results in the views or in
Attribute Editor swatches.
■ When bump mapping, set Filter to a low value (under 0.1). Filter is
primarily used for anti-aliasing textures—distant surfaces are blurrier. This
may cause a bump map to become smoother when further away. If you
want the bumps to be smooth, use a small Filter Offset value for a constant
blur.
To fix a noisy procedural texture that appears to shift and swim during an
animation
1 The Plug-in Filter Weight attribute is connected with the plug-in filter
node and its value will be used as the filter weight. The filter does not
have to be normalized.
You can define a plug-in DG node with at least two input attributes and
one output attribute with a float type. The input attributes require the
short name X and Y. The output attribute has to be connected to the
Plug In Filter Weight attribute in the renderQuality node.
1 The following assumes you have already created a multipixel filter plug-in.
2 Copy the filter plug-in .so (Linux), or .mll (Windows), or .lib (Mac OS X)
file to:
■ Linux: /maya/bin/plug-ins
3 With the plug-in node selected, open the Connection Editor (Windows
> General Editors > Connection Editor).
4 Load the plug-in node to the left side of the Connection Editor.
NOTE You may not need to adjust quality settings for an entire scene. Adjusting
settings on a per-object basis is often faster and has less of an impact on rendering
speed.
To set raytracing quality, adjust the settings in the Raytracing Quality section
of the Render Settings window on page 376.
NOTE
You may not need to adjust quality settings for an entire scene. Adjusting
settings on a per-object basis is often faster and has less of an impact on
rendering speed.
■ When you have a light illuminating a moving object, the object’s shadow
does not blur correctly (use mental ray rendering instead).
Related topics
Maya software
Set tessellation options
■ Tessellating identical surfaces only once to save time and disk space.
■ Calculating the bounding box scale that you define for all
displacement-mapped surfaces to make rendering faster.
Set raytracing
You can control the number of processors for interactive rendering. To render
with multiple processors, see Network render with Maya software on page 171.
■ Fill Object
■ Edge Weight
■ Edge Style
■ Edge Color
■ Hidden Edges
For more information on the above attributes, see Render Settings: Maya
Vector tab on page 459.
■ Outlines At Intersections
■ Edge Priority
For more information on the above attributes, see Vector Renderer Control
on page 515.
NOTE These attributes are only available on the following material nodes:
Anisotropic, Blinn, Lambert, Phong, and Phong E.
You can find these attributes in the Vector Renderer Control section in the
Attribute Editor for the material node (for example, phong1).
1 Select the object with the material for which you want to set vector
rendering attributes.
■ Click Create new empty layer icon in the Render Layer editor.
If this is the first layer you created, the Master layer will also become
visible.
■ Click the Create new layer and assign selected objects icon in
the Layer editor.
■ Select the layer or layers in the Layer Editor and select Layers > Select
Objects in Selected Layers.
1 Select the object(s). You may need to do so on the Master layer, where
all objects are present.
2 Right-click the layer to which you want to add the objects and select Add
Selected Objects.
■ Select the layer or layers from which you want to remove the objects
and select Layers > Remove Selected Objects from Selected Layers.
1 Right-click a layer and select Empty Render Layer from the menu that
appears.
You can also delete unused layers by selecting Layers > Delete Unused
Layers.
This creates a material and assignment that will override all shader
assignments to objects on the current layer.
1 You can also override materials and shaders on a per layer basis by
right-clicking on a layer in the Render Layer editor and selecting Overrides
> Create New Material Override or Assign Existing Material Override from
the menu that appears.
3 Click a render check box (for example, turn off Motion Blur, turn off Cast
Shadows, or assign a shading group to all objects in that layer).
When a layer override is applied, the flag icon for that layer appears in
color (red) .
2 Open the Render Settings; for example, by clicking the controls (render
settings) icon on a layer, or select Window > Rendering Editors >
Render Settings.
3 Right-click on a setting name and choose Create Layer Override from the
menu that appears.
1 Right-click on the layer, and select Overrides > Remove Render Setting
Overrides from the menu that appears.
NOTE You cannot create overrides on the Master layer: any change you
make to render settings on the Master layer propagates to all layers that
derive from it.
1 In the Render Layer Editor, select the render layer in which you want to
remove a material override.
2 In the scene view, right-click the object and select Remove Material
Override. A list of material overrides for the selected layer appears in the
menu.
3 Select from the list the object for which you want to remove the material
override.
TIP The contents of the menu are also useful if you need to query whether
a material has been used as an override, or the names of the objects for which
it has been assigned as an override.
1 Select a render layer for which you wish to assign component shading.
3 Select the components for which you wish to assign a shading group.
5 Select the second render layer for which you want to assign component
shading.
3 Assign a new material just as you would any new material assignment
(for example, right-click and select Assign New Material from the marking
menus). Set the attributes of the material.
4 Switch between the selected layer and any other layer and watch the
material assignment on the object change in the Scene view.
The material assignment on the object applies to the selected layer when
Options > Auto Overrides is on. The material assignment applies to the Master
layer (and therefore, all objects that are not otherwise overridden) when
Options > Auto Overrides is off.
The change to the attributes of the Member Overrides applies to the selected
layer when Options > Auto Overrides is on. The attribute change applies to
the Master layer (and therefore, all objects that are not otherwise overridden)
if Options > Auto Overrides is off. You can do a manual override if Auto
Overrides is off for Member Overrides. See the following procedure.
3 Click the tab for the particular node whose attribute you want to override
(for example, the lambert1 material).
The name of the attribute appears in italic and orange text, indicating
that it has been overridden on the particular layer.
1 Right-click the attribute whose override you want to remove and select
Remove Layer Override from the menu that appears.
Preview layers
By default, the Render View will show you a composited view of all layers in
your scene with your specified blend modes. You can override this default by
changing the value of Render > Render All Layers in the Render View, or
Options > Render All Layers in the Render Layer editor.
You can choose to only show specified layers or to only show the selected
layer in the Render View.
As well, you can choose to keep all images that make up the composited Render
view, or simply render a single composited image.
1 To view all your layers composited with the specified blend mode settings,
turn on Render All Layers in the Options menu of the Render Layer editor
or the Render menu of the Render View.
3 To view all your layers rendered as individual images, change the Render
All Layers option (Options > Render All Layers > ) from Composite
Layers to Composite and Keep Layers, or just Keep Layers.
5 To preview a particular layer, select it and make sure the Render All Layers
option is turned off.
As well, the command-line render supports layers. When you use the -r file
flag during a command-line render, each layer will be rendered with the
renderer specified in the file. For more information, see Batch and
command-line render with layers on page 116.
1 Select a layer.
2 Choose a layer blend from the drop-down menu at the top of the Render
layer editor.
As you activate individual layers, you'll see the layer blend mode change.
The following examples show a very simple scene: three spheres colored red,
green, and blue, with a small plane in front casting a shadow.
The spheres are in the foreground and are rendered with various blend modes
against a white, gray and black background.
NOTE If you use any other render layer blend modes, the preview results may not
be what you expect; however, the results may be helpful for determining layer
priority and other layering factors.
1 In the Common tab of the Render Settings, select PSD layered (psd) from
the Image Format list.
NOTE The frame/layer order of processing in batch and command line is required
for maximum efficiency. Switching layers has an impact on render processing due
to the need to update all the attribute overrides.
to
<Maya directory>/bin/rendererDesc/defaultRenderer.xml
■ You can choose to copy both the objects and render layer properties (e.g.
material overrides, render stats) to the new layer; or
■ You can choose to copy only the objects to the new layer and create new
overrides for the duplicated layer.
1 From the Render Layer Editor, select the layer that you wish to copy.
3 Select one of the two Copy Layer mode. To create an exact duplication
of the selected layer, including objects and render layer properties, select
1 From the Render Layer Editor, select the layer that you wish to name.
2 Open the Render Settings window (Window > Rendering Editors > Render
Settings).
3 Click on the Common tab. Under the File Output section, right-click the
File Name Prefix attribute and select Create Layer Override.
1 If, for example, you have five layers in your scene, and 4 of them are fine
but 1 layer still needs work.
In this case, you can keep the render output for the four layers that are
fine, and only re-render the one layer that is in progress. This greatly
reduces rendering time as compared to re-rendering all five layers.
2 All of your layers are fine, but you need to re-order them in the
composition.
3 All of your layers are fine, but you need to change the blend operator for
one or more layers (e.g. changed the mode of your shadow pass from
Normal to Darken).
2 Click the layer you want to keep. Click the recycle icon to toggle it
from red to green. The last rendered output image for this layer will be
reused and this layer will not be re-rendered.
Repeat for all layers whose render output you want to recycle.
NOTE
■ The recycle icon is grey until the layer has been rendered at least once.
A green recycle icon saves the rendered image and allows for faster
re-compositing while a red recycle icon will force re-rendering prior
to compositing.
2 In the Render Layer Editor on page 367, select the layer on which you
want to hide the object(s).
Related topics
1 Ensure that the layers that you wish to merge share the same layer name.
Click on the Display/Render radio button in the Render Layer Editor to
view the desired layers.
To change the layer name, double-click the layer for the Edit Layer dialog
box to appear.
1 Ensure that the layers that you wish to merge share the same layer index
number.
Click on the Display/Render radio button in the Render Layer Editor to
view the desired layers.
To edit the layer index number, right-click the desired layer and select
Attributes from the right-mouse menu to display the display/render layer’s
Attribute Editor. Enter the layer number in the Number attribute.
Visualize a scene
NOTE The amount of memory used during an IPR session may be considerable.
The upper-right corner of Render View displays how much memory is being used
for the current IPR tuning region.
■ To load an existing IPR file, select File > Open IPR File..., then select
the file.
2 Marquee select a region within the IPR rendered image in Render View.
NOTE You must select a region to adjust before you start to modify rendering
attributes. The region you select determines the amount of memory required
by IPR to re-render the adjusted region.
■ If you change the view (such as tumble or zoom, or add new elements
to the scene) and want to update the result, click the Redo Previous
IPR Render icon in Render View or from the Render menu in Maya’s
main menu bar.
TIP After you marquee select a region, you can drag materials and textures
onto objects within the region, just as you can make connections by
dragging swatches from Hypershade onto surfaces in the views.
1 Press Esc.
The IPR render stops. You cannot adjust a cancelled IPR Render; you must
perform a complete IPR Render to adjust a region.
1 Select File > Save IPR File.... The Save IPR File window displays. Type the
name of the file and click Save.
NOTE Because an IPR file saves the deep raster information in addition to
the visible color information, an IPR file can be very large. Ensure you have
sufficient disk space.
You can batch render IPR files from the command line.
For more information about batch rendering or command line rendering, see
Batch renders from within Maya (UI) on page 52 and Render from a command
line on page 53.
NOTE
■ You cannot batch render IPR files from within Maya.
Hardware texturing, a Maya feature that you can easily turn on or off, lets you
to see approximations textures, lights and objects in your scene in a scene
view.
What you see depends directly on the settings you make in the Render Settings
window on page 376 and per-object settings you change. What you see is not
necessarily what appears in the final render, but it gives you a good idea.
NOTE If you are using a file texture that uses MirrorUV and the resolution of the
hardware rendered texture in the scene view appears degraded, use the following
environment variable:
MAYA_HW_FILE_TEXTURE_RESOLUTION_OVERRIDE
TIP To see the resolution boundaries in the scene view, turn on the Resolution
Gate. For more information, see Turn scene view guidelines on or off on page 24.
2 Select Shading > Hardware Texturing (or press the hotkey 6).
NOTE When you play an animation with just Hardware Texturing turned
on, each of the necessary file textures are read in one at a time and the
animation speed is choppy.
Use Interactive Sequence Caching Options to load file textures into
memory only once for faster interactive animation (but this uses a lot
of memory).
NOTE To ensure the best quality display of your rendered image, select the 1:1
(the real size) option in Render View before you render.
1 From Render View (Window > Rendering Editors > Render View), click
Options > Test Resolution, then select a resolution.
2 Select the camera view you want to render from the Render > Render
submenu.
Maya renders the scene and displays the image as it renders in Render
View.
■ To cancel the render, press Esc.
You can isolate specific objects to render. Note that when using IPR rendering,
you must perform another IPR render before you can see the effect of this
change.
TIP You can display a wireframe snapshot of your scene to use as a guide to
select a region of your scene to render.
In Render View, select Render > Snapshot > and select the camera (view)
you want to capture.
Render View lets you render a specific portion of your scene at any resolution
so that you can get a feel for the changes you make as you shade, light, and
texture objects.
Unlike rendering at a lower resolution, a process which reduces the size of the
entire image, rendering a region can help you make changes more efficiently
and quickly to the specific regions of interest at full resolution.
TIP If you turn on Auto Render Region (Options > Auto Render Region), the
changes you make appear as you draw the marquee anywhere in Render View.
Only the marqueed area of the surface re-renders showing the results of the
adjustment.
1 Marquee select the area that you want to render in Render View.
3 Click the Render region button or select Render > Render Region.
NOTE Navigation in the Render View panel is like most other Maya view panels.
You can zoom and track the view using the same keyboard shortcuts.
1 From the main Maya window, click the Render Current Frame button,
or select Render > Render Current Frame.
Maya renders the scene from the current scene and displays the image
as it renders in Render View.
To cancel an in-progress render, press Esc.
1 From the main Maya window, select Render > Redo Previous Render.
Maya renders the scene from the previous camera and displays the image
as it renders in the Render View window.
1 Press Esc.
NOTE By default, Maya renders the current frame of your scene. To render an
animation, you must specify the start and end frames of the animation you want
to render in the Render Settings window on page 376.
■ To show the image being rendered, click Render > Show Batch Render.
NOTE
■ To set batch render options, select Render > Batch Render > to
open the Batch Render window. For a description of the batch
render options, see Render > Batch Render > .
NOTE We recommend that you use a single processor when batch rendering a
scene that contains a spotlight, material transparency, and raytrace shadows.
1 From the Maya window, select Render > Batch Render > .
The Batch Render Frame window displays.
1 Type:
Render -r sw -n <# of processors to render on> <scene>
(If you do not use the -n option, only one processor is used for rendering.)
1 Type:
Render -r rendername -help
■ sw = software renderer
■ hw = hardware renderer
■ vr = vector renderer
NOTE If you get help on a file (-r file -help), only the flags common to
all renderers, not a specific renderer, are shown. If you want
renderer-specific information, you must specify the renderer.
All flags have a short description. Each flag corresponds to the appropriate
section of the Render Settings window. See the Render Settings documentation
for more detailed information on each option.
1 Type:
Render -help
1 Type:
Render -r <renderername> <options> scene
TIP You may need to provide the -proj flag when issuing the render
command to specify where the scene file is located. For example, type:
Render <options> <projName> scene -proj
To render a scene with the renderer specified in the file from a shell or
command line
NOTE
■ You must use image file formats that are supported by Toxik. See the Toxik
user documentation for more information on supported file formats.
■ When exporting to Toxik, you should render the layers in your scene to
the same Maya project directory because the Compositing Interoperability
plug-in expects each layer to have the same base path.
Limitations
The first time you export a scene from Maya, one Toxik image sequence
composition is created for each render layer. In addition, a master Toxik
composition is created, which references the Toxik image sequence
compositions.
When you export the scene from Maya again, the Toxik image sequence
compositions are updated but the master Toxik composition is not. As a result,
each image sequence composition contains a new published result, which is
not reflected in the master Toxik composition.
You can use the following procedure to recreate the master Toxik composition.
This is useful in some cases where:
■ The Maya scene has changed significantly (due to blend mode changes,
new layers, and layer shuffling, for example).
■ --recreate
4 Click Export.
Your existing master Toxik composition is updated, as well as each Toxik
image sequence composition.
To update Toxik
2 If you are exporting selected layers in your scene, select them from the
Render Layer Editor (see Render Layer Editor on page 367).
4 Adjust the Toxik User Settings and Toxik Scene Settings options as
necessary. For information on these options see Render > Export All Layers
to Toxik 2007 on page 334.
6 In the Python Location field, enter the path to the executable file for
Python (python.exe), or click the Browse button to select it.
7 Click Export.
Your Toxik database is automatically updated with the exported
information, and you can view the corresponding graph within Toxik.
2 If you are exporting selected layers in your scene, select them from the
Render Layer Editor (see Render Layer Editor on page 367).
4 Adjust the Toxik User Settings, Toxik Scene Settings and Output Settings
options as necessary. For information on these options see Render >
Export All Layers to Toxik 2007 on page 334.
5 In the Output Settings > Output Mode, select Export Toxik IMSQ File.
6 In the File Name field, type a name for the output. By default the output
file is stored in your project directory; however, you can click the Browse
button to specify an alternate location for the file.
7 Click Export.
The output file is created and placed in the specified directory (by default,
this is your Maya - Project - Default directory).
■ You must use image file formats that are supported by Toxik. For example,
you must avoid using the name.ext.# image file format, as this file format
is not compatible with Toxik. Instead, rendered image sequences should
be named with the file extension listed last, for example, name.#.ext. This
is necessary for Toxik 2008 to recognize the sequence. See the Toxik user
documentation for more information on supported file formats.
■ When exporting to Toxik, you should render the layers in your scene to
the same Maya project directory because the Toxik 2008 Export plug-in
expects each layer to have the same base path.
1 Ensure that you have set a project for your scene file. Within the
project, there must be a scenes folder. By doing so, the exported Toxik
project file will be saved to the scenes folder by default. You may also
enter an Images folder to which your sequences will be stored.
2 Batch render your scene in Maya and ensure that the rendered image
sequences are named with the file extension listed last, for example,
name.#.ext.
3 Select Render> Render toToxik 2008 > . The Export All Renderable
Layers to Toxik Options dialog box appears.
NOTE Do not simply select Render > Export to Toxik 2008 on page 336 without
selecting the option box.
Related topics
Troubleshooting Rendering
■ Expressions that conditionally set values. For example: if (ty > 5) tx = ty.
■ Expressions that execute commands (or create or delete Maya nodes). For
example: sphere.
Workaround
The renderer can invoke a MEL procedure just before you render a frame. (You
specify this script in the Render Settings > Render Options > PreRender Mel
text field.) You can use this procedure to force evaluation at the intervening
skipped frames.
■ Make sure Smooth > Color is turned on if there is fog in the scene.
The background is also blurred in this case even though it should not be. The
solution is to blur the transparent object separately and composite with the
rest of the scene. This workaround can be difficult for complex scenes with
lots of transparency, or for transparent particles.
Some details may be lost because assumptions must be made about the
background area occluded by the moving objects. The solution is to blur the
moving objects without the background and then composite the results.
Rotating objects
May not look exactly right, because assumptions about what the back sides
of these objects should look like must be made. Try using 3D motion blur.
The edges of frames may not get the correct detail, because assumptions must
be made about the object color that is just outside a frame. The solution is to
render a slightly larger image which covers the original image and then crop
it to the desired size.
Try not to mix the rendered images from two different kinds of blurring
operations.
When tuning 2D motion blur with IPR, automatic updates are not always
done correctly. Tune an attribute of a material or light to force a correct update,
or marquee the tuning region to force an update.
2D motion blur can cause artifacts when rendering in scenes with fog, or solid
objects in front of transparent ones, or if the background color is not black.
■ Take out transparent objects, fog, glow, and background color from the
scene. Render the 2D blur and composite those elements back into the
scene.
■ Set the Smooth Value to 0. In the command line, this is -m 0. This solution
is to skip the smooth-mask operation. The image may look more aliased
as a result.
■ Turn on Smooth > Color. In the command line, this is -r 1. This solution
uses a different smoothing algorithm. The image may look more blurry as
a result.
■ Make sure Automatic is set in the Render > Set NURBS Tessellation
window.
■ Turn on Smooth Edge for the surface (or turn on Smooth Edge and
increase Smooth Edge Ratio).
To fix aliased surface edges or profile (for Maya software and mental ray for
Maya)
1 Do the following:
■ In the Render Settings window on page 376, turn on Use Multi Pixel
Filter.
1 For solid textures, make sure Use Min Screen is off for the surface and
Mode U and Mode V are not set to Best Guess Based on Screen Size.
For image file textures or textures with noise, Increase Filter Offset (to
the lowest value that produces acceptable results).
For image file textures, set Filter Type to Quadratic for the texture.
To fix outlines around 2D motion blurred surfaces (for Maya software only)
You can try to force the tile sizes to be smaller so the rendering job fits into
memory. When using command line rendering, use the -reg <int int int
int> flag. For more information on this flag, see Common flags for the
command line renderer in the Rendering Utilities guide.
IPR doesn’t respect image plane display options. When updating, IPR displays
the image plane in the background though the image plane is set to none.
Workaround Delete the image plane.
Manual updates are needed to get feedback from IPR when making changes
to:
■ image planes
When using Apply Fog in Post, the results cannot be seen in IPR.
Related topics
153
Anti-aliasing and flicker
Especially in large scenes that have objects close together, background surfaces
may appear to show through nearby surfaces. This is a result of how the
camera’s clipping planes determine the depth position of geometry; the
problem results from the limited precision used to store depth information.
It is mainly influenced by the following camera parameters: near clip distance,
far clip distance, and camera angle.
Render speed
You can make adjustments to a number of settings to increase the speed with
which the scene, surfaces, and, or shadows render, and the speed with which
camera render the scene. To find out about strategies to increase rendering
speed, see Increase overall rendering speed on page 158.
Reduce memory
In some cases, you can also reduce the memory used by the render to decrease
rendering times. See Reducing memory usage on page 163.
Artifacts | 155
Reduce file size (Maya Vector renderer)
Complex scenes and certain Maya Vector Render Settings can produce very
large SWF or SVG files that are unsuitable for online delivery.
If you are using the Maya Vector renderer to create SWF or SVG files for online
delivery, you can modify your scene and adjust the Maya Vector Render
Settings to produce the best compromise between image quality and file size.
See Strategies to decrease vector render file size on page 165.
Related topics
■ mental ray for Maya error handling and diagnostics on page 251
You can correct the flickering of very small objects by increasing the visibility
samples in the selected object’s Attribute Editor.
Clipping planes help Maya to determine how far and near objects are relative
to the camera. By default, cameras have Auto Render Clip Plane turned on so
that Maya can sort geometry as accurately as possible. If objects seem to
inter-penetrate each other, turn off Auto Render Clip Plane and set the Near
Clip Plane to 1.0.
For more information on clipping planes and these settings, see Clipping
planes on page 21.
Animation flicker
■ Diagnose the scene to find ways to render the scene faster using Render >
Run Render Diagnostics. You can use this tool to monitor how well you
optimize the scene and to search for limitations and potential problems
that may occur. For more information on render diagnostics, see Run
diagnostics on page 166.
■ Click File > Optimize Scene Size > to turn options on or off to
optimize everything in the scene and to remove unused or non-valid
elements. See File > Optimize Scene Size in the Basics guide for more
information about this window.
■ For Maya software and mental ray for Maya, Test Resolution (Render >
Test Resolution) lets you select a reduced resolution to test render the
scene. For more information on test rendering strategies, see Visualize
interactively with IPR on page 123.
■ For Maya software, if the scene contains several identical surfaces (for
example, multiple spheres), use Optimize Instances in the Render Settings:
Maya Software tab on page 388 to improve rendering performance.
■ Turn off motion blur if you don’t need it (the Vector renderer has no
motion blur). For the Maya software renderer, use 2D motion blur instead
of 3D motion blur when possible. See 2D Motion Blur global attributes
and 3D Motion Blur in the Render Settings window on page 376 for details.
Related topics
■ Use average BSP (mental ray for Maya) settings on page 248
■ For Maya software rendering and Maya hardware rendering, use bump
mapping instead of displacement mapping.
■ For Maya software rendering, make bump maps flatter. To do this, reduce
the value of the Alpha Gain attribute, which smooths the bump map and
reduces the number of samples of adaptive shading. This technique only
works when Edge Anti-aliasing is set to Highest Quality. The texture bump
looks flatter when the Alpha Gain is lower.
■ For Maya software rendering, use layered textures when possible, instead
of a Layered Shader. (See Layered shaders and 2D and 3D textures in the
Shading guide for details.)
■ For Maya software rendering and mental ray for Maya, if you are raytracing
the scene, set the Reflection Limit and Refraction Limit to the lowest values
that produce acceptable results.
■ For Maya software rendering, in the Render Settings: Maya Software tab
on page 388 on Linux, Use File Cache avoids re-tessellation of the same
surface during rendering. Turn on Use File Cache to store geometric data
in a separate file in a location that you specify (the default location is
/usr/tmp, but you can set a new location by typing setenv TMPDIR xxx,
where xxx is the name of the directory where this file is output).
■ For surfaces that do not need to cast shadows, turn off Casts Shadows.
■ Turn on Use Auto Focus (or set the Focus to the lowest value that
produces acceptable results. See Focus, Width Focus) and set the
Resolution to the lowest value that produces acceptable results.
■ For Maya software rendering, set the light’s Filter Size to the lowest
value that produces acceptable results. A Filter Size value of 2 or more
is usually sufficient. For mental ray for Maya, adjust the Resolution,
Samples, and Softness settings under the light’s Shadow Map Overrides
section.
■ For Maya software rendering, Set Fog Shadow Samples to the lowest
value that produces acceptable results.
■ For Maya software rendering, set Disk Based Dmaps to Reuse Existing
Dmap(s).
■ For Maya software rendering, if a point light does not have to produce
shadows in the light’s positive or negative X, Y, or Z directions, turn
off the appropriate attributes in the Depth Map Shadow Attributes
section: Use X+ Map, Use X- Map, Use Y+ Map, Use Y- Map,, Use Z+
Map, or Use Z- Map.
■ Set Ray Depth Limit to the lowest value that produces acceptable
results.
By default all objects participate in photon tracing for global illumination and
caustics. Typically, not all are required for you to achieve the look you want.
You can specify exactly which objects cast and, or receive photons to reduce
the rendering load.
Final Gather
Final Gather is view dependent and is recalculated for each frame in a sequence.
You can store final gather results so that later frames can use the results from
a frame rendered earlier to speed up the Final Gather rendering process.
■ Cache texture tiles using BOT (block ordered texture) on page 163
A new and optimized scene file is generated and is ready for the renderer when
you use the BOT pre-render setup.
For more information, type the following:
maya -optimizeRender -help
■ Choose an appropriate Fill Style based on the objects in your scene. Some
fill styles produce results of equal quality, but different file sizes, for certain
types of objects. Avoid using Full Color or Mesh Gradient as they always
create large files.
■ Set Edge Style to Outline instead of Entire Mesh. (For more edge detail,
turn on Edge Detail.)
■ Turn off Show Back Faces. If a surface does not render because it is facing
away from the camera, manually reverse the surface’s normal.
Run diagnostics
To run render diagnostics
■ From the Render View window, select File > Render Diagnostics.
Maya opens the Script Editor and displays a list of potential problems in the
scene.
Related topics
■ mental ray for Maya error handling and diagnostics on page 251
■ Motion blur and raytracing are both turned on. (Reflections, refractions
and shadows are not motion blurred.)
■ You have motion blur turned on. Be aware that particles, lights and
shadows do not motion blur. As well, motion blurred shadows may produce
artifacts.
■ You have specified output to the Cineon format. This format does not
render out a mask channel.
■ Near/far clipping values are too far apart. You may encounter numerical
imprecision resulting in incorrect renders.
■ mental ray network rendering (see mental ray network rendering: Satellite
and standalone on page 199)
■ mental ray for Maya Satellite network rendering
Related topics
169
Maya network rendering
Computer preparation
TIP Maya network rendering may read and write numerous files over the network
simultaneously. Make sure your network bandwidth can handle the traffic. Consider
rendering files locally on each render node, then transferring them to the final
destination.
File Access
All files, scenes, and textures you use must be stored in locations accessible
to each render workstation. This can be achieved by doing either of the
following:
■ Providing the files to all the render workstations from a central file server.
File permissions must be adjusted for your environment.
Plug-ins
Make sure all render workstations used to render a scene containing plug-ins
have those plug-ins installed, and that each render workstation has a valid
license for those plug-ins. If a render workstation does not have a license for
a plug-in being used, you may find that every frame it processes fails.
TIP Cache data in the scene to prevent unwanted differences between frames,
computers, effects, and so on.
Related topics
173
IFF File format
The IFF image support in mental ray permits both color and depth information
written into a single file. This requires the proper parameters to be set in the
Render Settings (Depth Channel [Z Depth] in the File Output section must be
turned on).
File Export
mental ray for Maya can also be used in Maya as a file exporter. When you
export a Maya scene file to the proprietary mental images (.mi) file type, the
file export simply writes a .mi file to disk with the given name. Additional
options are available in the user interface to control ASCII or binary mode
export and file-pre-frame creation for animations.
See Exporting .mi files on page 186.
Geometry Types
Known differences
The native Maya and mental ray renderers may produce different results in
certain situations. For more details, see mental ray for Maya renders look
different than Maya renders on page 278.
For information and procedures, see Indirect (global) vs. direct illumination
in the Lighting guide.
mental ray for Maya can render with Global illumination, the technique used
to capture indirect illumination (the natural phenomenon where light bounces
off anything in its path until it is completely absorbed).
Caustics
mental ray can render with Caustics, the light effects that caused by specular
reflected or refracted light, like the shimmering light at the bottom of a pool
of water.
Final gather
mental ray for Maya can render with Final gather (a method of global
illumination) to create very (or purely) diffuse scenes where the indirect
illumination changes slowly.
The main purpose of area light sources is to generate more realistic lighting,
resulting in soft shadows. This is achieved by using one of four primitives
(rectangles, discs, spheres, and cylinders) as light sources with nonzero area.
For more information about mental ray for Maya areas lights, see Default
lighting in Maya in the Lighting guide.
Scene rendering
Parallelism
mental ray for Maya supports both host and network parallel rendering. It
renders identical output on all common and widely-used platforms. For
network rendering, it performs best in a client-server setup, where it takes care
of load balancing and network communication reduction.
For information on mental ray for Maya network rendering, see Network
render with mental ray for Maya on page 252.
You can control how particular objects contribute to certain rendering stages
by setting per-object rendering flags in the object’s Attribute Editor.
Motion Blur
For information about mental ray for Maya motion blur, see mental ray for
Maya motion blur on page 180.
Customizations
mental ray for Maya supports a method to produce custom text in the output
stream written to the .mi file. This is for text-only integration of custom mental
ray shaders within Maya; it allows for the creation of special-purpose Maya
nodes that hold customized mental images (mi) text.
mental ray for Maya checks Maya polygonal meshes for additional dynamic
(custom) attributes that supply per vertex data. This data is exported as
additional mental ray texture spaces for shader access.
For more information about custom vertex data, see Custom vertex data in
the Shading guide.
mental ray for Maya checks for errors in a Maya scene and recognizes various
operating system errors. You can use diagnostics to help you diagnose issues
with samples and photon maps.
For more information on mental ray for Maya diagnostics, see mental ray for
Maya error handling and diagnostics on page 251.
The following image formats are unique to the mental ray renderer.
The following is true when rendering to a format other than Maya IFF or RLA.
If rendering to Maya IFF or RLA, all channels RGBAZ are written to one file.
For all other image formats, when the Depth Channel (Z depth) option is
enabled in the mental ray Render Settings, mental ray will write out a separate
image file containing depth information. Z-depth is now written out in IFF
format and rendered to a separate file that has “Depth” as a suffix to the image
name, for example, imageDepth.#.iff.
Limitation
The mental ray IPR and the Auto Render Threads on page 320 option in Render
> Render Current Frame > and Render > Batch Render > do not
distinguish between dual core CPU's and hyperthreading. Therefore, these
options report all virtual CPU's as available threads.
Workaround 1: Turn hyperthreading off.
Workaround 2 (for Auto Render Threads on page 320 option): Turn off Auto
Render Threads on page 320 and reduce the number of threads by 1/2.
Unsupported features
mental ray for Maya does not support the following Maya rendering features:
■ Field Rendering
The following file texture formats are currently unsupported by mental ray
for Maya:
■ AVI files
■ certain variants of the TIFF format (those with LZW compression, including
those generated by the Maya renderer)
■ EPS files
■ GIF files
■ IFF16 files
■ Wavefront-alpha files
Workaround
(TIFF,CIN,GIF) For these unsupported file formats, Maya's imgcvt image
conversion tool can be used to convert the files to a supported format such
as IFF or RGB. For a complete list of file texture types supported by mental
ray, see the Rendering with mental ray Handbook.
(BOT) There is currently no workaround that will allow Maya BOT files to
be used in conjunction with mental ray for Maya. mental ray does support
its own memory-mapped map file texture format, however. Standard image
files can be converted to this format using the imf_copy command:
imf_copy -p <filename>.rgb <filename>.map
See the Rendering with mental ray Handbook for a full description of
memory-mapped textures in mental ray.
Related topics
Related topics
Approximation
Approximation (called tessellation in Maya; see Introduction to Tessellation
and Approximation on page 39) is the process mental ray for Maya uses to
convert NURBS surfaces (or displacement mapped polygon meshes) to triangles.
Triangles determine how smooth an object looks at closer distances to you
(the camera). When poorly tessellated objects are close to the camera, they
appear faceted; when they are further away, they don’t.
When rendering with mental ray for Maya, a set of approximation settings
must be specified for each piece of geometry.
By default mental ray for Maya derives approximation settings from Maya’s
tessellation settings. This produces results close to the look of Maya software
rendered scenes, and is useful for those familiar with the behavior of those
settings.
Alternatively, you can specify approximation settings more precisely for mental
ray for Maya by using an approximation node.
If only Basic tesselation (see Primary vs. secondary tessellation passes on page
40) is used, mental ray for Maya bases tessellation on the Curvature Tolerance
attribute setting of the NURBS surface.
If the Advanced tessellation attributes are used but none of the secondary
tessellation controls are active for an object, Parametric approximation is
derived from Maya's primary tessellation controls. Otherwise, mental ray for
Maya’s LDA approximation method is applied with values calculated from
Maya secondary tessellation controls.
Primary tessellation creates a base triangulation, which is further tessellated
until the secondary set of conditions are met. mental ray for Maya’s Parametric
approximation method is comparable to Maya’s primary tessellation; the
length/distance/angle (LDA) method is comparable to Maya’s secondary
tessellation.
Trim Curve Approx- Controls the tessellation of NURBS surfaces with trim curves
imation trim curves on NURBS sur-
faces.
NOTE
■ Subdivision surfaces are supported by mental ray versions prior to 3.2,
when the mental matter library libmisubdiv.so is linked in. mental ray
3.2 and later includes subdivision surface rendering (but not modeling)
support, and do not require an external library.
Approximation styles
An approximation style is the general subdivision scheme mental ray for Maya
uses to break the surface into triangles. Some approximation styles work by
repeatedly cutting the entire surface from end to end, while others are capable
of adding triangles in a more localized fashion.
mental ray for Maya provides a few standard approximation styles (Grid, Tree,
and Delaunay) and the Fine approximation style.
The standard approximation styles use as few triangles as possible to
approximate a surface to achieve the quality you define in the approximation
settings.
Fine approximation
To allow for Fine approximation, the granularity of mental ray for Maya’s
cache manager is reduced, whereby smaller units are formed by splitting
objects into smaller sets. These sets can be individually tessellated without
excessive memory requirements.
Fine approximations support a small subset of approximation techniques since
the other styles exist only to trade off triangle counts vs. quality, which is no
longer a problem for fine approximations.
Free-form NURBS curves and surfaces in Maya are supported by mental ray
for Maya. These surfaces, which can have a boundary and several holes, are
expressed as trim and hole curves in the mental images surface definition.
Maya polygonal meshes are exported as mental images polygon objects and
support features like vertex sharing, holes, and displacement refinement.
Displacement mapping can be applied to meshes. The special displacement
properties for polygon surfaces are controlled in much the same way as NURBS
surfaces.
Polygonal meshes that consist only of triangles or quadrangles can be exported
as a subdivision surface base mesh for mental ray rendering.
To export a polygonal mesh for rendering, you must create and attach a
Subdivision approximation node to the mesh. This node lets you further
control the subdivision process and quality. Additionally, you can create and
attach a Displace Approximation node to support the displacement of the
mesh.
If mental ray for Maya encounters a Subdivision approximation node, it is
exported as a mental images subdivision surface base mesh (including textures
and motion vectors, but without normals) instead of a simple polygonal mesh.
If the conversion fails (because other than triangles/quadrangles were found),
an error message is printed and the mesh is exported as usual.
Subdivision surfaces
Maya’s subdivision surfaces are supported in mental ray for Maya as long as
the base mesh is made up of only quads.
The support for subdivision surfaces includes hierarchical edits, hierarchical
material assignments, edge and vertex full creases only, uncreases, texture
reference objects, deformation motion blur, and derivatives (for bump mapping
and texture filtering). Unlike Maya, however, mental ray for Maya can handle
only quadrilateral base meshes (a number of Maya standard subdiv shapes are
therefore rejected), and UV coordinates can only be specified on the base mesh
(level 0).
To prepare subdivision surfaces not directly supported (for example, where
the base mesh does not contain only quads), see Obtain quads for subdivision
surfaces on page 207.
■ can be scripted
■ for Maya software rendering, you can override render settings using
command flags (for other renderers, you must also write a MEL script)
For more information, see Command line renderer in the Rendering Utilities
guide.
The following mental ray for Maya command line options are supported
during IPR:
-rg/region Update the IPR region to the selected one.
-rr/regionRect Set a new IPR region explicitly (works together with -region).
Several controls let you manually optimize the process of exporting scenes to
.mi format. The translator recognizes a specific set of dynamic attributes that
you can add to nodes to control how they are exported.
The tangents are first order derivatives supplied as mental ray bump basis
vectors. They are required for mayabase shader filtering and bump mapping
purposes.
Multi-render passes
Multi-render passes reduce the need to use render layers, thus reducing
compute times for scene translation and rendering. If you work with complex
multi-layered compositions, rendering may also be several times faster.
Using multi-render passes, you can render an unlimited number of render
passes and group them into render pass sets.
For advanced users, you can also select a subset of the objects or lights in your
scene to contribute to each render pass. This subset is called a render pass
contribution map. Render pass contribution maps allow you to perform scene
segmentation at render time.
NOTE The multi-render pass feature is supported for the mental ray renderer. The
rendering API allows other 3rd party renderers and custom renderers to support
it moving forward.
■ Anisotropic
■ Blinn
■ Lambert
■ Phong
■ PhongE
■ Env Fog
■ Fluid Shape
■ Light Fog
■ Particle Cloud
■ Volume Fog
■ Volume Shader
■ Ocean Shader
■ Ramp Shader
■ Hair
■ Image Plane
■ Layered Shader
■ Shading Map
■ Surface Shader
■ Use Background
NOTE Standard surface materials support all render passes mentioned in Available
render passes on page 191; however, there are some non-standard shaders which
contribute only to a subset of applicable passes, such as volume shaders, hair, and
fur shaders, and so forth.
■ Create render passes using the Passes tab in the Render Settings window
and the Create Render Passes window. The Passes tab is available when
you select mental ray as your renderer. Click the New Pass button
in the Passes tab to open the Create Render Passes window, and select the
render passes that you want to create.
See Create Render Passes window on page 470 for more information.
■ Use the Passes tab to associate render passes with each layer and each pass
contribution map.
See Passes tab on page 404 for more information.
■ Optionally, if you want to create several render passes, you can group them
into a render pass set. Create a render pass set using the Passes tab in the
Render Settings window.
See Passes tab on page 404 for more information.
Related topics
■ Create a render pass contribution map that contains the 3 objects and the
light. Select the objects and the light, then right-click the layer in the
Render Layer Editor and select Pass Contribution Maps > Create Pass
Contribution Map and Add Selected.
Alternatively, you can click the New pass contribution map button
in the Passes tab in the Render Settings window.
See Render Layer Editor on page 367 for more information.
■ Use the Create Render Passes window to create your render passes.
See Create Render Passes window on page 470 for more information.
You can create multiple pass contribution maps for each render layer, or, share
a pass contribution map between two or more layers.
When rendering a given render layer, only the pass contribution maps linked
to the layer are applied. Render passes that are not connected to any objects
through pass contribution maps are implicitly associated to all objects.
NOTE You can create the pass elements (pass contribution maps, passes, pass
sets, and render layers) in any order.
Related topics
NOTE Occasionally, you may notice aliasing on the edges of your render passes
that does not exist in your overall beauty pass. This occurs because the mental ray
adaptive sampling algorithm only refines sampling in areas of high contrast in
your main beauty pass and not your individual passes. For example, an edge that
appears in a material pass, but not in a beauty pass, may be under-sampled. The
aliasing does not appear in your composited image. However, you can smooth
out the edges for your individual passes by enabling the Contrast All Buffers option
in the Render Settings window, Quality tab so that the adaptive sampling algorithm
analyzes the contrast in all color frame buffers being rendered, rather than for just
the master beauty pass.
2D Motion Vector Relative motion (in raster coordinates) of objects in your scene;
in other words, how far each pixel is moving between two frames.
Vector is expressed in normalized pixels.
3D Motion Vector 3D motion vector in world space. In mental ray for Maya, the
3D motion vector is expressed in internal space.
Ambient Irradiance Amount of ambient light received by the surface. See Render
pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information on the
attributes for this pass.
Ambient Occlusion Ambient occlusion contribution from both self ambient occlusion
as well as primary ambient occlusion, which is derived from sur-
rounding objects. You must enable Ambient Occlusion in the
Render Settings: Features tab in order to use this render pass.
Ambient Material Reflectivity of the material with respect to ambient light. See
Color Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information
on the attributes for this pass.
Beauty Final color computed by mental ray for Maya. See Render pass
Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information on the attrib-
utes for this pass.
Camera Depth / Extracts the distance between the camera and the intersection
Camera Depth point. Choose between normalized distance and real scene dis-
Remapped tance. See Camera Depth render pass attributes on page 503 for
more information on the attributes for this pass.
Coverage mental ray Coverage frame buffer. This frame buffer offers only
silhouette coverage. Self-coverage is currently not supported.
Diffuse Without Diffuse pass without shadowing information. See Render pass
Shadows Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information on the attrib-
utes for this pass.
Diffuse Material Col- Provides constant diffuse color or textured diffuse color, excluding
or light contribution. See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501
for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Direct Irradiance Direct light arriving at each sample location. See Render pass
Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information on the attrib-
utes for this pass.
Incandescence Additive color. See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for
more information on the attributes for this pass.
Incidence Measures the difference between the direction of the light ray
(Light/Normal) and the surface normal. If the surface normal is facing the light,
this value is 1. If the normal is facing away from the light, the
value is 0. Create a pass contribution map to isolate the light ray
of your choice. If there is no pass contribution map in your scene,
Maya performs its calculations based on the sum of all lights in
your scene.
Light Volume Extracts all light-centric volume effects, for example, a light cone
volume effect. See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for
more information on the attributes for this pass.
Material Incidence Measures the difference between the direction of the camera ray
(Camera/Normal) and the surface normal. If the surface normal is pointing to the
camera, this value is 0. If the normal is facing away from the
camera, the value is 1. Any angle greater than 90 degrees is also
translated to 1. If bump mapping is applied to the shading net-
work, it will appear in this pass. See Render pass Attribute Editor
on page 501 for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Material Normal Interpolated surface normal. Choose from one of Camera space,
(Camera Space / Object space and World space. If bump mapping is applied to
Object Space / the shading network, it will appear in this pass.
World Space)
Normalized 2D Mo- Relative motion (in raster coordinates) of objects in your scene;
tion Vector in other words, how far each pixel is moving between two frames.
Pixel displacement is normalized to (0—1). Static objects are
expressed with 0.5,0.5 values. See Normalized 2D Motion Vector
render pass attributes on page 502 for more information on the
attributes for this pass.
Object Incidence Similar to the Material Incidence (Camera/Normal) pass but does
(Camera/Normal) not support bump mapping.
Object Normal Similar to the Material Normal (Camera Space / Object Space /
(Camera Space / World Space) pass does not support bump mapping.
Object Space /
World Space)
Object Volume Extracts all object-centric volume effects, for example, smoke
that is contained in a glass object. Also includes volume particles,
volume fur, and fluids. See Render pass Attribute Editor on page
501 for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Raw Shadow Similar to the Shadow pass but calculated only with respect to
the irradiance in the scene. See Render pass Attribute Editor on
page 501 for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Reflected Material The reflected color parameter of the material. Pure constant
Color reflection color or textured reflection. Used as a reflection matte
to determine where reflection would be revealed (colored and
noncolored). See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for
more information on the attributes for this pass.
Refraction Material The transparency color parameter of the material. Pure constant
Color refraction color or textured reflection. Used as a refraction/trans-
parency matte to determine where refraction is revealed (colored
and non-colored). See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501
for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Scatter Scattering effects that result from the material’s scattering attrib-
utes (for example, Scatter Radius, Scatter Color). See Render pass
Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information on the attrib-
utes for this pass.
Scene Volume Extracts all scene-centric volume effects such as fog, layered fog,
haze, and so forth. See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501
for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Specular Without Similar to Specular but without shadow occlusions. See Render
Shadows pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information on the
attributes for this pass.
Related topics
■ When used for network rendering, less data is sent across the network,
reducing render times and network load.
■ Reduce memory usage so that you can render larger scenes and render
scenes with higher resolution textures, such as 10k and above.
NOTE
■ You can set the preferences for this feature by selecting Window >
Settings/Preferences > Preferences. Under the Rendering section, select
mental ray as your Preferred renderer. For more information. see Rendering
preferences.
■ If the textures in your scene file are already of the .map format, then these
files will still be converted and carried over to the cache location specified
under Custom Location in the Rendering Preferences window.
■ mental ray network rendering (see Network render with mental ray for
Maya on page 252)
■ mental ray for Maya Satellite network rendering
■ command-line rendering
Terminology
When using mental ray for Maya and mental ray for Maya Satellite, master
refers to the machine that is submitting the network render requests
interactively, via batch or command line, and slave refers to an individual
machine with mental ray standalone or mental ray for Maya Satellite on the
network that receives and performs part of a network render and sends the
information back to the client.
Any machine with mental ray standalone can be a master, a slave or both at
the same time.
NOTE While it is not recommended, you can mix any combination of Linux,
Windows, and Mac OS X machines as masters and slaves.
Related topics
If you want to render Maya scenes (.mb or .ma) from within Maya or batch
render with Maya, you need to install mental ray for Maya on all server
machines and mental ray standalone on all slave machines.
If you want to render Maya scenes (.mb or .ma) from within Maya or batch
render with Maya, you need to install mental ray for Maya on all server
machines and mental ray for Maya Satellite on all slave machines. You can
use up to 2 CPUs (with Maya Complete) or 8 CPUs (with Maya Unlimited).
For more information about installing mental ray for Maya Satellite, see the
Installation and Licensing guide.
You can’t render native mental images (.mi) scenes from the command line
using the mental ray for Maya Satellite; you must use mental ray standalone.
Configuration files
To specify which network render slave machines a master uses, mental ray
for Maya and mental ray standalone use different configuration files:
■ mental ray for Maya and mental ray for Maya Satellite uses a file called
maya.rayhosts
maya.rayhosts
mental ray for Maya and mental ray for Maya Satellite look for maya.rayhosts
in the following directories:
mental ray for Maya looks for (maya.)rayrc in the following directories:
■ $MAYA_LOCATION/mentalray
The following is a list of mental ray for Maya specific menu items.
■ File > Export All, Export Selection (mental ray) on page 309
■ Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Approximation Editor on page
319
■ Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Custom Text Editor on page
319
■ To set clipping planes under Create > Cameras > Camera on page 313, see
Clipping Planes on page 315.
■ To set the number of rendering threads to be used by mental ray for Maya
for rendering, see Render Threads on page 320.
■ To create an image plane and attach it to the camera, Image Plane on page
353.
See mental ray Approximation Editor on page 363 for a description of the
mental ray for Maya approximation editor.
For a description of the mental ray options in the Render Stats section of the
object’s shape node, see:
■ mental ray for Maya 8identifies the version for mental ray for Maya.
2 Click Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Approximation Editor.
The Approximation Editor opens. For more information on the
Approximation Editor see, mental ray Approximation Editor on page 363.
3 Click the Create button for the type of approximation node you want to
create.
For descriptions, see Approximation nodes on page 182.
The approximation node is created and assigned to the selected geometry.
2 Click Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Approximation Editor.
The Approximation Editor opens. For more information on the
Approximation Editor see, mental ray Approximation Editor on page 363.
3 From the drop-down list for the type of approximation node, select the
node you want to assign.
For descriptions, see Approximation nodes on page 182.
4 Click Assign.
The approximation node is assigned to the selected geometry.
Related topics
1 Click Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Approximation Editor.
The Approximation Editor opens. For more information on the
Approximation Editor see, mental ray Approximation Editor on page 363.
2 From the drop-down list for the type of approximation node, select the
node you want to edit.
For descriptions, see Approximation nodes on page 182.
3 Click Edit.
The approximation node’s Attribute Editor opens.
Related topics
1 Select the geometry from which you want to unassign the approximation
node.
2 Click Window > Rendering Editors > mental ray > Approximation Editor.
The Approximation Editor opens. For more information on the
Approximation Editor see, mental ray Approximation Editor on page 363.
4 Click Unassign.
Related topics
2 From the drop-down list for the type of approximation node, select the
node that you want to delete
For descriptions, see Approximation nodes on page 182.
3 Click Delete.
Related topics
1 From the Surfaces menu set, select Subdiv Surfaces > Collapse Hierarchy
> .
3 Click Apply.
length Specifies that the triangle edge length should stay under edge units in
the object's object space. The edge parameter needs more careful tuning than
in the view-dependent case, and very high values defeat the purpose of fine
approximation.
Presets
Pixel Length The Pixel approximation method takes into account both Length
on page 211 and Distance. This method subdivides until no tile has an edge
length that exceeds the specified Length. It also subdivides until the distance
between the tessellation and the actual curve is less than the specified Distance.
Use in conjunction with Any Satisfied. If Any Satisfied is selected, then only
one of these conditions need to be satisfied. Otherwise, both conditions need
to be satisfied.
This method of approximation is view dependent and is not recommended
for use with instances because the same tessellation is applied to all instances
of the same object. This may result in a really high or really low tessellation
for both a near and a far object, neither of which is ideal. It is also not
recommended for camera flythroughs and for objects that are offscreen but
Approximation method
Regular parametric Curves are subdivided into equal pieces by the parametric
approximation and into subdiv equal pieces by the regular parametric
approximation.
For displacement mapped polygons and displacement mapped surfaces with
a displace statement regular parametric has the same meaning as parametric
in the approximation. For displacement mapped polygons the u_subdiv
constant specifies that each edge in the triangulation of the original polygon
is subdivided for the displacement 2u_subdivtimes. If a displace approximation
is given for a displacement mapped surface, the initial tessellation of the
underlying geometric surface is subdivided in the same way as for polygons.
For example, a value of 2 leads to a fourfold subdivision of each edge.
Non-integer values for the subdivision constant are admissible. Nothing is
done if the expression above is smaller than 2 (if u_subdiv < 1). The v_subdiv
constant is ignored for the parametric approximation of displacement maps.
Approximation Style
Tree, Grid, and Delaunay approximation algorithms are available for surface
approximation only; they have no effect on curve approximations. Parametric
approximation on page 210always uses the Grid algorithm; all other
Approximation methods can use any style but Tree is the default.
Grid Tessellates on a regular grid of isolines in parameter space.
Max triangles This setting only applies to the Delaunay on page 211
approximation type. It determines the maximum number of triangles that
the final tessellation may contain.
Distance Specifies the maximum distance between the tessellation and the
actual curve or surface. The value of dist is a distance in the space the object
is defined in, or a fraction of a pixel diagonal in raster space if the view
statement is present.
As a starting point, a small distance such as 0.1 is recommended. For Tree on
page 210and Grid approximation the min and max parameters, if present,
specify the minimum and maximum number of recursion levels of the adaptive
subdivision. For Delaunay on page 211approximation, the number max
following the keyword max specifies the maximum number of triangles of
the surface tessellation.
For displacement mapped polygons and displacement mapped surfaces with
a displace approximation statement the distance criterion cannot be used in
the same way because the displaced surface is not known analytically. Instead,
the displacements of the vertices of a triangle in the tessellation are compared.
The criterion is fulfilled only if they differ by less than the given threshold.
Subdivision is finest in areas where the displacement changes. For example,
if a black-and-white picture is used for the displacement map the triangulation
will be finest along the borders between black and white areas but the
resolution will be lower away from them in the uniformly colored areas. In
such a case one could choose a moderately dense parametric surface
approximation that samples the displacement map at sufficient density to
catch small features, and use the curvature-dependent displace approximation
to resolve the curvature introduced by the displacement map. Even if the base
surface is triangulated without adding interior points, as if its a trim curve
defined a polygon in parameter space, it is still possible to guarantee a certain
Angle The angle statement specifies the maximum angle in degrees between
normals of adjacent tiles of a displaced polygon or the tessellation of a surface
or its displacement or between tangents of adjacent segments of the curve
approximation. Large angles such as 45.0 are recommended. For tree and grid
approximation the min and max parameters, if present, specify the minimum
and maximum number of recursion levels of the adaptive subdivision. For
Delaunay approximation, the number max following the keyword max specifies
the maximum number of triangles of the surface tessellation.
View dependent
Controls whether the edge argument of the length and spatial statements and
the dist argument of the distance and curvature statements are in the space
the object is defined in or in raster space.
Turn this on to express the Length and Distance attribute values in pixels
instead of object-space units (the default). The advantage of using
view-dependent values is that objects that are close to the camera receive
many triangles, while objects that are far away (or not visible at all) are
approximated much more coarsely.
Length If the View Dependent attribute is turned on, this value is specified
in pixels, otherwise it is specified in object-space units. The Length criterion
is especially useful in conjunction with view dependency. For example, a
view-dependent value of Length = 0.5 means subdivide until all triangles are
no bigger than half a pixel in the resulting image. If the Length attribute is
set to 0.0, this criterion is ignored by the tessellator.
Distance If the View Dependent flag is turned on, this distance is expressed
in pixels, otherwise it is expressed in object-space units. The lower the value,
the more closely the tessellated surface will match the exact NURBS surface.
Small values such as 0.1 work well (with view dependency disabled). If the
Distance attribute is set to 0.0, this criterion is ignored by the tessellator.
Spatial The Spatial approximation method is the same as the Length criteria
from the Length/Distance/Angle method. Using this method, the mesh will
be subdivided until all triangles are less than a certain size, determined by the
Length attribute. This value is expressed in either pixels or object-space units,
as determined by the View Dependent flag. This method is the only one
available when using the Fine approximation type.
Sharp Controls normal-vector calculations. If set to 0.0, mental ray for Maya
uses the interpolated normal, as specified by the base surface, modified by
■ During translation, mental ray for Maya only translates the mesh hull,
and the actual smoothing occurs at render time.
■ This workflow delays smoothing until required because mental ray only
tesselates and smoothes the mesh when a ray, for example, a camera ray,
reflection ray, or shadow ray, hits the object.
The drawback of this feature, however, is that all Maya creasing will render
differently with this technique, since the creasing appears different in the
viewport as compared to its mental ray render.
1 Open the Approximation Editor (Window > Rendering Editors > mental
ray > Approximation Editor).
2 Click the Create button beside the Subdivision approx. (Poly, Subdiv)
attribute to create and assign a subdivision approximation to your
polygon.
NOTE You can also smooth polygon meshes by selecting Mesh > Smooth.
This method creates denser geometry in the viewport and can increase the
number of data calculations for interactive manipulation.
You can set up a smooth preview in the 3D viewport and then render it.
1 In the Render Settings window, under Render Using, select mental ray.
3 In the Attribute Editor, expand the Smooth Mesh section and select
Smooth Mesh Preview.
4 Select the level of smoothing for your mesh by tweaking the division
level. A higher value produces more smoothing. If you want to use the
same division level for the 3D viewport preview as for your render, select
the Use Preview Level for Rendering option. Otherwise, uncheck the Use
Preview Level for Rendering option and use the Render Division Levels
slider or text field to enter the desired division level for your render.
1 In the Attribute Editor of the shading group node for your material shader,
select Enable Contour Rendering under the Contours section.
2 In the Render Settings: mental ray tabs on page 404, Features tab on page
406 expand the Contours on page 410 section and select Enable Contour
Rendering.
3 Select how you want your contours to behave with geometry by checking
the applicable options under Draw By Property Difference on page 410
under the Contours on page 410 section.
4 Tweak the contour attributes to achieve the look that you desire.
1 In the Attribute Editor of the shading group node for your material shader,
map your mental ray contour shader, such as contour_shader_depthfade,
to the Contour Shader attribute under the Custom Shaders section.
2 Tweak the contour shader attributes to achieve the look that you desire.
3 In the Render Settings: mental ray tabs on page 404, Features tab on page
406, expand the Contours on page 410section. Under the Custom Shaders
section, map your custom contrast shader, for example,
contour_contrast_function_levels, to the Contrast Shader attribute. Map
your custom store shader, for example, contour_store_function to the
Store Shader attribute.
4 Tweak the contour shader attributes to achieve the look that you desire.
For a description of the node attributes for the mental ray contour shaders,
see the mental ray Shaders Guide in the Maya Help.
NOTE The multi-render pass feature is supported for the mental ray renderer. The
rendering API allows other 3rd party renderers and custom renderers to support
it moving forward.
1 With the KitchenSink layer selected, open the Render Settings window
and select mental ray as your renderer.
2 Select the Passes tab and click the New Pass button to create a new
render pass. The Create Render Passes window appears.
3 Select the following render passes. You can multi-select items: Diffuse
Without Shadows, Reflection, Shadow, and Specular Without Shadows.
Click the Create and Close button. Four render passes named
diffuseNoShadow, reflection, shadow, specularNoShadow are created and
appear under the Scene Passes section
NOTE By default, a beauty pass is also created for the each layer once the
selected passes have been created.
4 Use the arrow buttons to move the passes to the Associated Passes section.
This makes the passes available to the current layer.
NOTE If you render using the Render View window, you can also preview
your render pass output by selecting File > Load Render Pass.
In addition to creating render passes for the entire render layer, you can also
create render passes for a subset of the objects and lights in your render layer.
You can do this by creating a render pass contribution map. See Creating
render pass contribution maps on page 224 for more information.
You can also customize the subfolders and filenames to which the rendered
images are stored. See Creating subfolders and filenames for rendered images
on page 227 for more information.
If you have many render passes in your scene, you can group them into render
pass sets, for example, an Illumination pass set that includes all passes involving
lights, such as diffuse, and ambient. See Using render pass sets in your scene
on page 231 for more information.
Related topics
■ Use the Render Layer Editor to create render pass contribution maps.
Although this step is optional, render pass contribution maps give you
finer control over light and objects and their passes relationship. For
example, you can use pass contribution maps to easily create a diffuse pass
for a specific object that is illuminated by a specific light.
■ Render the scene and create the subfolders and filenames for the rendered
images.
■ Group render passes into render pass sets and render the set.
NOTE For a list of available passes, and a list of shaders that is currently supported
by the multi-render pass workflow, see Multi-render passes on page 187.
NOTE The multi-render pass feature is supported for the mental ray renderer. The
rendering API allows other 3rd party renderers and custom renderers to support
it moving forward.
2 Select the sink and light in your scene view. In the Render Layer Editor,
right-click the layer and select Pass Contribution Maps > Create Pass
Contribution Map and Add Selected. Change its name to Sink.
Related topics
1 Open the Render Settings window and select mental ray as your renderer.
Select the Passes tab and click the New Pass button to create new
render passes. The Create Render Passes window appears.
4 Create the render pass for the bowl render pass contribution map. Select
the Passes tab and click the New Pass button to create a new render
pass. The Create Render Passes window appears. Select the Diffuse render
pass and enter Bowl in the Pass Prefix field, then click Create and Close.
The BowlDiffuse pass appears under the Scene Passes section.
5 Before you can apply these render passes to each pass contribution map,
you must first make these passes available to the current layer. Use the
arrow buttons to move the passes to the Associated Passes section.
6 Using the Associated Pass Contribution Map drop-down list, select the
pass contribution map that you want to select render passes for, for
example, Sink.
9 Render the scene. Your rendered images are saved to the images directory
of your project file as described below.
Related topics
NOTE If you render using the Render View window, you can also preview your
render pass output by selecting File > Load Render Pass.
You may want to customize the subdirectories and filenames for the rendered
images instead. For example, you may not want a folder to be created for each
layer and camera. Use the tokens available from the File name prefix attribute
under the File Output section in the Render Settings: Common tab on page
377. and combine them with separators such as _ or -.
For example, you may want to use the <Scene>_<RenderLayer>_<RenderPass>
tags to create the filenames for your images. In this sample workflow, the
following images are produced:
■ KitchenSinkModel_KitchenSink_BowlDiffuse.iff
■ KitchenSinkModel_KitchenSink_SinkDiffuseNoShadow.iff
■ KitchenSinkModel_KitchenSink_SinkReflection.iff
■ KitchenSinkModel_KitchenSink_SinkShadow.iff
■ KitchenSinkModel_KitchenSink_SinkSpecular.iff
NOTE If you use the default File Output directory, Maya creates a MasterBeauty
folder to which it saves the default beauty pass for the layer. If you customize the
File Output directory, a MasterBeauty.iff image is created for the beauty pass.
If your scene includes many render passes, you may want to group them into
render pass sets. You can create render pass sets using the Create Render Passes
window at the same time as when you are creating your render passes.
2 Enable the Create Pass Set option. Enter a Pass Set Name, for example,
Illumination. Click Create Passes.
4 To render this pass set for the current layer, use the arrow buttons to
move the render pass set to the Associated Passes section.
5 Select the Illumination pass set and click the Pass Set Relationship Editor
button. The Relationship Editor window appears and you can see that
the Illumination pass is automatically associated with all the passes that
you created simultaneously.
Related topics
■ Relationship Editor
After setting up your render layers and creating your render passes in Maya,
you may want to export your elements to be composited in Toxik.
3 Use the icon to expand the render layer, render camera, or render pass
hierarchy and select the elements that you want to export. A icon
indicates that all elements are being exported and A icon indicates
that only partial elements are being exported.
NOTE Unlike the scene name, which can change, for example, from version
one to version two, the scene anchor does not change. It uniquely connects
a Maya scene to a scene composition in a Toxik project. All elements that
belong to the same composite, for example, cameras, render passes, render
layers, and so forth, should have the same scene anchor. A scene anchor is
only required if you plan to updated your scene compositions in Toxik.
5 Click the Export All or Export Selection button to export your render
layers, passes and cameras to Toxik. The Export PRECOMP file window
opens that allows you to enter a filename for your exported file.
NOTE Before exporting to Toxik, ensure that all your scene elements are named
correctly. Avoid renaming elements (for example, a camera name or a render pass
name) halfway through your workflow. Toxik does not recognize the renaming
of scene elements, since renamed elements are flagged as new elements to be
inserted in the compositions. Therefore, if your composition contains old and new
elements, you are responsible for cleaning up your composition after an update.
For example, if you export for the first time with camera1 and then change your
camera name to camera2 and export again, Toxik does not update the camera in
the composite from camera1 to camera2. Instead, your composite now contains
two cameras: camera 1 and camera 2.
You can also create a template that instructs Toxik on how to update the
composite. A template is a Toxik precomp file with nodes that contain anchor
information. For example, if you have 15 passes in your scene, but only 2 of
the passes are blended together in the template, then only these 2 passes are
blended together in your composite. Specify a template for each layer using
the Render Settings window, Passes tab. When Toxik sees the template, it
duplicates it, and then looks for the elements with specific anchors (render
layer/camera/render pass anchors).
3 Use a different template for each render layer. Select a render layer and
open the Render Settings window, Passes tab. Enter the template in the
Pre-Compositing template for attribute. Repeat for each render layer.
Refer to the following table for list of file formats that Toxik supports, as well
as their supported bit depths.
Bitmap .bmp 8
Cineon 10
HDR .hdr 32
Photoshop .psd 8, 16
PICT .pict 8, 16
PNG .png 8, 16
QuickTime .mov
SGI .sgi 8, 16
RGB .rgb 8, 16
Targa .tga 8, 16
Softimage .pic 8
RLA .RLA 8, 16
NOTE Bit depths 8, 10, and 16 are integer unless otherwise indicated. Bit depth
32 is float.
■ whether you are preview rendering or producing the final rendered image(s)
Render settings for the Hardware renderer, the mental ray for Maya renderer,
the Maya software renderer, the Maya Vector renderer are available from the
Render Settings window.
The Common tab of the Render Settings window contains the attributes
common to most of the renderers, which decreases the number of parameters
you need to modify when switching between renderers. Settings specific to
the chosen renderer are available in a another tab.
For detailed descriptions of the settings in the Render Settings window, see
Render Settings window on page 376.
■ Click the Display Render Settings Window button on the main toolbar
or in Render View.
You can edit settings in the Common tab and the renderer-specific tab.
For more information, see Render Settings window on page 376.
For more information on aliasing artifacts and strategies on how to fix them,
see Adjust scene anti-aliasing parameters (Maya software) on page 157.
■ Quality Presets
■ Sampling Mode
■ Custom Sampling
■ Min Sample Level = 0
1 Type:
Render -r rendername -help
where rendername is the name of the renderer.
Use the following options:
■ mr = mental ray
■ sw = software renderer
■ hw = hardware renderer
■ vr = vector renderer
NOTE If you get help on a file (-r file -help), only the flags common to
all renderers, not a specific renderer, are shown. If you want
renderer-specific information, you must specify the renderer.
All flags have a short description. Each flag corresponds to the appropriate
section of the Render Settings window. See the Render Settings documentation
for more detailed information on each option.
1 Type:
Render -help
1 Type:
Render -r <renderername> <options> scene
To render a scene with the renderer specified in the file from a shell or
command line
■ To export a .mi file and render with mental ray using File > Export All
To export a .mi file and render with mental ray using File > Export All
TIP You can use the Esc key to cancel a mental ray for Maya export operation.
This functionality cancels the export operation, but Maya remains running.
1 Use the -r mi flag. See Command Line Flags for more information. For
example:
Render -r mi -rd "C:/images" -im "cmdTest" -of "tif" -s 10 -e
15 -b 1 -binary 0 -perframe 0 -exportPathNames "1111111111" -
file "C:/temp/test.mi" mayascene.ma
The command above exports frames 10 to 15 (-s, -e, and -b flags), and
exports one .mi file for the entire animation (-perframe flag). The exported
.mi file is in ASCII format (-binary flag), with the path and filename
C:/temp/test.mi. The .mi file uses the absolute path for its full name
(-exportPathNames flag).
When the test.mi file is rendered with a Standalone renderer, the output
image file is in tif format (-of flag) with the filename cmdTest (-im flag),
and stored in the c:/images directory (-rd flag).
Related Topics:
NOTE The use of render proxies can cut down translation time and memory usage
in several ways. First of all, complex geometry is never loaded into Maya. It is only
loaded into mental ray if necessary. If the proxy is occluded or behind another
object or behind the camera, then it is not loaded. Also, the texture file associated
with the render proxy is not loaded unless the proxy is. Furthermore, mental ray
for Maya can also unload the entire render proxy during rendering in order to
reduce memory consumption.
1 Export your geometry by selecting File > Export Selection > . See File
> Export All, Export Selection (mental ray) on page 309 for more
information.
NOTE When you export your render proxy using the default settings, you
also export its shading network. Therefore, shading that you apply to the
placeholder does not take effect. To change this behavior, customize your
export options by selecting File > Export Selection > .
2 Under the General Options section, File type attribute, select mentalRay.
3 Under the File Type Specific Options section, Export selection output:
attribute, select Render Proxy (Assembly).
NOTE When creating your render proxy, do not compress your .mi header
file because Maya needs to read the bounding box data from the .mi file.
NOTE Place your proxy object at the origin before exporting it to a .mi file.
For example, if your proxy is at x=10 during the export, the placeholder item
will also be moved by 10.
2 In the base geometry's shape node, expand the mental ray section. In the
Render Proxy section, select your render proxy .mi file. Your base
geometry is now resized so that it fits the original render proxy object.
4 Render your scene. Your base geometry is replaced by your render proxy
in the render view.
■ Diagnose the scene to find ways to render the scene faster using Render >
Run Render Diagnostics. You can use this tool to monitor how well you
optimize the scene and to search for limitations and potential problems
that may occur. For more information on render diagnostics, see Run
diagnostics on page 166 and mental ray for Maya diagnostics on page 197.
■ Click File > Optimize Scene Size > to turn options on or off to
optimize everything in the scene and to remove unused or non-valid
elements. See File > Optimize Scene Size in the Basics guide for more
information about this window.
■ For Maya software rendering, use Block ordered texture set up. See
Cache texture tiles using BOT (block ordered texture) on page 163.
■ For Maya software, if the scene contains several identical surfaces (for
example, multiple spheres), use Optimize Instances in the Render Settings:
Maya Software tab on page 388 to improve rendering performance.
■ Turn off motion blur if you don’t need it (the Vector renderer has no
motion blur). For the Maya software renderer, use 2D motion blur instead
of 3D motion blur when possible. See 2D Motion Blur global attributes
and 3D Motion Blur in the Render Settings window on page 376 for details.
When mental ray for Maya raytraces, it calculates the effects using an average
of the depth and the average of the leaf size settings of the BSP.
To speed up subsequent renderings, you can render instead with the average
settings (instead of your initial settings).
Find the averages in Maya's Output Window after you render the scene the
first time (with Verbosity Level set to Progress Messages or above in Render >
Render Current Frame > and Render > Batch Render > ), then change
the settings in the Memory and Performance section.
■ For Maya software rendering and Maya hardware rendering, use bump
mapping instead of displacement mapping.
■ For Maya software rendering, make bump maps flatter. To do this, reduce
the value of the Alpha Gain attribute, which smooths the bump map and
reduces the number of samples of adaptive shading. This technique only
works when Edge Anti-aliasing is set to Highest Quality. The texture bump
looks flatter when the Alpha Gain is lower.
■ For Maya software rendering, use layered textures when possible, instead
of a Layered Shader. (See Layered shaders and 2D and 3D textures in the
Shading guide for details.)
■ For Maya software rendering and mental ray for Maya, if you are raytracing
the scene, set the Reflection Limit and Refraction Limit to the lowest values
that produce acceptable results.
■ For Maya software rendering, in the Render Settings: Maya Software tab
on page 388 on Linux, Use File Cache avoids re-tessellation of the same
surface during rendering. Turn on Use File Cache to store geometric data
in a separate file in a location that you specify (the default location is
/usr/tmp, but you can set a new location by typing setenv TMPDIR xxx,
where xxx is the name of the directory where this file is output).
■ For Maya software and mental ray for Maya, use depth map shadows instead
of raytraced shadows.
■ For surfaces that do not need to cast shadows, turn off Casts Shadows.
■ Set the Resolution to the lowest value that produces acceptable results.
(For shadow casting spot lights, first reduce the Cone Angle to the lowest
value that produces acceptable results.)
■ Turn on Use Auto Focus (or set the Focus to the lowest value that produces
acceptable results. See Focus, Width Focus) and set the Resolution to the
lowest value that produces acceptable results.
■ For Maya software rendering, set the light’s Filter Size to the lowest value
that produces acceptable results. A Filter Size value of 2 or more is usually
sufficient. For mental ray for Maya, adjust the Resolution, Samples, and
Softness settings under the light’s Shadow Map section.
■ For Maya software rendering, Set Fog Shadow Samples to the lowest value
that produces acceptable results.
■ For Maya software rendering, set Disk Based Dmaps to Reuse Existing
Dmap(s).
■ For Maya software rendering, if a point light does not have to produce
shadows in the light’s positive or negative X, Y, or Z directions, turn off
the appropriate Depth Map Shadow Attributes : Use X+ Map, Use X- Map,
Use Y+ Map, Use Y- Map, Use Z+ Map, or Use Z- Map.
■ For Maya software rendering, if the scene contains NURBS surfaces, in the
Memory and Performance Options section of the Render Settings: Maya
Software tab on page 388, make sure Reuse Tessellations is on (the default
setting).
■ If the Light Radius (or the Light Angle for directional lights) is greater than
0, set Shadow Rays to the lowest value that produces acceptable results.
See Shadow Radius, Light Radius, Light Angle for details.
■ Set Ray Depth Limit to the lowest value that produces acceptable results.
mental ray for Maya checks for errors in a scene and recognizes various
operating system errors. If an error is detected, a message appears in Maya's
script editor. If a critical error is found, mental ray for Maya aborts the current
process.
The message verbosity can be changed by selecting a different Verbosity Level
option in the "Render > Render Current Frame > " and "Render > Batch
Render > ". When using the interactive renderer mental ray for Maya prints
messages to the Output Window (Windows) or the Console (Linux). When
batch rendering with mental ray for Maya, a log file is created. If severe errors
are encountered during database access of mental ray, the final rendering
doesn’t get started.
Diagnostics
You can use diagnostics to help you diagnose issues with samples and photon
maps. You can specify Diagnose Grid and Grid Size, as well as Diagnose Photon
Density or Irradiance. See Run diagnostics on page 166.
NOTE If you have multiple versions of mental ray standalone installed (not
recommended), each must have their own TCP port number in the services file
to avoid conflict.
For example:
mi_ray3_0maya4_0 7051/tcp mi_ray3_1maya4_5 7052 and 7053/tcp
mi_ray3_2maya5_0 7054/tcp
Related topics
1 Ensure that you have networked workstations. The slave machines must
be accessible on the network where the master machine is installed.
2 Ensure that any firewall software is not interfering with the operation of
your network rendering software.
3 Ensure that all necessary services (for mental ray standalone or Satellite)
are running.
6 Install mental ray standalone or mental ray for Maya Satellite on each
slave machine. All slave machines require mental ray for Maya Satellite
or mental ray standalone.
If you have multiple versions of mental ray standalone installed (not
recommended), each must have their own TCP port number in the services
file to avoid conflict. For more information, see Network render with
mental ray for Maya on page 252.
8 To verify which hosts file is being read, and which render slaves are being
used, use the mentalrayrender command with a verbosity setting of 4 or
higher. For more information, see Set up a master machine with mental
ray standalone (method 1) on page 257
NOTE You must uninstall mental ray satellite for previous versions before
installing new mental ray satellite.
The mental ray satellite for Maya packages have the same name. Therefore,
you must manually uninstall previous versions of mental ray satellite
before installing the current version of mental ray satellite.
On Mac OS X, you need to use the mental ray satellite uninstaller in the
mental ray satellite folder to properly uninstall this product. If you delete
the mental ray satellite folder, port and machine associations may not
be updated properly once you install the latest version of mental ray
satellite.
The maya.rayhosts file must contain a listing of each slave machine’s name.
These slave machines must be accessible on the network where mental ray
for Maya (the master machine) is installed.
For mental ray for Maya masters going to mental ray standalone slaves, you
do not need to specify the port if you are using the default port (7009).
For mental ray for Maya Satellite masters, you must add the port number by
typing “:<port number>” after the hostname in the maya.rayhosts file. The
port number set on mental ray for Maya Satellite slave machines is 7109. For
example:
pc-host1:7109 pc-host2:7109
If you are using a non-default port, you can specify it here as well:
lnx-host2:7555
You can use # to comment hosts out so they won’t be used; for example:
# pc-slave4:7109
NOTE The port on which the slave listens is specified by the services file on the
slave machine. For more information, see Slave machine setup on page 259. It is
7009 for mental ray standalone and 7109 for mental ray for Maya Satellite (as of
Autodesk Maya 2009).
The port on which the master issues requests is set in the maya.rayhosts file
or defaults to 7009 (the mental ray standalone port).
The port number on the slave and the port number on the master must match
for rendering to take place.
Put the maya.rayhosts file in one of the following directories. (They are
searched in order and the first maya.rayhosts file that is found is used.)
■ (Windows XP 64-bit)
\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\maya\ 2009-
x64\en_US\prefs
■ (Windows Vista)
\Users\<username>\Documents\maya\2009\en_US\prefs
Mac OS X
■ /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/en_US/2009/prefs
Linux (64-bit)
■ ~<username>/maya/2009-x64/en_US/prefs
■ (Linux) $HOME/maya
■ (Mac OS X) /Applications/Autodesk/maya/2009
Set up a master machine with mental ray for Maya or mental ray for Maya Satellite | 255
■ (Windows) C:\Program Files\Autodesk\maya2009\
■ (Mac OS X) /Applications/Autodesk/maya2009/
Related topics
1 Set the verbosity level for messages from the translation process by using
the MEL command as outlined in Export Verbosity on page 290. During
a render, messages similar to the following are output to the Script Editor:
// Info: (mental ray) : loading startup file C:/Program
Files/Autodesk/Maya 2009/mentalray/maya.rayrc
// mental ray for Maya: using rayhosts file C:/Documents and
Settings/user1/My Documents/maya//maya.rayhosts
Additionally, error messages from mental ray for Maya are printed to the
Maya Output Window.
Related topics
1 Close Maya, modify the appropriate maya.rayhosts file, and restart Maya.
1 Create the .rayhosts file. Each line of the file should specify the name
of a machine to be used as a network render slave.
Related topics
1 Use the -hosts option with the mentalrayrender command, for example:
mentalrayrender -hosts machine1 machine2 sceneFile.mi
Related topics
3 If the Ray Server service does not exist, edit the services file located at:
■ (Windows XP) C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\services
When you install mental ray for Maya Satellite on a slave machine, the
installation automatically sets up your machine as a server to receive network
render requests. If you are encountering problems with network rendering
follow the steps below.
3 If the RaySat Server service does not exist, edit the services file located
at:
■ (Windows XP) C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\services
The mental ray standalone installer does not set up your machine as a slave
automatically. You need to follow the steps below with administrative
privileges on all Linux machines.
1 In a shell type:
/usr/autodesk/mi361/bin/netsetup -s
You are prompted for the name of the SPM license server. It defaults to
the local host.
2 Type in the SPM license server name if it is other than the default local
host and then press Enter.
The machine is now ready to receive network render requests.
The mental ray standalone installer does not set up your machine as a slave
automatically. You need to follow the steps below with administrative
privileges on all Mac OS X machines.
Related topics
1 Ensure that the maya.rayhosts file has the name of all mental ray network
rendering slaves you wish to use (see Set up a master machine with mental
ray standalone (method 1) on page 257).
2 Start Maya, open a scene and select Render > Render Using > mental ray.
4 To verify that the slave machines are being used, select Render > Render
Current Frame > (or Render > Batch Render> ) and select Progress
Messages from the Verbosity Level drop-down list.
You should see messages in the console window (or in the mental ray
log file for batch render) telling you which slave machines were connected
and which machine is being used to render particular tiles.
To network render a Maya scene with Maya from the command line on a
master machine
1 Ensure that the maya.rayhosts file has the name of all mental ray network
rendering slaves you wish to use (see Set up a master machine with mental
ray standalone (method 1) on page 257).
To network render with a mental images (.mi) scene with mental ray
standalone on a master machine
1 This works with mental ray standalone only; this operation is not
supported for mental ray for Maya Satellite.
Ensure that the maya.rayhosts file has the name of all mental ray network
rendering slaves you wish to use (see Set up a master machine with mental
ray standalone (method 1) on page 257).
4 To get progress messages to show how the slave machines are being used,
type the following command:
mentalrayrender -verbose 5 myFile.mi
Related topics
Dynamic Attributes
The following dynamic attributes are designed to work in conjunction with
custom shaders. Some of these attributes are not always visible by default in
the Maya user interface. However, once you have created the attribute, you
can view and edit the value in the Extra Attributes section in the Attribute
Editor.
User Data
NOTE In order to use the following workflow, you must have a mental ray shader
with a data attribute.
TIP Add a magic number to the user data, preferably as the first value in the
block. This allows your shaders to easily identify the user data.
Use this attribute to have transparent shadows even when photons are used.
The attribute functions locally and overrides the shadowEffectsWithPhotons
attribute (the Direct Illumination Shadow Effects setting in Caustics and Global
Illumination > Photon Tracing section of the Render Settings), on a per-material
basis, so that shadow shaders are exported even when photons are turned on.
Create this attribute as follows:
addAttr -ln miExportShadowShader -at bool phong1SG;
Use this attribute to turn off the detection of cycles in the dependency graph
when very complex shading networks are used, to improve performance.
Cycles in shading networks may cause mental ray for Maya to become unstable
in some cases. Set this attribute to false to disable the DG cycle detection.
Create this attribute as follows:
addAttr -at bool -ln "nodeCycleCheck" mentalrayGlobals
Use the Export Objects On Demand option to control the processing of objects
in your scene. This option is particularly effective in scenes that have objects
beyond the view of the camera. In this case, mental ray does not process the
objects beyond the camera view, therefore reducing processing time.
Create this attribute as an override on the shape node as follows:
addAttr -ln "miPlaceholder" -at bool pSphereShape1
NOTE This attribute is not required if light linking mode is set to 4. It is only
needed for shaders that do not support mental ray light linking. See Native mental
ray light linking in the Shading guide for more information.
Use this attribute to turn off automatic light linking on a per-node basis (set
the attribute to false). This is useful when the same material is used by several
objects that have different light linking. In this case, disable light linking with
this attribute, then manually connect the light nodes to the shader’s light
attributes.
Create this attribute as follows:
Label
Cutout opacity
mental ray for Maya supports the creation of zero-length motion vectors.
Custom displacement shaders can manipulate the motion vectors to generate
motion blurred displacement. Only geometric shape nodes that are marked
with the attribute miCustomMotion (boolean) set to true are considered for
custom motion.
The global option Export Custom Vectors on page 452 can be used to control
this feature. It is enabled by default. If disabled, no custom motion vectors
are generated for any object. This functionality also requires that Motion Blur
on page 394 has been enabled in mental ray render settings.
Create this attribute as follows:
addAttr -ln "miCustomMotion" -at bool myShapeNode;
In the Attribute Editor for each Maya light, the mental ray section of the
attributes specifies the number of photons that are used for caustics and global
illumination. This is, by default, the number of photons to be stored.
For correct physical simulations, the number of photons to be emitted is much
more appropriate. To support this, mental ray recognizes two attributes on
directional, point, and spot lights:
'causticPhotonsEmit' (integer)
'globIllPhotonsEmit' (integer).
If they are created they will be translated and exported in addition to the
photon stored number.
The mental ray light property photons only can be controlled on Maya light
nodes using the dynamic attribute
'miPhotonsOnly' (boolean)
Custom flags
The Maya transform node does not expose all extended instance flags for
mental ray, but they can be controlled via dynamic attributes:
'miReflection' (integer)
'miRefraction' (integer)
'miTransparency' (integer)
If any of the reflection and refraction attributes is present, then the standard
trace flag is not respected any more.
'miFinalGather' (integer)
This attribute follows the scheme of the existing caustic and globillum standard
flags, and supports the following values:
■ 0 - hide on
The global option for rasterizer shading quality (mental ray: shading samples)
can be overridden on a per-object/per-instance basis. The per-object override
can be accessed via the Shading Quality attribute in the Attribute Editor of
the object’s shape node, in the mental ray section. For per-instance override,
the dynamic attribute
'miShadingSamples' (float)
is recognized on the Maya shape and transform nodes and translated to mental
ray if its value is not negative.
Create this attribute as follows:
to the mental ray globals node, which defines a new default for all
depth-of-field effects on all cameras in the scene.
Create this attribute as follows:
addAttr -ln "dofLensSamples" -at "short" mentalrayGlobals
When the objects get out of focus, it is often necessary to raise the number of
samples.
Disk swapping
to the mental ray globals node. Once enabled, disk swapping cannot be
disabled later on for the same mental ray session (Maya session).
Create these attributes as follows:
addAttr -ln "miDiskSwapLimit" -at "short" mentalrayGlobals
addAttr -ln "miDiskSwapDir" -dt "string" mentalrayGlobals
■ 'report' (1)
The existing attribute memoryZone on the mental ray globals node can be used
to control the zone (in percent of memory limit) that determines when memory
handling should come into action and proceed according to mode.
Create this attribute as follows:
addAttr -ln "memoryMode" -at "enum" -enumName "None:Report:In
quiry:Abort:Release" mentalrayGlobals
It has 3 children name, type, and value, all of type string, which provide the
required information for the mental ray option. More children are possible
but will be silently ignored by mental ray.
Set an attribute as follows:
More attributes can be set by using a different array index. Reusing an existing
index overwrites the corresponding option.
The following keywords are recognized in the type and value fields:
This attribute is created automatically for Maya 2008. For pre-Maya 2008
scenes, create the attribute as follows:
addAttr -at compound -nc 3 -ln "stringOptions" -multi miDefaultOp
tions;
addAttr -dt "string" -p "stringOptions" -ln "name" miDefaultOp
tions;
addAttr -dt "string" -p "stringOptions" -ln "value" miDefaultOp
tions;
addAttr -dt "string" -p "stringOptions" -ln "type" miDefaultOp
tions;
mental ray provides an attribute that allows you to control the use of satellites
for integrated baking of textures. By default, mental ray sets this attribute to
true:
setAttr miDefaultOptions.lightMapsNetwork false
However, mental ray may disable this option for the actual bake run when it
detects unsupported cases such as when Bake to one map is enabled in any
active bake set.
Ambient occlusion
Elliptical filtering
You can obtain advanced features in elliptical filtering by setting the following
dynamic attributes. For more information regarding these attributes, see the
Auxiliary Functions section in the mental ray for Maya reference guide.
When the elliptical area is smaller than a texture pixel, you can turn on bilinear
texture pixel interpolation by setting miEllipticalBilinear to 1 (TRUE) to create
a more blurry image.
addAttr -longName "miEllipticalBilinear" -at bool -defaultValue 1
file1;
Maximum eccentricity
For every three sampling points in texture space, you can set the maximum
distance between the two additional sampling points and the central sampling
point. In other words, if the central sampling point is at (0, 0), then the other
two points should be inside a disc with radius of DiscR from this central
position. Set the DiscR value as follows:
addAttr -longName "miEllipticalDiscR" -at "float" -defaultValue
0.3 -minValue 0.001 -maxValue 1.0 file1;
You can set the size of the projected screen--space circle using the
miEllipticalCircleR attribute. You may get more blurring when you use larger
values but you may increase aliasing with smaller values. Use a range of 0.4
to 1.0.
addAttr -longName "miEllipticalCircleR" -at "float" -defaultValue
0.8 -minValue 0.001 -maxValue 1.0 file1;
■ Troubleshoot general mental ray for Maya rendering issues on page 276
■ Troubleshoot Network rendering with mental ray for Maya on page 284
In some cases, files exported to .mi for rendering with mental ray standalone
appear to have shaking geometry from frame to frame. In this case, there are
three possible solutions.
Method 1
When exporting to a .mi file, export using the binary file format instead of
ascii to prevent data loss due to conversion.
Method 2
The loss in precision is due to mental ray for Maya exporting only six digits
of precision for float point positions, and 15 digits of precision for double
point positions. For example, the float point value 1000.2249 is rounded to
1000.22 when exported.
To increase the precision, you can use the Export Float Precision, and Export
Double Precision dynamic attributes.
Create these attributes by entering the following in the status line:
Method 3
Avoid using large object offsets with very tiny shape deformations, which
results in vertex positions such as 1000.000001. This exceeds the precision of
floating point representation in general, and the .mi format does not have a
double representation of vertex positions.In situations where the default
precision is not sufficient to represent the scene in a .mi file, the Maya model
should be reviewed to avoid extreme values:
■ local features and deformations should use only the vertex/point data of
the shape.
Some Maya modeling features such as skinning are known to bake global
transformation into the final shape properties, which may lead to the described
problems in extreme cases.
If you experience mental ray for Maya rendering errors, and you save your
Maya scene, you should not try to re-render your scene immediately. Instead,
exit and restart Maya.
When there is not enough memory to render your scene, you may see an error
message that is similar to "MEM 0.3: TRY -MEMORY 314".To troubleshoot,
select Render > Render Current Frame > and increase the Memory Limit
to be higher than or equal to that stated in the error message.In general,
however, when an out of memory condition occurs, you should also review
your scene for possible optimization.
Because of the (as of Maya 5.0) unified render settings (see Open the Render
Settings window on page 236), some of the mental ray for Maya derive from
Maya settings no longer exist. You may need to modify some older files for
which derive from Maya was set by setting the mental ray for Maya render
settings.
For known differences between mental ray for Maya and Maya, see mental
ray for Maya renders look different than Maya renders on page 278.
NOTE This behavior also only occurs when the occluding object is Transparent.
If you set up your scene with the Primary Visibility turned off for the occluding
object, this behavior does not occur.
mental ray for Maya renders look different than Maya renders
The following sections describe known differences between Maya and mental
ray for Maya and provide hints on how to handle those cases.
Scanline only rendering is the default render mode in Maya. Since scanline
rendering is limited in various aspects, it may show artifacts when used
together with the following: motion blur, volume rendering, shadow tracing,
and others. Raytracing should be turned on if render problems appear.
mental ray uses an adaptive tesselation approach to better fit the details of
the displacement map. The initial tesselation (for NURBS: after surface
approximation) is further subdivided to fit secondary criteria, controlled by
the displace approximation settings. By default, mental ray for Maya creates
appropriate settings that lead to curvature dependent subdivision of the
triangles, one form of feature-based displacement mapping. You can change
these settings by creating or selecting a custom displace approximation node
in the Approximation Editor. For more information on Approximation Nodes,
see Approximation nodes on page 182).
Shadow Mapping
If the mental ray shadow map attributes on Maya lights are disabled, mental
ray for Maya derives most parameters for shadow maps from Maya's depthmap
settings, although most control values are not comparable. This causes different
results, especially when modifying the filter values to achieve soft shadows.
For sharp shadows the Filter Size should be set to 0. Other controls, like Use
Mid Dist and Use Auto Focus are not used to derive mental ray shadowmap
values.
For information about the way mental ray for Maya handles shadow mapping,
see Shadow in Maya in the Lighting guide.
Bump mapping
The bump mapping implementation in the mental ray shaders may handle
the Filter settings in the bump nodes slightly differently compared to Maya.
This filter usually produces view-dependent bump mapping details, but might
not be appropriate in animations. As soon as the filter has been disabled by
setting the Filter value to zero, the Filter Offset determines the bump map
lookup, both in Maya and mental ray. This leads to comparable bump mapping
render results that are not view-dependent.
Matte Opacity
■ The mental ray colorclip modes and the premultiply setting affect the
matte result. The default colorclip mode Raw ensures best compatibility
with Maya, especially when using the BlackHole opacity mode, or when
■ The mental ray colorclip modes other than Raw may change the color or
alpha value before storing it in the framebuffer, which can be used to
produce nice effects.
■ The BlackHole opacity mode may cause different results in the color
channel when rendered with mental ray; reflections may still show up.
Depth-of-Field
This effect is supported with a mental ray lens shader, not as an output filter
as in Maya. Therefore, it is dependent on the global sampling settings in
mental ray. Raising the minimum or maximum sampling level improves
quality and but slows down the rendering accordingly. On the other hand,
as a true 3D effect, it won't show any artifacts with problematic scenes, where
output filters are not able to produce correct depth-of-field blurring.
Render Layers
When assigning a group to a render layer, mental ray for Maya assumes all
the members of the group also belong to that layer and inherit its attributes.
However, Maya allows members of the group to be assigned to different layers
than the group parent.
Particle types for software rendering are supported on all platforms for
rendering with mental ray. To render particles, a new mayabase shader library
is required, which is also provided for all platforms. Particle data are also
exported to .mi files. These files cannot be rendered on machines with different
byte ordering (big end or little end) than the machine where Maya has been
used (for example, mixing Linux and Windows). Particle translation and
rendering is limited and may not be able to handle large particle counts. Light
linking is not supported with particles. However, software particles and particle
instancing should work together seamlessly.
If you tear off the Maya Render menu, then load the mental ray for Maya
plug-in and tear off the mental ray for Maya Render menu, Maya may crash.
Workaround
mental ray for Maya crashes or won’t load when a firewall is active
Firewall software may block command ports. When you load mental ray for
Maya, your firewall prompts you if you want "to allow the Maya application
to access the internet: IP 127.0.0.1 port 1333." If you select no, Maya instantly
exits without a warning or error message. If you select yes, mental ray for
Maya starts up as expected.
Workaround
If you are using any firewall software, you will need to give permission to
Maya to communicate on port 1333 in order for mental ray for Maya to work
correctly.
When painting a texture with 3D Paint, mental ray for Maya will not pick up
new paint strokes automatically.
Workaround
Save either the texture being painted or the entire scene before rendering with
mental ray to ensure that all strokes are rendered correctly.
Overexposed highlights and incorrect motion blur with mental ray for Maya
motion blur may be caused by the framebuffer Data Type. In this case, change
the framebuffer Data Type to a float framebuffer. For more information, see
Framebuffer on page 429.
Workaround
Turn on the "keep tesselation" flag on the smooth node, and do not triangulate.
To fix aliased surface edges or profile (for Maya software and mental ray for
Maya)
1 Enable the Optimize for Animations option under the Final Gathering
Tracing section, Final Gathering Tracing subsection in the Indirect
Lighting tab on page 432 of the Render Settings: mental ray tabs on page
404. The Optimize for Animations option sets the final gather mode to
multiframe.
See Final Gathering Modes in the mental ray for Maya reference guide
for more information.
2 Set the Render Mode to render final gather maps using this command:
setAttr mentalrayGlobals.renderMode 3;
4 Set Rebuild to Freeze under the Final Gathering Map section of the Indirect
Lighting tab on page 432 of the Render Settings: mental ray tabs on page
404.
NOTE While this workflow avoids flicker, some parts of the scene may still
suffer in quality if an insufficient number of final gather points is found.
Why can’t I install the rayserver service or edit the services file?
I have everything correctly set up, but I still can't network render.
Port number
One possibility is that the network port number you are using is already being
used by another service. Ensure that there is no other entry in the services file
that is using port 7009 (mental ray standalone) or port 7109 (mental ray for
Maya Satellite). If that port number is already taken, you need to pick a new
available port number and use that same number for all master and slave
machines that are to work together.
You may need to change the port number.
To do so on Linux and WIndows, edit the port services file located at:
■ (Linux) /etc/services
NOTE The actual service may have a different name. Please check your services
file.
where 7109 or 7009 is the port number. Make sure the port number is the
same on the master machine and all slave machines.
(mental ray standalone) You may need to edit a file called the rayd file located
in the mental ray 3.6.1 installation bin directory. Fill in the name of your SPM
License server and uncomment the setenv SPM_HOST line.
To restart the server on Windows, go to mental ray bin directory and type the
following:
inetd configuration
(Linux with versions of Redhat prior to 7.2) You may need to edit the
inetd.conf file located at /usr/etc/inetd.conf and ensure that the following
line exists:
You may need to restart the inetd service by typing the following:
% killall -v -HUP inetd
(Linux only with version of Redhat 7.2 and 7.3) You may need to edit the
services in the xinetd.d directory. See To check your xinetd configuration on
Linux on page 286 below.
2 If there is no such file, become root, create the mi-ray or mi-raysat file
using a text editor and enter the following text:
mental ray:
# description: mental ray for maya network rendering service mi-
ray
{ flags = REUSE socket_type = stream user = nobody wait = no
server = /usr/local/mi35/bin/rayd log_on_failure += USERID }
mental ray for Maya Satellite:
# description: mental ray for maya network rendering service mi-
raysat
{ flags = REUSE socket_type = stream user = nobody wait = no
server = /usr/local/mi35/bin/raysatd log_on_failure += USERID }
4 In order for xinetd to find the newly configured service, you need to
restart it or send it a signal.
■ Restarting xinetd can be undesirable because it affects a number of
network services. To restart xinetd, type:
/etc/init.d/xinetd restart
If you want to run different versions of mental ray standalone in one machine,
make sure that each version has its own mi-ray* entry in the services file.
For example, if you have mental ray 3.3 and mental ray 3.4 in one machine,
and you can change the mi-ray entry for mental ray 3.3 (or 3.4).
Create your own mi-ray variable for mental ray 3.3 in the services file.
The services file might look like this
mi-ray 7003/tcp # used for mental ray 3.4
mi-raysat 7103/tcp # used for mental ray satellite 3.4
mi-ray_33 7155/tcp # used for mental ray 3.3
1 Stop xinet.
Compatibility issues
Due to a number of changes between mental ray satellite for previous versions
of Maya and the current mental ray satellite, there are incompatibilities with
using a master (with the current release of Maya) with slaves using a previous
version of Maya.
Workaround
Use master and slave machines with the same version of Maya (for example,
Maya 8.5 or Maya 8.0).
Workaround
Render Mode
You can set the render mode by using the following MEL command:
setAttr mentalrayGlobals.renderMode <value>;
■ 1 to render lightmaps
You may choose to render only shadow maps or final gather maps when the
shadow and final gather information does not change throughout your scene.
For all renders after your final gather render, set Rebuild to Off or Freeze in the
Render Settings: mental ray tabs on page 404, Indirect Lighting tab on page 432,
Final Gathering section, Final Gathering Map sub-section.
For all renders after your shadow map render, set the Rebuild Mode to Reuse
Existing Maps in the Render Settings: mental ray tabs on page 404 in the Indirect
Lighting tab on page 432, Shadows section, Shadow Maps sub-section.
289
Export Verbosity
You can set the verbosity level for messages from the translation process.
Messages equal to or below the selected severity are displayed in the script
editor.
Set the verbosity level using the following MEL command:
setAttr mentalrayGlobals.exportVerbosity <value>;
■ 0 for No Messages
mental ray installs its own state shader to perform pre- and post-shading
operations like sample conversion for rendering with Maya base shaders.
Custom state shaders can be chained to perform additional operations.
To do so, follow these steps:
The connected nodes are translated in addition and appended to the standard
Maya base state shader (if not disabled) and the potential single state shader
node connected to the original stateShader attribute.
The Export includes startup file option has been removed from the File >
Export All, Export Selection (mental ray) on page 309 dialog box. To enable
this option, use the following mel script:
optionVar -iv "mentalrayExportStartupFileOption" 1;
With this option enabled, the exported .mi file contains an $include directive
for the maya.rayrc startup file that is used by the interactive mental ray
renderer in Maya. Use this option to ensure that a consistent configuration is
used for rendering both with the mental ray standalone and interactively in
Maya.
You can obtain advanced control over the lighting and color values in your
scene by creating camera output passes. Using this method, you can isolate
the color information into separate passes, for example, RGBA in 8 bit.
1 Create a camera.
2 In the camerashape node Attribute Editor, expand the mental ray section.
3 Expand the Primary Output Passes section and click the Create button
to create your first output pass. The mentalrayOutputPass node appears.
Appendix B: Creating camera output passes with mental ray for Maya | 291
NOTE You can obtain additional control by creating an output shader and
connecting it to the Output Shader field. For more information, see Output
Shaders in the mental ray reference guide.
5 Open the Render Settings window. Enter a filename for the scene render
output. In the Renderable Cameras section, select the camera for which
you created your output passes.
■ 'regionRectY' (integer)
■ 'regionRectWidth' (integer)
■ 'regionRectHeight' (integer)
2 Select the layer in the Attribute editor, click the Preset button, and select
a preset.
1 In the Render Layer editor, select a layer whose overrides you want to
save.
2 Select the layer in the Attribute editor, click the Preset button, and select
Save Preset.
1 From the Preset button in the Attribute editor for a layer, select Delete
Preset.
Examples of presets
The following examples show different presets applied from the automotive
example discussed in Render layers example: automotive preview on page 298
in the What’s New in Maya guide.
While working on the scene, a variety of layers are created and previewed.
The final image is saved out to PSD layered format. For more details on saving
■ There are two Beauty layers, one showing the car model with a red color,
and the other showing a blue color. This can be easily done in Maya by
switching the material assignment on the car objects per-layer. This allows
you to quickly and easily create final images with a different car color, as
all other layer contributions to the final image are the same.
■ There are luminance depth, shadow, occlusion, and specular layers created
using the Maya render presets. Each contributes to the realistic lighting of
the image. For more details on these presets and how they affect the final
rendered image, see Work with layer presets on page 294:
The final image shows very realistic lighting as the various passes contribute
their effects: the specular layer makes reflections and glow more prominent,
the occlusion layer creates realistic darkening in crevasses and under geometry,
and the luminance depth layer darkens parts of the image that are farther
away from the camera. The shadow layer adds shadows to the car image and
around the image. Finally, the reflection layer adds reflections to the model.
Beauty pass
This is the default pass. You can select your render pass from the Attribute
Editor of your render layer.
Color pass
Shadow pass
Diffuse pass
Only diffuse shading is performed. The diffuse pass contains the diffuse and
ambient information and is modulated by color, transparency, and Diffuse
Coeff (diffuse coefficient).
NOTE No mask or alpha channel is produced for the Specular Pass, additively
compositing a specular pass is recommended.
You can also create custom shadow and reflection passes with the
useBackground material which catches shadow and, or reflections. When the
shadow pass is rendered, a black image is created with mask channel that
contains the shadow information. A compositor can work with this channel
to blur, lighten, darken, and so on, the look of the shadows. When the
reflection pass is rendered, an RGB image is created with a white mask in the
mask channel.
To use the Use Background material to catch shadows and reflections, see
Catch shadows for an alpha channel in the Lighting guide.
Related topics
■ Appendix B: Creating camera output passes with mental ray for Maya on
page 291
1 In the Attribute Editor for the miDefaultOptions node, open the Frame
Buffers section.
2 Click Create.
A new mentalrayUserBuffer node appears in the Attribute Editor.
NOTE mental ray user framebuffers can be used in mental ray camera output
passes to output to file. For more information, see Appendix B: Creating
camera output passes with mental ray for Maya on page 291.
1 Select, and right-click the framebuffer you want to edit from the
Framebuffers list.
3 Adjust the attributes as required. (See User Buffer Attributes on page 307.)
1 Select the framebuffer you want to delete from the Framebuffers list.
■ Right-click the framebuffer, and select Delete from the shortcut menu.
Data Type Specifies the type of information the framebuffer contains. Select
a data type from the drop-down list. For more information, see the mental ray
for Maya reference in the Maya Help.
Interpolate Samples This option causes mental ray for Maya to interpolate
sample values between two known pixel sample values. If interpolation is
turned off, the last sample value in each pixel is stored, and pixels without
samples get a copy of a neighboring pixel. When this option is turned on, the
resulting image has a higher quality, but takes more time to process.
This option is on by default.
Renderable When on, specifies that this output pass is rendered. This option
is on by default.
Frame Buffer Type Specifies the type of information the pass contains. Select
a data type from the drop-down list.
Use User Buffer When on, specifies that a user framebuffer is used in the
output pass, and activates the User Buffer drop-down list. Select the user
framebuffer you want to use in this output pass.
This option is off by default.
User Buffer This drop-down list is available when Use User Buffer is turned
on. Select the user framebuffer you want to use in this output pass.
Interpolate Samples This option causes mental ray for Maya to interpolate
sample values between two known pixel sample values. If interpolation is
turned off, the last sample value in each pixel is stored, and pixels without
samples get a copy of a neighboring pixel. When this option is turned on, the
resulting image has a higher quality, but takes more time to process.
This option is on by default.
File Mode When on, specifies that the output pass is written to an image file,
and activates the Image Format drop-down list and File Name Postfix field.
Image Format Specifies the image format for the output pass, when File Mode
is turned on. Select an image format from the drop-down list.
File Name Postfix Specifies the operator that is appended to the end of the
file name, when File Mode is turned on.
File Type
When you select mentalRay from the File Type drop-down list, the many options
appear.
309
Export selection as a mental ray file so that it can be used as a render proxy
in your scene. Use this option to export your complex geometry into a mental
ray file, then replace it in your scene with a placeholder object that references
this file. See Using render proxies in your scene on page 242 for more
information.
Scene Fragment (Custom) Maya exports only the nodes that are selected.
This mode can be used to export particular lights, cameras, shaders, or
geometry. The resulting .mi file will most likely not be directly renderable, so
it is called a Scene Fragment.
Export materials In addition to the selected nodes, this setting also exports
any materials that they are connected to. This applies to selected geometry
and shading nodes.
In addition to the selected nodes, this setting also exports any material
assignment that they are connected to. For example, if your selected geometry
is assigned to a Phong shader, selecting this option as well as the Export
Materials option will export the geometry, its association with the Phong
shader, and the Phong shader itself.
This option is most useful when exporting render proxies to a .mi file. See
Using render proxies in your scene on page 242Managing your scenes using
render proxies on page 242for more information regarding the use of render
proxies.
This option supports material propagation from Maya with render proxies.
For example, if you generate a render proxy without assigning to it any material
or shading group, and then assign this render proxy to a shape placeholder,
then any material assigned at the placeholder level (Maya shape node /
instances) is automatically propagated to all objects in the render proxy file.
This option allows for the separation of geometry from materials or shading
groups.
Root Group Name Use this option to specify the name of the assembly root.
If you choose Use Filename, the root group name is derived from the file name.
For example, if the render proxy file name is test.mi, the assembly root group
name is test. Alternatively, you can specify your own root group name.
File Format In ASCII mode, all data in the exported .mi file will be
human-readable ASCII text. In binary mode, certain floating-point data (points,
normals, texture coordinates, and so on) will be output in binary format to
reduce the size of the exported file. The ASCII mode tabulator size determines
the amount of indentation in the .mi file.
Output File Per Frame When animation is enabled, Maya exports all data
required to render all the frames specified by the Render Settings animation
range settings. With Output File Per Frame off, data for all the frames is output
to a single .mi file. With this option on, a separate file is output for each frame.
Frame Extension When Output File Per Frame is enabled, this option
determines the convention for naming each frame’s output file.
Frame Padding When Output File Per Frame is enabled, determines the
amount of padding applied to the frame numbers. Setting the padding to 2
means each frame number is at least 2 characters long (01, 02, 03, ...), setting
it to 3 means each frame number will be at least 3 characters long (001, 002,
...), and so on.
Output File Per Layer The information from multiple render layers cannot
be contained within a single .mi file. Enabling this option allows you to export
one .mi file per render layer.
If your scene contains multiple render layers, you must turn on this option.
If this option is turned off and you export to .mi format, your scene will not
render properly.
Export File Paths Use this option to set the file path for each category.
For each option, there are three choices:
■ None. The filename does not contain a path. For example, hat.jpg.
Include File
Path option for shader declaration files (mi) such as mayabase.mi, etc.
Texture File
Path option for texture files; for example, hat.jpg.
Light Map
Path option for lightmap files generated (if lightmap shader is used).
Light Profile
Path option for light profile files.
Output Image
Path option for output image files.
Shadow Map
Path option for shadow map files.
Finalgather Map
Path option for final gather map files.
Photon Map
Path option for photon map files.
Create
Camera Properties
The camera viewing tools (tumble, track, and dolly) use this value to determine
the “look at” point when the camera is a Basic camera.
Center of Interest The distance from the camera to the center of interest,
measured in the scene’s linear working unit.
Lens Properties
Focal Length Also available in the camera’s Attribute Editor. The focal length
of the camera, measured in millimeters.
Increasing the Focal Length zooms the camera in and increases the size of
objects in the camera’s view. Decreasing the Focal Length zooms the camera
out and decreases the size of objects in the camera’s view. The valid range is
2.5 to 3500. The default value is 35.
For more information about focal length in general, see Focus and blur on
page 15.
Modify | 313
Lens Squeeze Ratio The amount the camera’s lens compresses the image
horizontally. Most cameras do not compress the image they record, and their
Lens Squeeze Ratio is 1. Some cameras (for example, anamorphic cameras),
however, compress the image horizontally to record a large aspect ratio (wide)
image onto a square area on film. The default value is 1.
Camera Scale Scales the size of the camera relative to the scene. For example,
if Camera Scale is 0.5, the camera’s view covers an area half as large, but objects
in the camera’s view are twice as large. If the Focal Length is 35, the effective
focal length for the camera would be 70.
Don’t edit these attributes unless you are bringing in live action footage.
Horizontal Film Aperture, Vertical Film Aperture The height and width of
the camera’s aperture or film back, measured in inches. The Camera Aperture
attribute determines the relationship between the Focal Length attribute and
the Angle of View attribute. The default values are 1.417 and 0.945.
Film fit Controls the size of the resolution gate relative to the film gate. If the
resolution gate and the film gate have the same aspect ratio, then the Film Fit
setting has no effect. The default setting is Fill.
You can also set Film Fit in the camera view’s View > Camera Settings submenu.
Overscan Scales the size of the scene in the camera’s view only, not in the
rendered image. Adjust the Overscan value to see more or less of the scene
than will actually render. If you have view guides displayed, changing the
Overscan value changes the amount of space surrounding the view guides,
making them easier to see. The default value is 1.
Clipping Planes
TIP The objects you want to render are usually within a certain range from the
camera. Setting the near and far clipping planes just slightly beyond the limits of
the objects in the scene can help improve image quality.
Motion Blur
Shutter Angle The Shutter Angle influences the blurriness of objects of motion
blurred objects. The larger the Shutter angle setting, the more blurry objects.
Shutter Angle is measured in degrees. The valid range is 1 to 360. The default
value is 144.
The Camera Shutter Angle option is a multiplier for the time range of the blur.
Similar to traditional film and video cameras, the camera shutter angle
determines the length of the exposure. However, for the purposes of motion
blur, it only alters the absolute time range of the exposure based on the
following equation:
Blur range = (Camera Shutter Angle / 360 degrees) x Blur by Frame
(In real-world film cameras, this is calculated at 180 degrees; during the other
180 degrees of rotation, the film is advanced to the next frame for exposure.
Computer graphics cameras have no film.)
For information on a real-world camera’s shutter angle and exposure in general,
see Focus and blur on page 15.
NOTE For the shutter angle setting to take effect (that is, for motion blur to
appear), Motion Blur must be set for the following:
■ for the scene in the Render Settings window (for the particular renderer
you are using).
■ for at least one object in the object’s Render Stats section of the Attribute
Editor.
Orthographic Views
By default, when you create a camera from the Create menu, the view is
perspective. If you want an orthographic camera view, click the Orthographic
check box and change the Orthographic Width if necessary.
TIP The default cameras are aligned to the major axis. You can create an off-axis
orthographic camera by rotating the orthographic camera or changing the default
tumble options and using the tumble tool.
To rotate an orthographic view, in the Tumble tool’s option window, make
sure the Locked setting turned off. See View > Camera Tools > Tumble Tool
on page 354.
Orthographic Width The width (in inches) of the orthographic camera. The
width of an orthographic camera controls how much of a scene the camera
can see. Changing the width of an orthographic camera has the same effect
as zooming a perspective camera.
TIP If you want to create a new perspective camera and get out of orthographic
view mode, select Edit > Reset Settings, then click Apply.
Window
Messages
Verbosity Level Controls the verbosity level for messages related to mental
ray rendering. Messages equal to or below the selected verbosity are displayed.
Messages are displayed in the console window.
Parallelism
Auto Tiling Turn on this option to automatically determine the optimal tile
size at render time.
Memory
Memory Limit Soft limit for the memory used by mental ray. A soft limit
implies that mental ray may actually use more memory than indicated.
Calculate The Calculate button computes the memory setting for mental ray
in the current situation, including the scene elements and their preview options
and so forth. This attribute helps customers to obtain a rough estimate of the
optimal memory limit for mental ray.
Network
Used for network rendering only.
Select one of these options to determine whether the local machine renders
the scene, or whether the slaves render the scene.
Render on the local machine Select this option so that the local machine
participates in rendering the scene.
Opens the Render View window and IPR renders the current scene. See
Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR) on page 47 for more details.
If you are using mental ray for Maya rendering, opens the mental ray IPR
Render Options dialog box to let you set your IPR options. For descriptions
of these options, see below.
Messages
Verbosity Level Controls the verbosity level for messages related to mental
ray rendering. Messages equal to or below the selected verbosity are displayed.
Messages are displayed in the mental ray log file.
Parallelism
Auto Tiling Turn on this option to automatically determine the optimal tile
size at render time.
Network
Used for network rendering only.
Select one of these options to determine whether the local machine renders
the scene, or whether the slaves render the scene.
Render on the local machine Select this option so that the local machine
participates in rendering the scene.
opens the Batch Render option dialog box to let you set options to render
an animation on a local or remote computer, or on a computer with several
processors. For descriptions of these options, see below.
For more information on batch rendering, see Batch renders from within Maya
(UI) on page 52 in Rendering guide.
For Windows
Use all available processors If on, rendering uses all processors available on
the local computer.
If off, rendering only uses the number of processors indicated by Number of
Processors to Use. Use all available processors is off by default.
Remote Machine Name When set to Remote, type the name of the computer
on which the rendering takes place and press Enter. If you do not, the render
occurs on the local machine.
Messages
Verbosity Level Controls the verbosity level for messages related to mental
ray rendering. Messages equal to or below the selected verbosity are displayed.
Messages are displayed in the mental ray log file.
Parallelism
Auto Tiling Turn on this option to automatically determine the optimal tile
size at render time.
Memory
To view the calculated value, ensure that Export Verbosity is set to Info
Messages in the Verbosity Level section. The calculated Memory Limit is then
displayed in the render log.
Network
Used for network rendering only.
Select one of these options to determine whether the local machine renders
the scene, or whether the slaves render the scene.
Render on the local machine Select this option so that the local machine
participates in rendering the scene.
■ You can manually adjust tessellation for objects that require non-default
settings (select Manual on page 328).
NOTE This feature only supports Maya software NURBS tessellation settings.
It does not support mental ray tessellation settings.
Apply Tessellation
Select one of the following options:
Selected Surfaces, All Surfaces
Lets you change the tessellation attributes for Selected Surfaces or All
Surfaces at one time. Selected Surfaces is on by default.
Automatic (default)
Tessellation is based on the coverage and distance of the surface from the
camera and the Automatic Mode settings on page 328.
Objects that are either close to the camera or occupy a significant amount
of screen space are automatically tessellated with more triangles. Objects
that are further from the camera or are smaller have fewer triangles.
Maya takes into consideration that distance changes over time if the surface
or camera is animated, and tessellation is computed for a the range of
frames set in Use Frame Range. Tessellation is evaluated and optimized at
each frame, and the worst-case tessellation scenario requirements are
determined and applied.
In automatic mode, the tessellation can be computed for the current frame
or the frame range from the render settings or time slider.
Manual
Tessellation is based whether you select Basic on page 330 or Advanced on
page 330 in Manual Mode. This is the same as if you opened the Attribute
Editor for each surface, and set the tessellation settings.
Some of these settings appear and work for the Basic on page 330 settings of
Manual Mode too.
Use Frame Range
Available only in Automatic (default) on page 328 Mode.
The tessellation computed by Automatic Tessellation depends on the distance
of the surface from the camera. When the surface or camera is animated, this
relationship changes over time.
Generally, when the surface is closest to the camera you need the best
tessellation (the most triangles). If you know which frame this is, use Current
Frame on page 329. Otherwise, Maya computes this for you by running up the
animation for a specified frame range, evaluates the tessellation at each frame,
and sets the tessellation attributes to provide optimal tessellation.
Time Slider Use the time slider to adjust the frame range as necessary.
Current Frame Evaluates the best tessellation for the current frame.
Compute From
Available only in Automatic (default) on page 328 Mode.
All Renderable Cameras The default. Computes the automatic tessellation
from the point of view of all renderable cameras.
Current View Computes the automatic tessellation from the current view
only.
Curvature Tolerance
You can determine how smooth the nickeling of the tessellation needs to be.
When you adjust this setting, Maya automatically sets the Chord Height Ratio
on page 332 (an Advanced setting that is hidden, but automatically set in both
Automatic (default) on page 328 Mode and Manual Basic Mode).
In more complex scenes with many small objects, set the smaller objects to
Low Quality. (This table applies only for manual mode; automatic mode sets
the chord height, depending on the distance from the camera.)
Low Quality Chord Height ratio = 0.987
Highest Quality The result is very smooth edges with no nickeling. Chord
Height ratio = 0.995.
Use Smooth Edge Use this to increase the number of triangles only along the
boundary of an object. This lets you smooth the edges or prevent cracks
between shared curves of adjacent surfaces without tessellating across the
entire object, which incurs a high rendering time.
The higher the ratio, the smoother the edges and the higher the polygon
count.
If you get artifacts in highlights along curved parts of the surface close to an
edge, don’t use this attribute.
Smooth Edge Ratio Adds more triangles where required in areas of curvature
along the edges of the surface. The edge is the boundary of the NURBS surface,
where one of the U or V parameters takes on its most extreme value. (This
does not address the silhouette edges based on how the object is viewed from
the camera.)
While extra triangles are primarily added along the edge, some are also added
to the interior of the surface as needed to prevent cracking at T-junctions
within the surface.
The ratio is the length of the tessellated triangle and the curve of the boundary.
Edge Swap Helps to divide quadrilateral surface spans into optimal triangles
by swapping the two vertices on a quadrilateral used to create triangles. This
is a secondary criteria, but it uses minimal resources.
Manual Mode
Select one of the following options:
Basic Basic settings appear when you select this option. For descriptions of
these settings, see Automatic Mode settings on page 328.
When you adjust Basic settings, Maya automatically sets the Advanced settings
(which are hidden for simplicity) as follows (see Advanced Tessellation settings
on page 331 for details):
Advanced Advanced settings appear when you select this option. For
descriptions of these settings, see Advanced Tessellation settings on page 331.
Available only in Manual on page 328 mode with the Advanced on page 330
option selected. If you have set the Curvature Tolerance (in either Automatic
(default) on page 328mode or Manual on page 328 Basic on page 330 mode) to
the highest setting and the object is still not smooth enough, use these settings
to have more control over tessellation.
Mode U, Mode V
These are Primary Tessellation attributes (see Primary vs. secondary tessellation
passes on page 40). These settings tell Maya how to tessellate the surface. The
U and V values represent the U and V parametric dimensions of the NURBS
surface. You can set these values differently to produce tessellation for each
direction of your surface.
Per Surf # of Isoparms Ignores the number of surface spans and lets you
specify the number of subdivisions you want to create. The result is a sparser
number of isoparms on the surface than number of spans. Essentially, this
setting pretends that everything is equally spaced.
Per Span # of Isoparms This is the most common mode. Divides each span,
no matter how large or small, into the same number of subdivisions. Very
small spans are divided into the same number of subdivisions as very large
spans. The default setting is 3. Per span settings help to prevent cracks between
joined surfaces where the spans match, which is particularly important for
character building with multiple surfaces.
Best Guess Based on Screen Size Creates a bounding box around the NURBS
surface, projects it into screen space, and calculates the number of pixels in
the space. Maya uses this number to guess at the per surface # of isoparms.
The maximum value is 40. With this mode, the more screen space the object
uses, the higher the value.
This is not good for animation if the camera or the object is moving because
the bounding box would change constantly. If the bounding box changes so
does the tessellation and texture jitter as a result. (Problems with highlights
may occur as well.)
NOTE If you have a complicated NURBS surface and have Display Render
Tessellation turned on, this setting could delay the update of the display, so be
patient.
Use Chord Height Turn on to enable the Chord Height on page 332slider
value.
NOTE Use the Chord Height on page 332 or Chord Height Ratio on page 332or
Min Screen on page 333option, but not a combination of them.
When chord heights are calculated, if any are larger than 0.1, Maya subdivides
the triangles and recomputes. This subdivision process continues until all
triangles meet this criteria. The smaller the chord height, the better the
approximation of the triangle to the surface curve. (This may be useful for
industrial designers concerned with the accuracy of a model in relation to a
prototype model.)
NOTE Do not build models too small. Chord height is measured in Object Space.
If you build models on a very small scale and then scale them up, the chord length
is always relative to the object, not to World Space, which means tessellation
criteria can be very expensive on small objects. For small or scaled objects, select
Chord Height Ratio on page 332.
Specifies the maximum distance the center of a tessellated span can be from
the actual NURBS surface.
Use Chord Height Ratio Turn on to enable the Chord Height Ratio on page
332 slider value.
Chord Height Ratio Specifies the maximum ratio between the length of a
span and the distance the center of that span is from the actual NURBS surface.
Use Min Screen Turn on to enable the Min Screen on page 333 box.
NOTE
■ Use the Chord Height on page 332or Chord Height Ratio on page 332 or Min
Screen on page 333 option, but not a combination of them.
■ Don’t turn on Use Min Screen for surfaces that are moving toward or away
from the camera during an animation. Min Screen on page 333 causes the
tessellation to change over time and can cause unwanted displacement or
texture ‘popping’.
NOTE If you have a complicated NURBS surface and have Display Render
Tessellation turned on, this setting could delay the update of the display, so be
patient.
Tessellates a surface based on how far it is from the camera and uses the screen
space to determine how much tessellation is required (instead of object or
world space).
All triangles must fit within the specified area. The default is 14 pixels, which
means all triangles must fit within a 14X14 pixel area on the screen. Triangles
that do not meet this criteria are subdivided iteratively until they fall within
the specified area. The smaller you set this value, the smaller the triangles
must be to satisfy the criteria. Lowering this value can dramatically increase
memory, so use caution.
The User Name, Server Name, Port Number and Database Name fields directly
correspond to settings within Toxik. Enter the same information for these
fields as you do in Toxik. For more information, see your Toxik user
documentation.
Composition Name The unique name for the composition created by the
plug-in. You can use a new name to create a new composition, or use an
existing name to update the existing composition.
Project Name The name of the Toxik project you want to use.
Destination Folder The name of the Toxik destination folder you want to
use. The destination folder contains the media you create when you publish
a result.
Render Directory Enter a file path or click the Browse button to select a
location for the rendered output on the Toxik machine.
Output Settings
Output Mode
Specifies one of two output modes you can use depending on your Toxik
setup. The default output mode is Update Toxik.
Export Toxik IMSQ File Use this setting if you are not running Toxik on the
same machine that Maya is running on, you should work in the Save Toxik
Update Toxik Use this setting if you are running Toxik and Maya on the same
machine. The Update Toxik mode automatically updates the Toxik database
and makes the Toxik composition available immediately. To work in Update
Toxik mode, Python 2.4 is required. For more information on Python, see
http://www.python.org.
Specify the location of the Python executable file (python.exe) in the Python
Location field.
File Name Specifies the file name and location for the saved output of the
plug-in export results. Only available for use with the Save Toxik Script output
mode.
Toxik Location Specifies the location of the Toxik executable file (toxik.exe).
Only available for use with the Update Toxik output mode.
Python Script Specifies the location of the python script to be used. By default
the python script provided with Maya is used. You should only change the
python script if you have a custom script for exporting to Toxik.
Python Script Arguments Specifies any python arguments that you want to
use when the script is executed. For example, you can use --verbose if you
need to debug, or use --help to get all the available flags. The output of the
python script arguments appears in the Maya Script Editor.
For a description of the options, see Render > Export All Layers to Toxik 2007
on page 334.
■ In order to use this functionality, Toxik 2008 must be installed along with
Maya 2008 on the same system.
■ Both Toxik and Maya should be of the same architecture. If the version of
Toxik you are running is 32-bit, then the version of Maya you are running
must also be 32-bit, and likewise for 64-bit.
■ If you load the Toxik 2007 plug-in in Maya also, there will be two additional
menu items under the Render menu: Render > Export All Layers to Toxik
2007 and Render > Export Selected Layers to Toxik 2007. However, these
two menu items can only be used with Toxik 2007 and are not compatible
with Toxik 2008.
You can leave all fields blank with the exception of Toxik Install Directory.
By default, Maya will give the Toxik project file the same name as your scene
file and save it to the same folder as your scene file.
Toxik Project File Specifies the file name and location for the saved output
of the plug-in export results.
Composition Name The unique name for the composition created by the
plug-in. You can use a new name to create a new composition, or use an
existing name to update the existing composition. The composition contains
all cameras, locators and so forth. This folder is not saved to disk. It is only
seen by Toxik.
Render Layers Foldery The name of the Toxik render layers folder you want
to use. The render layers folder contains all the media you have created. This
folder is not saved to disk. It is only seen by Toxik.
Configuration
Toxik Install Directory Specify the parent directory of the location of the
Toxik 2008 executable file (toxik.exe). You must specify this directory in
order for the export feature to work.For example, on a typical Windows
installation, toxik.exe is saved to:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Toxik 2008\program
You should therefore specify the Toxik Install Directory as:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Toxik 2008
Temporary File Directory Specify the location for a temporary file if you
want to export to a separate Maya scene file.
Render Directory Specify the location to which the frames are rendered. Toxik
will search for rendered frames in this directory.
Select to export your render layers, passes and cameras to Toxik 2009. This
option exports your elements using the same filename and settings as your
previous export. If you have not performed an export previously, the default
filename is scenename.precomp, and all render layers, passes and cameras in
your scene are exported.
Select this option to open the Export Pre-Compositing editor. Using this
window, you can:
■ Export all render layers, render passes and cameras to a precomp file in
Toxik
■ Export selected render layers, render passes and cameras to a precomp file
in Toxik
The Export Pre-compositing editor is divided into three tabs: Cameras, Render
Layers, and Render Passes. Select the appropriate tab depending on the
elements that you want to export.
Use the icon to expand the render layer, render camera, or render pass
hierarchy.
A icon indicates that all elements are being exported. A icon indicates
that only partial elements are being exported.
In the following example, only the diffuse and incandescence passes are
exported. Therefore, the icon beside Bob (render layer) indicates that only
partial elements are being exported.
NOTE Changing the camera parents (parenting and unparenting) changes the
camera unique name, and breaks the precompositing workflow.
Use the Pre-Compositing Scene Anchor to connect the Maya scene to a Toxik
master composition (scene composition). All elements in your scene are
associated with a scene anchor. Unlike the scene name, which can change,
for example, from version one to version two, the scene anchor does not
change. All elements that belong to the same composite, for example, cameras,
render passes, render layers, and so forth, should have the same scene anchor.
After selecting Export All or Export Selection from the Export Pre-Compositing
window, Toxik tries to find the scene composition with the specified anchor
name. If such a composite does not exist, a new one is built. If the composite
exists, then it is updated (depending on the import options in Toxik; there
are different update/creation/recreate modes).
Panel menus
View
TIP Selecting the camera is useful if you want to edit the look-at and camera up
nodes associated with the camera.
No Gate Turns off the Film Gate and Resolution Gate display.
Displays no frustum (viewable volume) when not you are not looking through
the camera. This is the default.
The frustum is the area or space the camera can see. Any object within the
camera’s frustum shows up in images rendered from that camera’s view. See
Clipping planes on page 21 for an diagram of the frustum.
Film Gate Displays a border indicating the area of the camera’s view a
real-world camera records on film. The dimensions of the film gate represent
the dimensions of the camera aperture.
The film gate does not represent the render region. You can customize the
render region using the Camera Aperture and Film Fit attributes in the camera
Attribute Editor. You can also set the rendering resolution using the Image
Size options in the Render Settings window, and choose to lock the Device
aspect ratio, or set the Device aspect ratio attribute.
The film gate view guide indicates the area of the camera’s view that renders
only if the aspect ratios of the camera aperture and rendering resolution are
the same.
View | 341
Displays the viewable frustum according to the film back size. The aspect ratio
of the window (or rendering resolution) determines what you actually see.
Also sets the camera Overscan attribute to 1.5. The following illustration shows
the film gate representing the maximum viewable (or renderable) area.
Enabling this option displays the renderable area for the current resolution
specified in Render Settings window. This often specifies a more exact rendered
image than the Film Gate option. Also sets the camera Overscan attribute to
2.0, so that more area outside the specified resolution can be viewed.
NOTE If the aspect ratio between the film back and the resolution is the same,
then the two resulting rendered images match.
Gate Mask Turn Gate Mask on to change the opacity and color of the area
outside a Film Gate or Resolution Gate. You can only view the effects of a
Gate Mask when the Film Gate or Resolution Gate is on. You can adjust the
gate mask’s opacity and color in the camera’s attributes under the Display
Options.
View | 343
Field Chart Turn Field Chart on to display a grid that represents the twelve
standard cell animation field sizes. The largest field size (number 12) is identical
to the rendering resolution (the resolution gate). Render Resolution must be
set to NTSC dimensions for this option to be meaningful.
Safe Action Turn this option on to display a box defining the region that you
should keep all of your scene’s action within if you plan to display the rendered
images on a television screen.
For more information on Safe Action, see Safe display regions for TV production
on page 20.
Safe Title Turn this option on to display a box defining the region that you
should keep all of your scene’s text (titles) within if you plan to display the
rendered images on a television screen.
Render Resolution must be set to NTSC or PAL dimensions for this option to
be meaningful.
For more information on Safe Title, see Safe display regions for TV production
on page 20.
Horizontal Fits the resolution gate horizontally within the film gate.
Selects a horizontal fit for the selected image in the render frame.
Vertical Fits the resolution gate vertically within the film gate.
Camera attributes
TIP If you click the boxes at the right of some of the attributes in this editor, the
Create Render Node window appears, which means you can map certain render
nodes to the camera attributes. For more information on the Create Render Node
window, see Create > Create Render Node in the Shading guide.
Controls See Maya camera types on page 14 for information about the type
of cameras: Camera; Camera and Aim; and Camera, Aim, and Up.
Angle of view For more information on angle of view and how it’s affected
by the focal length of the camera, see Angle of view (focal length) on page
19.
TIP Try to avoid using a perspective camera with a very small angle (less than 5
degrees). Doing so may result in a much decreased depth precision, resulting in
depth-fighting artifacts. Instead, try using an orthographic camera for a similar
look.
Auto Render Clip Plane For Maya software only. If this is on, the near and
far clipping planes are automatically set so they enclose all objects within the
camera’s view. (For the hardware renderer and mental ray for Maya renderers,
you must set the near clip plane and far clip plane manually. You can set the
planes manually for Maya software rendering too.)
All objects render and depth precision problems are eliminated. Clipping
planes are not visible in the views.
If off, the near and far clipping planes are set to the Near Clip Plane and Far
Clip Plane attribute values.
Auto Render Clip Plane is on by default.
View | 345
Turn off Auto Render Clip Plane (and set the Near Clip Plane and Far Clip
Plane) in the following cases:
■ to limit which objects render based on their distance from the camera if
you are compositing based on depth
Near Clipping Plane, Far Clipping Plane
See Near Clip Plane, Far Clip Plane on page 315.
Stereo
The sections Stereo, Stereo Adjustments, and Stereo Display Controls contain
the attributes for the stereoscopic camera (stereoCameraCenterCamShape
node):
Stereo
Select the method for computing the zero parallax plane from one of the
following modes:
Off Disables any eye separate, InteraxialSeparation, and Zero Parallax plane
calculations on the node. This option disables the stereo effect.
Converged Computes the zero parallax plane by toeing in the cameras. You
can compare this effect to our focusing on an object by rotating our pupils
inwards. However, a dangerous side effect may occur where you get a keystone
effect on the pairs of render images, causing visual confusion in other elements
in the scene. In a rendered image, our focus tends to saccade over the entire
image and we are not focusing on a single object, which is not true in real
life. You should only use Converged when an object is at the center of the
screen with no scene elements at the render borders on either the left or right
camera frustum.
Zero Parallax Distance on the camera view axis where the zero parallax plane
occurs, in other words, the point where objects appear off screen. If an object
Stereo Adjustments
Toe In Adjust Use this attribute to offset the computed toe-in effect when
you are in Converged mode. This value is specified in degrees and acts as an
offset to the computed toe-in.
Film Offset Right Cam Controls the film offset for the right camera.
Film Offset Left Cam Controls the film offset for the left camera.
Display Near Clip Display method for the near clipping plane. Valid values
are:
0: None. Display is disabled.
1: Left. Display left camera clipping plane.
2: Right. Display right camera clipping plane.
3: LeftRight. Display left and right camera clipping planes.
4: Center. Display center camera clipping plane.
5: All. Display all camera clipping planes.
Display Far Clip Display method for far clipping plane. See Display Near
Clip for valid values.
Display Frustum Display method for frustum. See Display Near Clip on page
347for valid values.
Display Zero Parallax Plane Enable this option to disable the display of the
zero parallax plane.
Zero Parallax Plane Color Use this attribute to set the zero parallax plane
color.
Parallax Plane Transparency Use this attribute to set the zero parallax plane
transparency.
View | 347
Display Safe Viewing Volume Enable this option to disable the display of
the viewing volume.
Safe View Volume Color Use this attribute to set the viewing volume color.
Safe View Volume Transparency Use this attribute to set the viewing volume
transparency.
Safe Stereo The intersection of the left and right viewing frustum. The scene
elements visible by both frustums belong in the intersection. In general, do
not place a object that can only be seen by one camera.
Film Back
The Film Back attributes control the basic properties of a camera (for example,
the camera’s film format: 16mm, 35mm, 70mm).
Film Gate Lets you select a preset camera type. Maya automatically sets the
Camera Aperture, Film Aspect Ratio, and Lens Squeeze Ratio. To set these
attributes individually, set Film Gate to User. The default setting is User.
Camera Aperture The height and width of the camera’s Film Gate setting,
measured in inches. The default values are 1.417 and 0.945. This setting has
a direct effect on the camera’s angle of view (see Angle of view on page 345).
NOTE The Camera Aperture setting has no effect on the fStop. For more
information on fStop, see Focus and blur on page 15.
Film Aspect Ratio The ratio of the camera aperture’s width to its height. Maya
automatically updates the Film Aspect Ratio (and vice versa). The valid range
is 0.01 to 10. The default value is 1.5.
Film Offset Vertically and horizontally offsets the resolution gate and the
film gate relative to the scene. Changing the Film Offset produces a
two-dimensional track. Film Offset is measured in inches. The default setting
is 0.
Shake Enabled / Shake Use the Shake attributes to apply some amount of
2D translation to the filmback. A curve or expression could be connected to
the Shake attribute to specify a realistic shaking effect. The Shake Enabled
toggle can be used to turn the effect of the shake on and off.
The Shake and Shake Overscan attributes duplicate and combine functionality
with the Film Offset attributes and API. They are off by default.
Shake Enabled allows the Shake attribute setting to be factored into the camera
calculation. By default it is off.
Shake specifies a translation on the filmback. The value is specified as a separate
horizontal and vertical shake field, both of which default to zero, and are only
utilized in the camera calculations when the Shake Enabled attribute is enabled.
For camera calculation purposes, Shake and Film Offset provide the exact same
effect. Shake provides an additional set of filmback translation inputs on the
camera, with the additional feature that Shake can be turned on and off via
the Shake Enabled attribute.
Use the following MEL command to turn on Shake Enabled:
setAttr perspShape.shakeEnabled 1;
Use the following MEL command to set the Shake attribute:
setAttr perspShape.shake 0.5 0.5;
Pre Scale The Pre Scale value is used in 2D effects. This value indicates the
artificial 2D camera zoom. Enter a value into this field. The value is applied
before the film roll.
View | 349
Film Translate The Film Translate value is used in 2D effects. This value
indicates the artificial 2D camera pan. Enter a value into this field.
Film Roll Pivot The horizontal pivot point from the center of the film back.
The pivot point is used during rotation of the film back. The pivot is the point
where the rotation occurs around. This double precision parameter corresponds
to the normalized viewport. This value is a part of the post projection matrix.
Vertical pivot point used for rotating the film back. This double precision
parameter corresponds to the normalized viewport. This value is used to
compute the film roll matrix, which is a component of the post projection
matrix.
Film Roll Value This specifies, in degrees, the amount of rotation around the
film back. The rotation occurs around the specified pivot point. This value is
used to compute a film roll matrix, which is a component of the
post-projection matrix.
Translate-Rotate The film back is first translated then rotated by the film
roll value.
Post Scale The Pre Scale value is used in 2D effects. This value indicates the
artificial 2D camera zoom. Enter a value into this field. The value is applied
after the film roll.
Depth of Field
TIP The more out of focus an image is, the longer it takes to generate the final
rendered image (that is, the post-render blur takes longer).
Depth Of Field If on, some objects in the scene are sharply focused and others
are blurred or out of focus, based on their distance from the camera. If off, all
objects in the scene are sharply focused. Depth Of Field is off by default.
Focus Distance The distance from the camera at which objects appear in
sharp focus, measured in the scene’s linear working unit. Decreasing the Focus
F Stop The range of Camera Aperture settings which affect the Depth of Field.
The lower the fStop (for example, f4) the lower amount of Depth of Field. The
higher the fStop value (for example, f32) the greater amount of Depth of Field.
For more information about fStop, see fStop (aperture) and shutter speed/angle
on page 15.
Focus Region Scale Scales the Focus Distance value. The valid range is 0 to
infinity. The default value is 1.
Output Settings
Controls whether the camera generates an image during rendering, and what
types of images the camera renders.
Renderable If on, the camera can create an image file, mask file, and, or depth
file during rendering; that is, it is able to render. By default, Renderable is on
for the default perspective camera, and off for all other cameras.
This option is affected by the Renderable Camera option in the File Output
section of the Render Settings window. For more information on the Render
Settings window, see Render Settings window on page 376.
Image If on (and Renderable is on), the camera creates an image file during
rendering. The default setting is on.
Mask If on (and Renderable is on), the camera creates a mask during rendering.
A mask is an 8-bit channel (the alpha channel) in the image file that represents
objects in shades of gray. Black areas represent areas where there are no objects
(or fully transparent objects), and white areas represent areas where there are
(solid) objects. Masks are used primarily for compositing.
For image formats that do not support mask channels, the mask is stored as
a separate image.
For more information on mask channels, see Mask and depth channels on
page 78.
Depth If on (and Renderable is on), the camera creates a depth file during
rendering. A depth file is a type of data file that represents the distance of
objects from the camera.
Depth files are used primarily for compositing. When on, the Depth Type
attributes (next) are enabled.
For image formats that do not support depth channels, the depth is stored as
a separate image.
View | 351
For more information on mask channels, see Mask and depth channels on
page 78.
Depth Type
Determines how to compute the depth of each pixel.
Closest Visible Depth Uses the closest object to the camera. When transparent
objects are located in front of other objects, turn on “Transparency Based
Depth” to ignore the transparent object.
Furthest Visible Depth Most often used when a particle effect is occluded by
an opaque object. Maya uses the Furthest Visible Depth to create a Depth file.
TIP When transparent objects are located in front of other objects, you can turn
on Transparency Based Depth to ignore the transparent object.
Pre-Compositing template
Use this attribute for Toxik pre-compositing. You can specify a pre-compositing
template for each render layer in the Passes tab of the Render Settings window.
See Toxik pre-compositing template for <layer> on page 406 and Exporting the
multi-render passes for compositing in Toxik on page 233 for more information.
The pre-compositing template on a layer assembles the passes. The
pre-compositing template on a camera, however, assembles the layers. The
default behavior, if no template is specified, is to stack the layers in a linear
chain of blend nodes that follow the order and blend nodes in Maya.
Environment
Control the appearance of the scene’s background as seen from the camera.
Different cameras can use different backgrounds.
Background Color The color of the scene’s background. The default color is
black.
Image Plane For Maya software and mental ray for Maya rendering.
Creates an image plane and attaches it to the camera. Clicking the Create
button automatically changes the focus of the Attribute Editor to include
attributes for an image plane.
For more information on image planes, see Create, edit, or position an image
plane in the Shading guide.
Special Effects
NOTE Motion Blur must be on in the Render Settings window. For Maya software
rendering, motion blur must also be set in at least one object’s Attribute Editor
for the Shutter Angle to have any effect.
Display Options
Controls the display of view guides in the camera’s view, and provides options
for moving the camera. You can also access most of these attributes in any
panel’s View > Camera Settings menu.
Display Film Gate Film Gate on page 341.
Display Resolution Displays a rectangle that indicates the area of the camera’s
view that renders. The dimensions of the resolution gate represent the
rendering resolution. The rendering resolution values are displayed above the
resolution gate. See Resolution Gate on page 343 for more information.
Gate Mask Opacity The amount of the scene you can see through the masked
area of a Gate Mask. This option is only available when Gate Mask is on.
View | 353
Gate Mask Color The color of the masked area of a Gate Mask. This option
is only available when Gate Mask is on.
Display Film Pivot Displays of the film pivot guide when looking through
the camera.
Display Film Origin Displays the film origin guide when looking through
the camera.
Movement Options
Center of Interest The distance from the camera to the center of interest,
measured in the scene’s linear working unit.
Tumble Pivot The point the Tumble tool pivots the camera about when
Tumble Camera About is set to Tumble Pivot in the Tumble Tool settings
window.
Use Pivot As Local Space Enable this attribute so that the tumble tool does
a local axis tumble, using the camera's tumble pivot as a relative tumble point.
Orthographic Views
Tumble Pivot The camera tumbles about its pivot point. This tumble pivot
can also be set in the camera’s Attribute Editor (see “Tumble Pivot” for details).
These values are stored in world space coordinates.
View operations such as Frame Selection, Frame All, Look at Selection, Default
Home, and Bookmarks all set the tumble pivot.
Orthographic views
Select one of the following options:
Locked If on, you cannot tumble an orthographic camera. If off, you can
tumble an orthographic camera. Locked is on by default.
Stepped If on, you can tumble an orthographic camera in discrete steps. The
Stepped operation lets you easily return to the Default Home positions. If off,
you can tumble an orthographic camera smoothly. Stepped is only available
if Locked is off. Stepped is on by default.
Ortho step The angle of steps (in degrees) that you can tumble an orthographic
camera when Locked is off and Stepped is on. The valid range is 0.01 to 180.
The default value is 5.
TIP You can also press Alt+middle-drag to use the Track tool. Press the Shift key
to constrain movement in horizontal or vertical directions.
Track Geometry If off, as the camera moves an object moves at a speed that
may be different than the speed of the cursor. This problem occurs with objects
far from the camera. Track Geometry is off by default.
If on, as the camera moves, an object moves at the same speed as the cursor.
The object selected at the beginning of the Track operation remains under
the cursor. Tracking is slower (especially if there are many objects in the scene)
if Track Geometry is on.
View | 355
Track Scale Scales the speed of the camera movement. The slider range is 0
to 100. The default value is 1.
For a description of the Dolly tool and tips on how to use it, see Dolly on page
17.
Scale Scales the speed of the camera movement. The slider range is 0.01 to
10. The default value is 1.
Dolly
Select one of the following options:
Local If on, drag in the camera’s view to move the camera toward or away
from its center of interest. If off, drag in the camera’s view to move both the
camera and its center of interest along the camera’s sight line. Local is on by
default.
Snap box dolly to A box dolly moves the center of interest to the marquee
region when you use the Ctrl+Alt+drag method to dolly the camera.
Surface If on, when you perform a box dolly (Ctrl+drag) on an object, the
center of interest moves onto the surface of the object. Calculating the surface
point is slower if Smooth Shade mode is off (and especially if there are many
visible objects in the scene).
Bounding box If on, when you perform a box dolly (Ctrl+drag) on an object,
the center of interest moves to the center of the object’s bounding box.
Bounding Box is on by default.
For a description of the Azimuth tool, see Azimuth Elevation on page 18.
Scale Scales the speed of the camera movement. The slider range is 0.01 to
10. The default value is 1.
View | 357
Stereo
Look through the center stereo camera. This is the default option.
Use your graphics card for stereo viewing. If you are using the NVidia Quadro
line graphics cards, and you have turned on stereo mode, the Active menu
becomes live. The CRT monitor uses the page flipping method of stereo
imaging. The settings that you have chosen for your stereo mode in your
graphics card are respected; for example, the DIN connector will send signal
to your 3D glasses.
This viewing mode interlaces one row of pixels from the left camera with one
row of pixels from the right camera and so forth. You obtain half the vertical
resolution through this mode. Select this mode for polarized LCD monitors.
This viewing mode alternates between one pixel from the left camera with
one pixel from the right camera, forming a checkerboard pattern. You obtain
Maya supports the red/cyan anaglyph mode. Maya composites the color output
from the left camera with the color output from the right camera.
The Luminance Anaglyph mode is similar to the Anaglyph mode, but the
color output from the left and right cameras are first converted to greyscale
before being composited on top of each other.
Select this mode to see the left and right camera output side by side in the
same window.
This mode is similar to Freeview (Parallel), but the left camera output is
displayed on the right while the right camera output is displayed on the left.
Stereo | 359
Stereo > Background Color
Black is the default background color for stereo mode. Choose this option to
select an alternate background color from the Color Chooser.
Black is the default background color for stereo mode. Select this option to
use the background color you have set in Window > Settings/Preferences >
Color Settings instead.
Renderer
■ motion blur
2 In the desired scene view, select Shading > High Quality Rendering.
These are descriptions of the options in the Hardware Renderer Display Options
window.
Display Quality
Match Viewport Lights When turned on, only as many lights as are supported
by the graphics card (typically 8 lights) are used.
Display Parameters
Occlusion Culling This option improves performance for scenes with many
objects, where one or more objects can be obscured from the viewpoint of the
active camera. When turned on, this option increases performance by
preventing out-of-view objects from being drawn.
■ Double sided means that the surface is illuminated on the front and the
back sides.
Renderer | 361
Color Texture Resolution
If hardware rendering cannot process a shading network on board the
graphics hardware, the shading network is evaluated and converted to a
file texture (2D image) that the hardware renderer can use.
This option specifies the dimension of the resulting texture. Affected
channels are color, incandescence, ambient, reflected color, and
transparency. The default value is 128, which means that any baked color
images will have a dimension of 128 by 128 pixels.
363
You can select an item from this list to load the preset values for the
approximation node's attributes. You can use these settings as-is, or as a starting
points for tweaking. By default, the Presets tab is set to Custom, which means
that you have control over all approximation attributes.
Parametric Grid (Low/Mid/High) Quality Uses the Parametric approximation
method to tessellate a surface into triangles. With this method, each patch
(area between isoparms) is subdivided into a fixed number of triangles.
Use this preset to produce tessellations where triangles are distributed roughly
according to the spacing of isoparms on the surface, with closer isoparms
producing higher triangle densities.
Approx Style
Determines the general subdivision scheme that is used to break the surface
into triangles. For examples, see Approximation styles on page 183.
Grid Works on a grid of isolines that allows subdivision only by adding more
isolines. Since isolines always run from one edge of the surface to the opposite
edge, and since only whole isolines can be added, this produces regular triangle
meshes which can sometimes contain many more triangles than necessary.
Approx Method
Determines the criteria that the tessellator uses for determining when to
subdivide a part of the surface. Some approximation methods simply break
the surface into a fixed number of triangles, while others use adaptive criteria
to iteratively add more and more triangles until some condition is satisfied.
Parametric This method is driven solely by the "U Subdivisions" and "V
Subdivisions" attributes. Each patch is subdivided into N triangles, where
N = (U Subdivisions) * (V Subdivisions) * degree^2 * 2
Thus, with U Subdivisions set to 1.333 and V Subdivisions set to 4 on a degree-3
NURBS surface, each patch will be subdivided into 1.333*4*3*3*2 = 96 triangles.
Regular Parametric This method is also driven solely by the "U Subdivisions"
and "V Subdivisions" attributes. With this method, though, the surface as a
whole is subdivided into N triangles, where
N = (U Subdivisions) * (V Subdivisions)
With this method, the density of triangles will be constant over the entire
surface, unlike the Parametric method, which tessellates each patch
independently.
Spatial The Spatial approximation method is the same as the Length criteria
from the Length/Distance/Angle method. Using this method, the mesh will
be subdivided until all triangles are less than a certain size, determined by the
Length attribute. This value is expressed in either pixels or object-space units,
as determined by the View Dependent flag. This method is the only one
available when using the Fine approximation type.
Curvature This approximation method is the same as the Distance and Angle
criteria from the Length/Distance/Angle method. This method is included for
backwards compatibility only.
From the Render Layer Editor, you can create, manage, and delete layers, layer
blends, and layer overrides. You can also create render pass contribution maps
for your render layers. A render pass contribution map is a subset of the objects
in your render layer that you can create render passes for.
NOTE The multi-render pass feature is supported for the mental ray renderer. The
rendering API allows other 3rd party renderers and custom renderers to support
it moving forward.
You can open the Render Layer Editor in a separate window or view it in the
same docked area as the Channel Box. To open the Render Layer Editor in a
new window, select Layers > Floating Window.
The general workflow for using the Render Layer Editor is as follows:
Click the icons at the top to create a new layer , or create a layer and
Ordering of layers
Render layers are ordered based on their compositing order. The bottom of
the list are the background elements, and the top of the list are the front most
elements. The render layer compositing order can only be edited from the
Render Layer Editor.
Use the up and down buttons to move render layers up and down.
The buttons are only active if a single render layer is selected. You can also
use the middle mouse button to drag the layers up and down.
■ On any previously rendered layer, toggle this icon between red and
green to re-render the layer or to recycle the previously rendered image.
To reuse the last rendered image for this layer, toggle this icon to green
. To re-render the selected layer, toggle this icon to red .
NOTE
■ This feature is applicable only if the selected layer has been rendered
at least once. The recycle icon remains grey until a recyclable image is
available.
■ Render output is only held in memory for your current session of Maya.
Any render output is lost after you quit and restart Maya.
NOTE Individual, per object overrides are not shown in this interface.
■ Select a blend mode for each layer from the drop-down list.
■ The Render All Layers option (Options > Render All Layers) selects whether
all layers are composited and rendered to the Render View, or whether just
the selected layer is rendered. In the options for this command (Option >
Render All Layers > ), you can further select whether to show the
composite image, the composite image and the individual rendered layers,
or just the individual rendered layers.
■ Click the icon next to each layer to set whether a layer is renderable
or not.
You can create render pass contribution maps for each render layer. For
example, if your render layer consists of 5 objects and 2 lights, you can create
a diffuse pass, an ambient pass, and a specular pass for only 3 of the objects
and 1 of the lights. To do so, create a pass contribution map containing the
3 objects and the light that you would like to create your diffuse, ambient and
specular pass for. You can create multiple pass contribution maps for each
render layer. You can also share pass contribution maps between render layers.
Click the icon to expand or collapses the list of pass contribution maps
associated with the selected layer. This icon appears after you have associated
a pass contribution map with the layer.
Layers menu
Create Empty Layer Creates a new render layer, depending on the selection
in the pull-down menu, with a default name, for example layer1.
Create Layer from Selected Creates a new render layer and populates it with
the selected objects.
With membership Select this option to copy only the objects to the new
layer and create new overrides for the duplicated layer.
Select Objects in Selected Layers Selects the objects contained in the selected
layer(s).
Attributes Opens the Attribute Editor for the selected layer(s). There are some
attributes in the Attribute Editor not available through the Edit Layer window.
Delete Selected Layers Deletes the selected layer(s), but not the objects in
the layer.
Floating Window Select this option to open a separate, floating Render Layer
Editor window.
Contribution menu
You can create your render pass contribution maps using this menu.
Create and Associate Pass Contribution Map Create a new pass contribution
map and associate it with the selected layer.
Add Selected Objects to Selected Pass Contribution Maps Use this option
to add the selected objects to the selected pass contribution maps.
Remove Selected Objects from Selected Pass Contribution Maps Use this
option to remove objects from the selected pass contribution maps.
Delete Unused Pass Contribution Maps Pass contribution maps that do not
have geometries and lights assigned to them are removed with this option.
Options menu
■ Auto Overrides
■ Show Namespace
Render All Layers
Renders all the layers in the scene based on the default Render All Layers
Options.
Keep layers
Renders all your layers as individual images.
NOTE Using Keep layers significantly increases memory usage in Maya.
Consecutive use populates the Render View with more and more images. You
must clear out images manually as needed.
The Auto Overrides option simplifies the workflow for creating layer overrides
for attributes such as Casts Shadows, Receive Shadows, and Visible in
Reflections.
The Auto Overrides option is applicable to the following attributes:
■ Under the Render Stats section (of the Attribute Editor) of the object's
shape node:
■ Casts Shadows
■ Receive Shadows
■ Motion Blur
■ Primary Visibility
■ Visible In Reflections
■ Visible In Refractions
■ Under the Display section (of the Attribute Editor) of the object's transform
node:
■ Visibility
When the Auto Overrides option is on, you can simply click on each of these
attributes and an override will be created for the selected layer. Upon being
unchecked, the attribute name immediately turns orange to indicate that a
layer override has been created. This eliminates the need to right-click the
attribute and select Create Layer Override.
This feature is most useful when there are multiple objects/layers in the scene
for which overrides need to be created. This feature simplifies the workflow
by eliminating the need to select Create Layer Override.
Show Namespace When using namespaces, object names can sometimes get
very long. This can make it difficult to differentiate objects by name. Turning
off the display of namespaces replaces the namespace portion of a node’s
name (if any) with “...:”. The shortened name makes it easier to distinguish
between different objects in your scene.
NOTE Namespaces are the preferred method for managing naming when working
with file references in Maya. It is not recommended that you employ Maya's
renaming prefix convention when using file referencing. While the DAG path or
long name of a node may make it unique when using renaming prefixes, they do
not work consistently within file referencing and complicate the hierarchical DAG
changes, which may cause problems later on.
Select Objects in Layer Selects objects that belong to the current layer.
Empty Render Layer Removes all objects from a layer, leaving it empty.
Remove Render Setting Overrides Removes any render setting overrides for
the current layer. For more information, see Work with layer overrides on
page 102.
Remove Render Flag Overrides Removes any render flag (layer attributes)
overrides for the current layer. For more information, see Work with layer
overrides on page 102.
Remove Material Override Removes the current material override for the
select object(s) on the current layer. For more information, see Work with
layer overrides on page 102.
Create New Material Override Allows you to select a new material override
for the current layer. For more information, see Work with layer overrides on
page 102.
Pass Contribution Maps Expand the submenu to choose among one of the
following options.
Create Pass Contribution Maps and Add Selected Create a new contribution
map for the current layer containing the selected objects.
Add New Render Pass Allows you to add a new render pass to your layer.
Expand the submenu to choose among one of the available render passes.
Attributes Opens the Attribute Editor for the selected layer(s). There are some
attributes in the Attribute Editor not available through the Edit Layer window.
The following commands are available when you right-click a render pass
contribution map.
NOTE Pass contribution maps can be shared between several render layers. In
this case, removing a geometry or light from a pass contribution map in one layer
also removes it from the same contribution map in the other layers. Therefore,
you should exercise caution if you change the membership of a pass contribution
map that is shared between layers. To avoid this problem, create separate pass
contribution maps for each render layer.
<pass contribution map name> Select the pass contribution map name to
display its Attribute Editor.
Add Selected Objects / Remove Selected Objects Add or remove objects from
both the render layer and the current pass contribution map.
Select Objects in Pass Contribution Map This option indicates which objects
belong in the current pass contribution map. All objects in the pass
contribution map are selected.
Remove Pass Contribution Map from Layer Remove render pass contribution
map from the current layer.
Empty Pass Contribution Map Remove all objects from render pass
contribution map.
Delete Pass Contribution Map Removes render pass contribution map from
all layers.
Add New Render Pass Allows you to add a new render pass to your render
pass contribution map. Expand the submenu to choose among one of the
available render passes.
Render Settings
Render settings (scene settings) for the Maya Hardware renderer, the mental
ray for Maya renderer, the Maya Software renderer, the Maya Vector renderer
are consolidated into one Render Settings window.
Use the settings in this window to set scene-wide render options. Especially
when used in conjunction with per-object render settings (see the particular
object or render subject matter for details), the render settings give you a great
deal of control over quality of rendered images and the speed with which they
are rendered.
To open the Render Settings window, see Open the Render Settings window
on page 84.
Render Layer
Select from the drop-down list the layer that you want to render from.
Render Using
Select from the drop-down list the renderer that you want to use.
The common tab contains settings that are common to all renderers. For
information on the Common tab, see Render Settings: Common tab on page
377.
Render-specific tabs
■ For information on the Maya Software tab, see Render Settings: Maya
Software tab on page 388.
■ For information on the Maya Hardware tab, see Render Settings: Maya
Hardware tab on page 454.
■ For information on the mental ray for Maya tabs, see Render Settings:
mental ray tabs on page 404.
■ For information on the Maya Vector tab, see Render Settings: Maya Vector
tab on page 459.
For information on the render settings, see Render Settings window on page
376.
Not all options are available for all renderers.
File Output
The name of rendered image files can consist of three separate components:
file name, frame number extension, and file format extension. A combination
of these three components is referred to as the file name syntax.
File name prefix Right-click the File name prefix attribute to add one or more
of these fields to the file name for your scene, for example, scene name, layer
name, camera name, version number, current date or current time. Each of
these fields are described in more detail below.
NOTE When choosing basic file names for an animation, avoid using periods; use
underscores instead. For example, use:
xxx_yyy.iff.1
instead of
xxx.yyy.iff.1
<Scene> Select this render token to add the scene name to your output file
name.
<RenderLayer> Select this render token to add the render layer name to your
output file name.
<Camera> Select this render token to add the camera name to your output
file name.
<RenderPassFileGroup>
When rendering using passes, you can group render passes into logical file
groups. Each render pass node has an attribute Pass Group Name that allows
you to create a logical group. Select this render token to add the Pass Group
Name to your output file name.
See Render pass Attribute Editor on page 501 for more information.
NOTE The multi-render passes feature is not supported for the Maya Software
renderer and these tokens will be replaced with an empty string.
<RenderPass>
Select this render token to add the render pass node name (for example,
diffuseNoShadow) to your output file name (for mental ray rendering only).
<RenderPassType>
<Extension>
Select this render token to add the extension to your output file name. In
many cases, you do not need this token, since the file extension is
automatically appended by Maya. However, you may want to create a directory
structure using the file type. For example, if you are using the.iff format,
<EXT>/<RenderLayer>_<RenderPass> can create files such as the following:
images/iff/bob_camera1_diffuse.1.iff .
<Version> Select this render token to add the version to your output file name.
You can set your version using the Version Label attribute.
current date Select to add the current date to your output file name. This
field is not dynamic and captures the date and time at the moment that the
token is inserted. Therefore, the date and time does not update once the token
has been inserted.
current time Select to add the current time to your output file name. This
field is not dynamic and captures the date and time at the moment that the
token is inserted. Therefore, the date and time does not update once the token
has been inserted.
Image format The format for saving rendered image files. See also File formats
on page 53. The default setting is Maya IFF.
NOTE Among the available multi-channel file formats, OpenEXR is the only file
format where multi-channel is being leveraged. When using the multi-render pass
feature, you can concatenate multiple render passes into a single multi-channel
.exr file. Upon selection of the OpenEXR format, the Frame Buffer Naming option
becomes active. Select the Automatic option to name each pass using the
<RenderPassType>:<RenderPass>.<Camera> tokens, or, choose Custom to select
the render tokens of your choice. See Frame Buffer Naming on page 380 for more
information.
NOTE The settings for this option are saved in the Windows registry and not in
the scene file. Copying a scene file from one machine to another does not transfer
these settings.
Use this field in conjunction with the multi-render passes feature. This attribute
becomes active when you select the OpenEXR file format, and when your
scene contains one or more render passes. Select the Automatic option to
name each pass using the <RenderPassType>:<RenderPass>.<Camera> tokens,
or, choose Custom to select the render tokens of your choice. Your framebuffer
name must be less than or equal to 31 characters in length. Otherwise, the
framebuffer name is truncated. See Image format on page 379 for more
information on the OpenEXR format.
Selecting the Custom option under the Frame Buffer Naming attribute to
activate this field. Use this field to select the render tokens of your choice to
customize the naming of the channels in your OpenEXR file.
Version Label You can add a version label to your render output filename.
Use this attribute to customize the <Version> token in the File name prefix
field in the File Output on page 377 section.
You can select one of the following options: a version number (for example,
1, 2, or 3), the current date, or the current time. Right-click this attribute to
add the version label you desire. The first two options available (use number:
n) are automatically updated each time you insert a numeric version number.
For example, if you have added version number 3, the first option
automatically updates to use number: 2 and use number: 4. Alternatively, you
can create your own custom version label.
Frame Range
Start frame, End frame Specifies the first (Start frame) and last (End frame)
frames to render. Start Frame and End Frame are only available if
Frame/Animation ext is set to an option containing # (see also Set file name
syntax). The default value for Start Frame is 1; the default value for End Frame
is 10.
By frame The increment between the frames you want to render. By frame is
only available if Frame/Animation ext is set to an option containing #. The
default value is 1.
If you use a value less than 1, make sure the Renumber frames using on page
381 option is turned on. Otherwise, many frames will appear to be missing
when they are just being overwritten.
Renumber frames using Lets you change the numbering of rendered image
files for an animation. The Renumber frames attributes are only available if
Frame/Animation ext is set to an option with # (such as name.#.ext).
If on, Maya uses the frame number extensions beginning at Start Number and
increasing by By Frame for rendered image file names.
Start number The frame number extension you want the first rendered image
file name to have.
By frame The increment between frame number extensions you want rendered
image file names to have.
Renderable Cameras
Render a scene from one or more cameras. The default is to render from one
camera.
If you are rendering the scene from one camera (only), select the camera from
the drop-down list. By default, the perspShape camera is the renderable camera.
The drop-down list is divided into sections, separated by dashes:
NOTE If you select Stereo Pair from the list, both the left and right stereo cameras
are rendered.
The third section is the Add Renderable Camera option. If you want to add
another existing camera to the list of renderable cameras, you can select Add
Renderable Camera. When you select this option, a new Renderable Camera
section appears. Select the additional renderable camera from which you want
to render the scene from the drop-down list.
If you render from more than one camera, the rendered image output from
each camera is stored in a different directory by default. For example, if you
are rendering from camera1 and camera2, then the rendered images are stored
respectively in camera1/scene.gif and camera2/scene.gif.
You can also override the default settings by using the File Name Prefix
attribute. Right-click the File Name Prefix attribute and select Insert camera
name <camera>. This way, all rendered images are saved to the same directory
and identified with the camera name (for example, <camera>_<scene>.gif
TIP If you accidentally delete the only renderable camera in your scene, you can
add a renderable camera by selecting the camera name from the drop-down menu
in the Renderable Cameras section.
The Image Size attributes control the resolution and pixel aspect ratio of
rendered images.
For more information about resolution, see Resolution on page 65.
NOTE
■ The resolution limit for the Vector renderer is 1600x1600, with the
exception of EPS and AI file formats.
Maintain width/height ratio Turn on this setting when you want to scale
the image size proportionally in width and height. When you enter a value
for either Width or Height, the other value is automatically calculated.
Maintain ratio Specifies the type of rendering resolution ratio you want to
use, Pixel aspect or Device aspect.
The Pixel aspect ratio is the number of pixels in width to height, that compose
the image. Most display devices (for example, a computer monitor) have square
pixels, and their Pixel aspect ratio is 1. Some devices, however, have non-square
pixels (for example, NTSC video has a Pixel aspect ratio of 0.9).
The Device aspect ratio is the number of units wide by the number of units
high of your display. A 4:3 (1.33) display produces an image that is more
square, and a 16:9 (1.78) ratio produces an image that is more panoramic in
shape.
Width Specifies the width of the image in the unit specified in the Size units
setting.
Height Specifies the height of the image in the unit specified in the Size units
setting.
Size units Sets the unit that you want to specify the image size in. Select from
pixels, inches, cm (centimeter), mm (millimeter), points and picas.
Resolution units Sets the unit that you want to specify the image resolution.
Select from pixels/inch or pixels/cm (centimeter).
Device aspect ratio The aspect ratio of the display device on which you view
the rendered image. The device aspect ratio represents the image aspect ratio
multiplied by the pixel aspect ratio.
Pixel aspect ratio The aspect ratio of the individual pixels of the display
device on which you are viewing the rendered image.
For more information about the pixel aspect ratio, see Pixel aspect ratio on
page 65.
Render Options
Pre render frame MEL, Post render frame MEL A MEL command or script
to run before rendering each frame (Pre render frame MEL), or after rendering
each frame (Post render frame MEL).
For more information Pre render frame MEL scripts and Post render frame
MEL scripts, see Pre Render MEL and Post Render MEL scripts on page 68.
NOTE
■ If you need to use multiple sets of quotations in the pre frame MEL or post
frame MEL fields in render settings, be sure to use \" for every quotation
mark except the first and last. print("Time to render my Maya scene,
called\"bingo.mb\"");
■ Do not enter the .mel extension when entering the name of the script.
You get an error message similar to the following:Error: Cannot link to
"name.mel". Check number and types of arguments expected on
procedure definition.
Anti-aliasing Quality
Quality
Select a preset anti-aliasing quality from the drop-down list. When you select
a preset, Maya automatically sets all Anti-aliasing Quality attributes. The
default setting is Custom.
Custom When you change anti-aliasing attributes that do not match any of
preset attribute values, Maya automatically sets Presets to Custom.
Production quality When testing or final rendering scenes that do not contain
3D motion blur or low-contrast scenes.
Edge anti-aliasing
Controls how the edges of objects are anti-aliased during rendering. Select a
quality setting from the drop-down list. The lower the quality, the more jagged
the object’s edges appear, but the faster the render; the higher the quality, the
smoother the object’s edges appear, but the render is slower.
When you select an Edge anti-aliasing quality from the drop-down list, Maya
automatically sets all Anti-aliasing Quality attributes (in the subsections).
Medium quality For each rendered pixel, eight points are analyzed and used
to determine which part of the object is visible, producing medium quality
edge anti-aliasing.
Although a little slower, produces moderately good edge anti-aliasing. This
can be good for test rendering moderately complex scenes.
High quality For each rendered pixel, 32 points are analyzed and used to
determine which part of the object is visible, producing high quality edge
anti-aliasing.
Can be used for testing as well as production rendering.
Number of Samples
Shading The number of shading samples for all surfaces. This option works
in conjunction with Shading Samples, an attribute available from the Render
Stats section of a surface’s Attribute Editor. Shading Samples sets the number
of times Maya shades in a pixel. For details, see Render Stats and Shading
Samples.
Max Shading Not available if you choose Preview Quality from the Presets
menu as the Anti-aliasing Quality.
The maximum number of shading samples for all surfaces. This option works
in conjunction with Max Shading Samples, an attribute available from the
Render Stats section of a surface’s Attribute Editor. Max Shading Samples sets
the maximum number of times a pixel is shaded during the second pass of a
Highest Quality render. The higher the number, the longer the rendering
takes, but the more accurate the resulting image.
■ 3D Blur Visib and Max 3D Blur Visib.are only available when you turn 3D
Motion Blur on in the Motion Blur section of the Render Settings window
on page 376.
Max 3D blur visib. The maximum number of times a pixel is sampled for
visibility when Motion Blur is turned on.
Particles The number of shading samples for particles. This option works with
Shading Samples, an attribute available from the Render Stats section of a
surface’s Attribute Editor. Shading samples sets the number of times Maya
shades each fragment in a pixel. See Render Stats and Shading Samples for
more details.
Multi-pixel Filtering
Multipixel filtering blurs or softens the entire rendered image to help eliminate
aliasing or jagged edges in rendered images, or roping or flicking in rendered
animations.
These options are only available when the “Edge Anti-aliasing” quality is set
to either High Quality or Highest Quality.
Use multi pixel filter If on, Maya process, filters, or softens the entire rendered
image by interpolating each pixel in the rendered image with its neighboring
pixels, based on the Pixel filter type and the Pixel filter width X, Y settings.
NOTE If you are rendering fields, Maya does not filter rendered images, even if
Use multi pixel filter is on.
Pixel filter type Controls how much the rendered image is blurred or softened
when Use multi pixel filter is on. There are five preset filters to choose
from—Box filter (very soft), Triangle filter (soft), Gaussian filter (only slightly
soft), Quadratic B-Spline filter (the filter used in Maya 1.0) and Plug-in filter.
The default is Triangle filter.
To use a custom filter, select Plug-in Filter.
Pixel filter width X, Y Controls the filter width used to interpolate each pixel
in the rendered image when Use multi pixel filter is on. If larger than 1, it
uses information from neighboring pixels. The larger the value, the more the
image is blurred. The valid range is 1 to 3. The default value is 2.2.
TIP The Pixel filter width X and Pixel filter width Y values do not need to be the
same; however, to blur the rendered image equally in both directions, these values
should be the same.
Contrast Threshold
TIP
■ Reducing RGB values sometimes bring out interesting features in rendered
images (for example, small highlights or shadow boundaries), but can also
increase rendering times.
Field Options
Both fields, interlaced Renders both odd and even fields (for video) and
automatically interlaces the results into a full frame.
Both fields, separate Same as above, except no interlacing occurs. The result
is a sequence of odd and even field images.
Field dominance Controls whether Maya renders Odd fields at time x and
even fields at time x+0.5, or Even fields at time x and odd fields at time x+0.5.
NOTE If the Render attribute under Field Options is set to Frames, the Field
dominance options are not available. If set to Both fields, interlaced, Maya sets
the appropriate field dominance based on the format standard (NTSC or PAL).
Zeroth scanline
(For advanced users only.)
Controls whether the first line of the first field Maya renders is at the top of
the image or at the bottom.
NOTE If the Render attribute under Field Options is set to Frames or Both Fields,
Interlaced, the Zeroth Scanline options are not available. Maya chooses the
appropriate setting based on the format standard, NTSC or PAL.
Default field extension (o and e) The attributes in this section do not take
effect if the fields are interlaced automatically.
Maya saves the two field image files by adding an e (for even fields) and an o
(for odd fields) onto the frame number extension or file name. For example,
name.001e.iff and name.001o.iff. This is the default setting.
Custom extension The attributes in this section do not take effect if the fields
are interlaced automatically.
Set on to specify custom extensions to add to odd and even field file names.
For example, if you type x, the result is name.001x.iff.
Raytracing Quality
Reflections The maximum number of times a light ray can be reflected. The
valid range is 0 to 10. The default value is 1. For details, see Reflection Limit.
Refractions The maximum number of times a light ray can be refracted. The
valid range is 0 to 10. The default value is 6. For details, see Refraction Limit.
TIP If refractions turn black, make sure the refraction limits is set to a high enough
value and that Visible in Refractions is turned on for the object in the Attribute
Spreadsheet (Window > General Editors > Attribute Spread Sheet) and the
Rendering Flags window (Window > Rendering Editors > Rendering Flags).
Bias If the scene contains 3D motion blurred objects and raytraced shadows,
you may notice dark areas or incorrect shadows on the motion-blurred objects.
To solve this problem, set the Bias value between 0.05 and 0.1. If the scene
does not contain 3D motion blurred objects or raytraced shadows, leave the
Bias value as 0. The valid range is 0 to 1. The default value is 0.
Motion Blur
When you render an animation, motion blur gives the effect of movement
by blurring objects in the scene. You can turn Motion blur on or off for objects.
Maya uses the relationship between the Shutter Angle and Motion blur
attributes to determine how much blur is applied to an object.
For information about how a camera’s shutter speed/angle affect motion blur,
see Motion blur on page 16.
Motion Blur If on, the 3D Motion blur type is enabled as well as Blur by frame.
This means that moving objects appear blurred. If off, moving objects appear
sharp. Motion blur is off by default.
Blur by frame The amount moving objects are blurred. The higher the value
the more motion blur is applied to objects. For example, if you motion blur
by 1 frame, blur is calculated based on the motion of objects from one frame
to the next; if you motion blur by 4 frames, blur is calculated based on the
motion of objects every four frame lengths, during which time much motion
is detected, and therefore much blur is applied. The default value is 1. The
amount that moving objects are blurred is also based on the Shutter Angle of
the camera. The length of the frame is determined by:
(Shutter Angle/360) * Blur by Frame
Blur length Scales the amount that moving objects are blurred.The valid range
is 0 to infinity. The default value is 1.
Use Shutter Open/Close Enable this option to customize the Shutter Open
and Shutter Close values.
Shutter Open /Shutter Close Shuttter open and close values. Default values
are -0.5 for Shutter Open and 0.5 for Shutter Close. The Use Shutter
Open/Close, Shutter Open and Shutter Close attributes can also be set using
the renderGlobals node. The shutter duration cannot be negative. If a user
alters the values in the Render Settings window such that the shutter duration
is negative, the values will be altered to suit a positive duration. If a negative
shutter duration is set on the renderGlobals node, the software renderer will
disregard these values and render as if the Shutter Open / Shutter Close values
have never been set.
This feature is an addition to the motion blur feature. If both Motion Blur and
Use Shutter Open/Close are disabled, then motion blur is not used in the
render. If Motion Blur is enabled but Use Shutter Open/Close is disabled, then
Maya renders with motion blur and with the shutter opening and closing at
their default values, which is [-0.5, 0.5]. If both Motion Blur and Use Shutter
Open/Close are enabled, then Maya will open and close the shutter of the
camera at the times you specified.
Blur sharpness The sharpness of motion blurred objects. The larger the Blur
sharpness, the more spread out the blur. The valid range is 0 to infinity. The
default value is 1.
Smooth
Select one of the following options:
Alpha/Color Sometimes, anti-aliasing performed by the Smooth Value
attribute can fail and produce artifacts corresponding to edges in the alpha
channel of the unblurred image. For example, when bright opaque objects
pass in front of dark light fog. Turning on Alpha or Color in such cases
eliminates artifacts by additionally blurring the objects.
Smooth value The amount Maya blurs motion blur edges. The larger the
value, the more the motion blur is anti-aliased.The valid range is 0 to infinity.
The default value is 2.
■ You may not want extra blurring all the time, so only use this attribute
when necessary. You can also try setting Smooth value to 0, which results
in less anti-aliasing, but that may only be acceptable in some situations.
■ For objects shaded with the Ramp Shader, 2D motion blur provides better
results than 3D motion blur (artifacting), but the Smooth attribute must
be set to Color, not Alpha.
Keep motion vectors If on, Maya saves the motion vector information for all
visible objects in the rendered image but does not blur the image. This lets
you blur the rendered images using the vector data with other 2D blur software
(for example blur2d).
If off, Maya blurs the rendered image but does not save the motion vector
information. Keep motion vectors is off by default.
Use 2d blur memory limit You can specify the maximum amount of memory
used by the 2D blur operation. Maya uses whatever memory is available to
finish the 2D blur operation.
2D blur memory limit You can specify the maximum amount of memory
the operation uses. If Motion blur is on and the Motion blur type is set to 2D,
the Use 2d blur memory limit is on by default and provides a default memory
limit of 200 MB. This default limit should be sufficient to eliminate most
problems. However, you can specify the size of the memory cap (in MB) in
the field provided.
Render Options
Post Processing
Post fog blur When used in combination with Apply fog in post, allows
environment fog effects to appear as if they are spilling over the geometry
edges. Increase this value for more blur.
Camera
Ignore film gate If on, Maya renders the area of the scene visible in the
Resolution Gate. If off, Maya renders the area of the scene visible in the Film
Gate and the region outside is rendered background color. See Camera Settings
and Film Gate for information on how to viewing the film gate boundary
interactively. Ignore Film Gate is on by default.
Shadow linking You can reduce the rendering time required for your scene
by linking lights with surfaces so that only the specified surfaces are included
in the calculation of shadows (shadow linking) or illumination (light linking)
by a given light.
Use the drop-down list to select one of the three choices available with this
option:
The shadows in your scene can obey only one of light linking or shadow
linking and not both. Therefore, you must decide whether to incorporate light
linking or shadow linking in your scene and make your selection from the
drop-down list accordingly.
You can also render part of your scene using the default settings (instead of
obeying the links that you have created). Select Shadows ignore linking so
that all links that you have established or broken using shadow linking or
light linking are ignored.
The default is set to Shadows obey light linking.
See Shadow linking for more information regarding shadow linking. See Light
linking for more information regarding light linking.
Color/Compositing
NOTE The behavior of the Gamma correction attribute for the Maya software
renderer is the reverse of that of the Gamma on page 429 attribute for the mental
ray renderer. For the Maya Software renderer, a higher gamma value lightens the
mid-tones of the image. For the mental ray renderer, a higher gamma value darkens
the mid-tones of the image.
Clip final shaded Color If on, all color values in the rendered image are kept
between 0 and 1. This ensures that no parts of the image (for example,
foreground objects) are overexposed. If off, color values in the rendered image
may be greater than 1. Clip final shaded color is on by default.
Jitter final color If on, the image color is jittered to reduce banding.
TIP If you are rendering images for film or video, turn Premultiply off. If you are
rendering images for a video game, turn Premultiply on.
The Memory and Performance Options attributes help you optimize rendering
to make scenes render faster.
For more information on render speed and image quality, see The speed/quality
tradeoff on page 153.
Tessellation
■ (Linux). If TMPDIR is set, Maya uses that directory unless it has write
permission problems, in which case Maya defaults to /usr/tmp. If still not
able to write to /usr/tmp, a warning message appears.
■ (Mac OS X). If TEMP is set, Maya checks for write permissions, and the
directory if not writable, it defaults to using the Documents/temp directory
under your Home directory. If not able to write to Documents/temp, a
warning message appears.
If the above still fails to find a temporary directory, a final attempt is made
to set the current directory you are working in as the temporary directory.
Windows:
SET TEMP=NAMEOFDIR
NOTE Reuse Tessellations is an I/O-bound process that can max out the bandwidth
when running multiple render jobs on the same machine. Reuse Tessellations is
useful when running up to four jobs on a multi-processor machine. You can try
turning off Render Settings > Use file cache.
Use displacement bounding box Rendering can take a long time when you
use displacement mapping because before rendering tiles, Maya tessellates all
the displacement-mapped surfaces and calculates their bounding boxes. When
you turn on Use displacement bounding box, Maya calculates the bounding
box scale that you define for all displacement-mapped surfaces. This makes
rendering faster. When off, Maya pre-tessellates all the displacement-mapped
objects before rendering. See Bounding Box Scale for details.
Ray Tracing
Multi Processing
Num. CPUs to use The slider can be dragged from values 1 to 8, but larger
values up to 256 can be entered if needed. Entering a value of 0 or turning
the option on enables all CPUs for interactive rendering.
NOTE
■ If you want a Multi-Processor batch render, set the number of processors
to use in the Batch Render window, or use the -n flag (for Maya software
rendering), for command line rendering.
■ If IPR is in use, the number of CPUs cannot be changed until the current
IPR session is closed. The following warning appears:// Warning: IPR
will need to be closed before this change in CPUs will take
effect. //
These attributes determine which shading elements are saved to disk when
you perform an IPR render. This can save time and disk space.
For more information on IPR, see Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR)
on page 47.
Render shading, lighting and glow Determines whether to process shading,
lighting and glow characteristics of the next IPR Render.
Render shadow maps Depth map shadows are included in IPR renders.
Turn on to show depth map shadows in the scene and be able to update them
when tuning. Because generating a depth map is a time consuming and
processor-intensive operation (like a full rendering from the light’s point of
view), IPR does not automatically generate depth maps when you adjust
attributes.
NOTE
■ Attributes in the first part of the Depth Map Shadow Attributes section of
a light’s Attribute Editor affect how the depth map is created; you must
select IPR > Update Shadow Maps to see the effect of changes you make
to these attributes.
■ Attributes in the second part of the Depth Map Shadow Attributes section
of a light’s Attribute Editor affect how the depth map is used; you can
adjust these attributes, and see the results immediately in your IPR session.
Render 2D motion blur Turn on to adjust 2D motion blur for the next IPR
Render. Only 2D motion blur is tunable.
For more information about Paint Effects, see What is Painting in Maya? in
the Paint Effects and 3D Paint Tool guide.
The following describes only render options for the Paint Tool.
Enable stroke rendering Turn on to render the Paint Effects strokes in the
scene. If off, the scene renders without strokes. This option is turned on by
default.
NOTE The Oversample and Oversample post filter options are particularly useful
when rendering Paint Effects fur or hair. Also the new Mesh Brush Type requires
oversample be used to anti-alias the tube edges if you don’t convert the Paint
Effects to Polygons.
Only render strokes Turn on to render only the Paint Effects strokes in the
scene. You may want to render the strokes separately from the rest of the
scene, then composite the strokes with the scene. See For more information
about Paint Effects, see What is Painting in Maya? in the Paint Effects and 3D
Paint Tool for details.
Read this depth file If compositing the rendered scene with rendered Paint
Effects strokes, type the location and name of the depth file for the rendered
scene. Use the absolute path name (for example, /h/username/rainyday.iff
(Linux), or c:\username\rainyday.iff (Windows), or /username/rainyday.iff
(Mac OS X)).
NOTE When you render strokes only, you must also specify an .IFF file in the Read
this depth file field (see next). The file can be empty. It does not have to have
depth.
NOTE It is best to supply a depth file and allow Maya Paint Effects to do the
compositing rather than attempt to composite Paint Effects as a post process using
a compositor. Maya Paint Effects uses a multi-layer depth and RGB buffers to
perform the compositing with the scene and can achieve a much better composite
than a post process compositor can achieve.
Also, if you do not supply a depth file (an .IFF file with depth information),
Paint Effects strokes that are behind objects in your scene are rendered. Maya
does not overwrite your existing images supplied as a depth file—the output
is named as shown at the top of the Render Settings window on page 376.
For information on other render settings, see Render Settings window on page
376.
The mental ray tabs consists of five tabs: Passes tab on page 404, Features tab
on page 406, Quality tab on page 415, Indirect Lighting tab on page 432, and
Options tab on page 444.
Passes tab
■ create, edit and delete a render pass set. A render pass set is a group of
render passes.
■ manage the list of render passes for each of the pass contribution maps in
your current layer
NOTE See Multi-render passes on page 187 for more information regarding render
passes.
Render Passes
Use the and buttons to add a new render pass or a new render
pass set to the current layer.
New Pass Click to open the Create Render Passes window. See Create
Render Passes window on page 470 for more information.
Edit Click to open the Attribute Editor for the selected render pass or
render pass set. Alternatively, you can double-click a pass or pass set in the
Scene Passes, Associated Passes, or Passes Used by Contribution Map sections
to open its Attribute Editor.
Scene Passes Lists all the render passes and render pass sets that are available
to be assigned to the current layer. After a render pass or render pass set is
assigned to the render layer, it no longer belongs to the Scene Passes list. In
other words, this list shows only passes that not assigned to the current render
layer.
Associated Passes Use the left and right arrow buttons to associate and
de-associate render passes from the current active render layer.
NOTE You can also right-click a render pass/pass set to set it as renderable; or,
create an override for the pass/pass to make it renderable.
Associated Pass Contribution Map Use this section to manage the render
passes for each pass contribution map. Select the pass contribution map that
you want to manage from the drop-down list. See Render Layer Editor on page
367 and Render pass contribution maps on page 190for more information
regarding pass contribution maps.
Edit pass contribution map Click to open the Attribute Editor for
the selected pass contribution map.
Passes Used by Contribution Map Use the up and down arrow buttons to
manage the list of passes for the current pass contribution map.
NOTE Any pass in the Associated Passes section that is not affiliated with a pass
contribution map is generated for the layer.
Toxik
Toxik pre-compositing template for <layer> Use this section for Toxik
pre-compositing. Each render layer can have an optional toxik pre-compositing
template file associated with it. This pre-compositing file (enter a file path
and file name) is used when Render > Export Pre-Compositing is selected. If
this field is left empty, a Toxik composite is constructed without a template
and provides only the passes that have been rendered. The user must then
wire the render passes to create a composite. A default template is provided
which covers all render passes available in Maya. See Exporting the multi-render
passes for compositing in Toxik on page 233for more information.
Features tab
Render Mode
Final Gathering Only Performs final gather computation only. Use this mode
to create or update an final gather map file associated with the render layer.
It can also be used to create a final gather map file for each frame or for specific
frames. Once the final gather map has been created, the user can switch back
to Normal mode, and reuse the pre-computed final gather map files for final
gather rendering.
Shadow Map Only Each light can, optionally, enable shadow maps (normal
or detailed). During a normal render, shadow maps are computed "on demand"
for the portion of the shadow map required. The Shadow Map Only mode is
designed to pre-compute shadow map files without triggering any other
rendering process. This can greatly help rendering speed since the
pre-computed shadow maps can be used by several other machines on the
Light Map Only Light maps are used for two purposes: custom baking
(requires a special shading network for each object) and for subsurface
scattering. The Light Map Only mode is most useful for forcing all lights maps
to be computed without triggering any other rendering process. By doing so,
this mode allows you to precompute light map based shading such as
sub-surface scattering. The user can precompute all light maps and subsurface
scattering maps as pre-render passes. Rendering on the farm is therefore much
more efficient, since the sub-surface scattering maps have already been
computed.
Primary Renderer
Select one of the following options:
Scanline Scanline rendering is faster for smaller scenes. When rendering large
and complex scenes, use the rasterizer or raytracer as the primary renderer
instead. Scanline requires extra memory requirements during rendering which
raytracer and rasterizer do not.
Raytracing Turn off the scanline renderer and force mental ray to use
raytracing for the primary rays.
NOTE
■ For small or static scenes, scenes with final gather, or scenes without much
depth complexity, scanline rendering is a faster way of rendering. However,
for large scenes, scenes with a lot of hair, or scenes with a lot of motion
blur, you should use rasterizer rendering instead.
Secondary Effects
Select one of the following options:
Raytracing Turns raytracing on or off. Enables reflections and refractions.
Importons
Irradiance Particles
Ambient Occlusion
Motion Blur
Select one of the following options:
Full Full is slower to render, but gives true (that is, exact) motion blur results.
Each deformed surface is being translated "per vertex", instead of per object
transform.
Extra Features
Faces
Determines whether to render double-sided or single-sided for the entire scene.
Front Only front-facing (that is, the side whose normal vectors face away
from) are rendered.
Turn these options off, to globally disable the following features in your scene:
■ Geometry Shaders
■ Light Maps
■ Lens Shaders
■ Displacement Shaders
■ Displacement Pre-sample
Enables pre-computation of displacement maps to find optimal bounding
boxes.
■ Volume Shaders
Volume Samples This setting specifies the default value for the number of
volume samples for any volume effects in Maya shaders. The default value is
1.
NOTE When Auto Volume is turned on, Raytracing is automatically enabled and
greyed out.
■ Output Shaders
■ Merge Surfaces
■ Render Fur/Hair
Contours
Hide Source When turned on, only the contour is visible (that is, the object
that causes the contour invisible).
Flood Color When Hide Source is turned on, this is the conlour used to flood
or fill the entire frame as the background color before rendering the contour.
In other words, this is the color onto which the contours caused by Hide
Source are drawn.
Filter Type The filter type used when downsampling contours to image
resolution.
Options in the detection section let you define the locations at which mental
ray for Maya detects and draws contour lines.
Around silhouette (coverage) Draw contour lines based on pixel coverage
(where rendering samples detect objects are present) based on a pixel being
covered by the object.
Between different labels Draw contour lines between different labels (these
are not the same as character labels).
Enable Color Contrast Turns on or off (default) the color contrast setting.
Color Contrast Draw contour lines between pixels that have a color difference
that is larger than the set value.
Enable Depth Contrast Turns on or off (default) the depth contrast setting.
Depth Contrast Draw contour lines between pixels whose depth difference
(in camera space) is larger than the set value.
Distance Contrast Draw contour lines between pixels whose distance is larger
than the set value.
Enable Normal Contrast Turns on or off (default) the normal contrast setting.
Normal Contrast Draw contour lines between pixels whose normal difference
is larger than the set value. (Normal difference is measured in degrees.)
Custom Shaders
You can connect mental ray for Maya base contour store and contrast shaders
here. Any shaders connected here override the integrated contour rendering
feature.
Quality tab
Quality Presets
When you select a Preset here, settings in the applicable sections in the mental
ray tabs are automatically set (for example, Preview: Global Illumination turns
on Global Illumination and sets other defaults in the Caustics and Global
Illumination section).
Use these settings as a starting point for rendering your image at a given quality
and with a certain effect.
Custom Lets you specify the mental ray for Maya quality settings
independently.
Draft Gives you a relatively good indication as to what scene will look like
while taking the least amount of processing time.
Draft: Motion Blur Gives you a relatively good indication as to what scene
will look like, with motion blur, while taking the least amount of processing
time.
Draft: Rapid Motion Gives you a relatively good indication as to what the
scene will look like, when using Rasterizer (Rapid Motion), while taking the
least amount of processing time.
Preview: Caustics Slightly better than draft (but includes caustics), takes a
little more processing time, but achieves a good balance between quality and
time.
Preview: Final Gather Slightly better than draft (but includes final gather),
takes a little more processing time, but achieves a good balance between quality
and time.
Preview: Global Illumination Slightly better than draft (but includes global
illumination), takes a little more processing time, but achieves a good balance
between quality and time.
Preview: Motion Blur Slightly better than draft (but includes motion blur),
takes a little more processing time, but achieves a good balance between quality
and time.
Preview: Rapid Motion Slightly better than Draft (when using Rasterizer
(Rapid Motion)), takes a little more processing time, but achieves a good
balance between quality and time.
Production Use this when testing the final rendering or rendering the final
image(s) that do not contain motion blur.
Production: Motion Blur Use this when testing the final rendering or
rendering the final image(s) that contain motion blur.
Production: Rapid Motion Use this when testing the final rendering, or
rendering the final image(s) when using Rasterizer (Rapid Motion).
Production: Fine Trace Production quality results for scenes with raytracing.
This preset turns on Scanline raytracing, and provides quick results.
Anti-Aliasing Quality
Controls how mental ray for Maya anti-aliases objects during rendering.
For more information about anti-aliasing and image quality, see Anti-aliasing
and flicker on page 154.
Sampling Mode
Select one of the following options:
Fixed Sampling Use a fixed number of samples per pixel when processing an
image.
Adaptive Sampling The number of samples used per pixel varies depending
on the contrast of your scene. The Max Sample Level and Min Sample Level
will not differ by more than 2.
Custom Sampling The number of samples used per pixel varies depending
on the contrast of your scene.
Custom Sampling allows you to tune the Min Sample Level and Max Sample
Level independently, while retaining true adaptive sampling (unless the min
and max sample level are set to the same value). Custom Sampling also allows
you to set the min and max sample level to greater than two. In general, the
min and max sample level should not differ by more than 3.
Min Sample Level This is the guaranteed minimum number of samples per
pixel used when processing an image. Based on Anti-aliasing Contrast on page
418 settings, mental ray for Maya will increase these samples as needed.
You can enter a negative value for this field. Instead of super sampling,
infra-sampling is performed, where 1 pixel is sampled for each N pixels,
depending on your Min Sample Level.
Max Sample Level This is the absolute maximum number of samples per
pixel used when processing an image.
NOTE When Adaptive Sampling is selected, the Max Sample Level and Min Sample
Level will not differ by more than 2. This is the recommended setting.
For advanced users: if you wish to override the default recommended setting
for per object sampling, choose Custom Sampling.
NOTE This attribute was previously named Contrast Threshold, with one slider
for an RGB value and one slider for an alpha value. The single slider sets RGBA to
the same value under the hood. If you want different values for RGBA, you can do
this through scripting or through the miDefaultOptions node.
Rasterizer Quality
Visibility Samples This value indicates the number of samples used for
anti-aliasing. The default value is 0.
Shading Quality This value indicates the number of shading samples per
image pixel. The default value is 1.0 and the minimum value is 0.001.
Multi-Pixel Filtering
Filter
This is processing performed on the results of the sampling to blend pixels
into a coherent entity. Black and white = noisy. Filtering looks at neighboring
info and unifies the two.
It is better to apply filtering in the renderer, since there is more information
(samples) to work with and filtering can offer better control when applied to
samples than as a post-process and applied to pixels.
Box (default) The fastest way to get relatively good results.
NOTE See mental ray for Maya reference documentation, Scene Description
Language section, Scene Entities sub-section, Options page for more information
on various filter methods.
Triangle More processor intensive than box, but offers even better results.
Samples at the center of the pixel will have the highest contribution weight.
As samples move further away from the center of the pixel, their contribution
weight fall off linearly. This causes samples and details at the center of the
pixel to be more "present" in the final computed pixel in the framebuffer.
Gauss Produces the best results, but is the slowest to render. Gauss uses a
curved fall-off for sample contributions. Almost all samples at the center of
the pixel have virtually the same contribution weight, but rapidly falloff
Filter Size Controls the filter size used to interpolate each pixel in the rendered
image. The larger the value, the more info from neighboring pixels. The larger
the value, the more the image is blurred. The value should be at least 1,1.
Filter size and filter mode are disabled whenever the Min Sample Level and
Max Sample Level settings are below -1 0. mental ray for Maya does not filter
when rendering using a Min Sample Level and Max Sample Level below these
threshold values.
Sample Options
Sample Lock Locks the location in which you sample within pixels. When
turned on, this option ensures that the sub-pixel samples occur at the same
location within in each pixel, which is important to help eliminate noise and
flickering results. Turn it off only if you get sampling problems, such as moire
patterns.
Raytracing
TIP If refractions turn black, make sure Refraction is set to a high enough value.
Max Trace Depth While the Reflections on page 420 setting and Refractions
on page 420 setting each set the maximum number of times a ray can reflect
or refract (respectively), this setting sets total number of penetrations that can
occur regardless of whether the penetration is a result of reflection or refraction.
For example, if reflections = 5, refractions = 5, but max depth trace = 4, then
any combination of reflection and refraction bounces can take place, up to a
maximum of 4.
TIP The Max Trace Depth attribute applies only to refraction and not to
transparency. Transparency is unlimited while refraction is limited by the Max
Trace Depth. When raytracing is turned off, refraction becomes transparency and
the Max Trace Depth is not applicable.
Acceleration Method
Select one of the following options:
Regular BSP
Large BSP Use for very large scenes. It breaks the scene into small data blocks
that do not need to be stored in memory at all times. However, it may increase
rendering time.
BSP2
This is the default. BSP2 stands for Binary Space Partition, second generation.
It enables a new BSP raytracing acceleration designed to cope with large scenes.
BSP2 does not need to adjust any attributes like the old generation BSP and
Large BSP, which frees the user from the tedious tuning required to achieve
optimal rendering performance. BSP2 can be used whenever instances are
heavily used in a scene. If you choose the grid acceleration method, which is
no longer exposed in mental ray for Maya but is still accessible from the mental
ray standalone command line, mental ray defaults back to BSP2 internally.
BSP Size Determines the maximum number of triangles in one bsp voxel. If
you decrease this number, you will have more voxels and a heavier bsp
structure, resulting in higher memory usage and better performance.
Separate Shadow Bsp This option enables mental ray for Maya to use a
secondary Bsp tree for objects that have low-detail shadow stand-ins to improve
performance.
Diagnose Bsp Shows the cost of creating and traversing the BSP tree used for
raytracing. Both the depth and the leaf size can be visualized. If the diagnostic
image shows that mental ray has been operating near the limit in large parts
of the image (indicated by red or white pixels), this helps tuning the BSP
parameters in the options block.
Rasterizer
Rasterizer Transparency
If set to a positive value, then the transparency compositing for the rasterizer
ends at the specified depth. This can be used to tune performance for scenes
where it is known that the main color information is provided by the first few
depth layers.
It also allows you to limit the amount of hair/fur being rendered. You should
exercise caution as you lower the transparency depth, since it is possible for
the final pixel intensity to shift as less surfaces are contributing to the final
pixel.
Shadows
Shadow Method
Select one of the following options:
Disabled Select this option to turn shadows off. This option is automatically
selected if shadows are disabled under the Quality tab.
Segments (Traced Occluders) Like Sorted, the shadow shaders are called in
order. Shadow rays are traced much like regular rays, passing from one
obscuring object to the next, from the light source to the illuminated point;
each such ray is a shadow segment.
Use this mode if you want volume effects (like fluids, particles, fur and smoke)
to cast shadows.
This mode requires support from the shadow shader, which must use the
mi_trace_shadow_seg function to cast the next shadow ray segment.
For more information about the mi_trace_shadow_seg node, see the mental
ray Shaders Guide in the Maya Help.
NOTE The Shadow Method is set to Simple by default. Simple shadows are not
compatible with volume effects such as fluids, volume fur, particles and volume
shaders and therefore may not render shadow volume effects correctly.
Shadow Linking You can reduce the rendering time required for your scene
by linking lights with surfaces so that only the specified surfaces are included
in the calculation of shadows (shadow linking) or illumination (light linking)
by a given light.
NOTE You can also use render pass contribution maps for light and shadow linking.
For instance, if you have a scene with 150 lights associated to your render layers,
and you create a simple pass contribution map where only one light is associated
with it, only that light is evaluated by the shader. For more information regarding
render pass contribution maps, see Multi-render passes on page 187
Use the drop-down list to select one of the three choices available with this
option:
■ Off
The shadows in your scene can obey only one of light linking or shadow
linking and not both. Therefore, you must decide whether to incorporate light
linking or shadow linking in your scene and make your selection from the
drop-down list accordingly.
You can also render part of your scene using the default settings (instead of
obeying the links that you have created). Select Off so that all links that you
have established using shadow linking or light linking are ignored.
The default is set to Obeys Light Linking.
See Shadow linking for more information regarding shadow linking. See Light
linking for more information regarding light linking.
Shadow Maps
Format
Select one of the following options:
Shadow Maps Disabled Select this option to turn off shadow maps.
Regular (OpenGL Accelerated) Causes mental ray for Maya to use OpenGL
acceleration (if available with your graphics hardware) when rendering shadow
maps.
The same limitations apply as mentioned with the Scanline on page 407option.
Shadow maps rendered with this option contain slightly different information
from those generated with the regular (On) algorithm, and the soft areas of
shadows tend to be smaller. Some areas may incorrectly be determined to not
be in shadow.
When OpenGL rendering of shadow maps is enabled, only the local
workstation (master) participates since the computation cost of the map is so
small that the networking overhead would be more costly.
Rebuild Mode
Determines whether all shadow maps are recomputed.
Reuse Existing Maps Shadow maps are loaded from files or reused from
previously rendered frames if possible. Otherwise, created from new.
Rebuild All and Overwrite Shadow maps are recomputed and the existing
points are overwritten by the recomputed points. This is the default option.
Rebuild All and Merge Specifies that shadow maps should be loaded from
files, if available. The default shadow map calculations are still performed and
the existing points are overwritten by the recomputed points, but only if the
new points are closer to the light source.
This option is useful for building shadow maps for use in multi-pass rendering
because it allows shadow maps from a previous render pass to be reused for
the current pass. Only shadow map changes are recalculated, not the entire
shadow map.
NOTE Since shadow maps do not deal with transparent objects and motion
blurring introduces a form of transparency at the edges, shadow map shadows
can appear too large in the direction of motion if the object moves quickly.
Controls the anti-aliasing quality when computing shadow maps with the
rasterizer. This attribute sets the samples collect option for shadow map
rendering to the specified value. A value of 0 uses the rasterizer default for
shadow map rendering.
See also mental ray for Maya motion blur on page 180.
Motion Blur
Select one of the following options:
Off Turns motion blur off.
Full Full is slower to render, but gives true (that is, exact) motion blur results.
Each deformed surface is being translated "per vertex", instead of per object
transform. Select this method for motion blur of objects being deformed by
animation, such as jiggling arms and jello-like motions, where the vertices
are moving and jiggling as the animation occurs.
Motion Blur By This is a multiplier used to amplify the motion blur effect.
Increasing this value reduces the realistic results achieved, but may produce
an enhanced effect if that’s what you want to achieve.
The higher the value, the longer the time interval used in the motion blur’s
computation.
Shutter Open, Shutter Close Defines the point in time at which the shutter
opens and closes within the frame interval to control motion blurring.
NOTE The mental ray for Maya renderer draws its shutter setting from this section
in the Render Settings window, unlike the Maya renderer (for which the shutter
setting is on the camera).
NOTE Since shadow maps do not deal with transparent objects and motion
blurring introduces a form of transparency at the edges, shadow map shadows
can appear too large in the direction of motion if the object moves quickly.
Quality
See also mental ray for Maya motion blur on page 180.
Displace Motion Factor
Motion Quality Factor When you use the rasterizer with motion blur, you
must decide between using higher values, which yield better quality, and
lower values, which yield a faster render. Setting this attribute to values larger
than 0.0 automatically lowers shading samples for fast-moving objects, at a
rate proportional to the magnitude of the setting and the speed of the instance
in screen-space. You should exercise caution when tuning this value, but 1.0
(the default) provides a good starting point. A value of 0.0 disables the setting.
Motion Steps See also diagram in Shutter Open, Shutter Close on page 426.
If motion blurring is enabled, mental ray can create motion paths from motion
transforms, much like multiple motion vectors on vertices can create motion
paths.
This option specifies how many motion path segments should be created for
all motion transforms in the scene. The number must be in the range 1 to 15.
The default is 1.
Time Samples Primary control for the quality of motion blur. This attribute
defines the number of temporal shading samples per spatial sample. Increasing
the number of samples gives better quality of motion blur. However, increasing
the number of samples also increases rendering times.
Spatial samples are samples taken from the perspective of the xy plane of the
image. For still images, spatial samples are affected by the Anti-Aliasing Quality
controls. At each spatial sample location, mental ray can take a number of
temporal samples. Temporal samples are samples that are taken at different
NOTE This attribute is not for use with the rasterizer. In general, use of the Time
Samples attribute should be enough to control the quality of motion blur.
Motion Offsets
Custom Motion Offsets Turn on this option if you want to set values for
Motion Back Offset and Static Object Offset. Use these custom motion offsets
to define the time steps where motion blur information is captured. This
option is off by default.
Motion Back Offset This value determines the start point of the time interval
used for motion blurring. It is an offset to the current time in frames. The
default value is 0.5, and corresponds to Maya.
Static Object Offset This value determines the time used to render static
objects. The default value is 0, and corresponds to Maya.
Framebuffer
Primary Framebuffer
Gamma Use this setting to apply gamma correction to rendered color pixels
to compensate for output devices with a nonlinear color response. Inverse
NOTE The behavior of the Gamma correction on page 398 attribute for the Maya
software renderer is the reverse of that of the Gamma attribute for the mental ray
renderer. mental ray Gamma is basically an un-gamma, where it removes Gamma
correction to ensure it is in linear space prior to computing raytracing. Therefore,
mental ray Gamma is not a display gamma, but an ungamma feature. For the
Maya Software renderer, a higher gamma value lightens the mid-tones of the
image. For the mental ray renderer, a higher gamma value darkens the mid-tones
of the image.
Colorclip
Controls how colors are clipped into a valid range [0, 1] before being written
to a non-floating point frame buffer or file.
In all modes, the RGB components are clipped as specified by the desaturate
option. The RGB and alpha modes ensure that the resulting color is a valid
premultiplied color.
Clipping occurs only in 8-bit integer and 16-bit integer frame buffers. if you
are using float and half-float, no clipping occurs.
RGB RGB is first clipped to [0, 1] and alpha subsequently to [max(R, G, B), 1].
Use RGB if the alpha channel is considered less important than preserving
the RGB color and intensity.
Alpha Alpha is first clipped to [0, 1] and RGB subsequently to [0, A]. Alpha
mode is intended for alpha compositing, where the alpha channel is more
important than the absolute color value to preserve correct transparencies.
Raw (default) RGB and A are both clipped to [0, 1] independently of each
other. Use Raw mode only if no layering based on alpha is going to take place.
This mode turns Premultiply on, so use it with care because shaders might
receive colors that cannot be composited in standard ways.
Interpolate Samples This option causes mental ray for Maya to interpolate
sample values between two known pixel sample values. If interpolation is
turned off, the last sample value in each pixel is stored, and pixels without
samples get a copy of a neighboring pixel. When this option is turned on, the
resulting image has a higher quality, but takes more time to process.
This option is on by default.
Dither mental ray for Maya supports 8, 16, or 32 bits per color component.
In some cases, 8 bits per pixel, as supported by all popular picture file formats,
can cause visible banding when the floating-point color values calculated by
the material shader are quantized to the 8-bit values used in the picture file.
Dithering mitigates the problem by introducing noise into the pixel such that
the round-off errors are evened out. Note that this can cause run-length
encoded picture files to be larger than without dithering. Dithering is turned
off by default.
Environment
When you click the Create button, a new IBL node is created, replacing any
currently connected node. (Though multiple IBL environments can exist in
a scene, only one can be used at a time.)
For more information, see Image-based lighting (sky-like illumination) and
also Render infinitely distant (sky-like) illumination and reflection in the
Lighting guide.
For descriptions of the attributes in the IBL node, see Image based lighting
node attributes in the Lighting guide.
When you click the Create button, a network containing the mia_physicalsky,
mia physicalsun, mia_exposure_simple and directionalLight is created. Maya
automatically connects all the necessary attributes from the four nodes for
you. This network is connected to all existing renderable cameras.
NOTE Image based lighting and physical sun and sky are not designed to work
together at the same time. It is therefore recommended that you either use one
or the other.
Global Illumination
Accuracy Change the number of photons used to compute the local intensity
of global illumination. The default number is 64; larger numbers make the
global illumination smoother but increase render time.
Scale Use this setting to control the influence of indirect illumination effects
for global illumination. You can select a color with the Color Chooser or use
the slider to set the Scale value. Scale is off by default.
Radius Controls the maximum distance at which mental ray for Maya
considers photons for global illumination. When left at 0 (the default), mental
ray for Maya calculates an appropriate amount of radius, based on the
bounding box size of the scene. If the result is too noisy, increasing this value
(to 1 to start, then by small increments up to 2) decreases noise but gives a
more blurry result. To reduce the blur, you must increase the number of global
illumination photons (Global illumination Accuracy) emitted by the light
source.
Merge Distance
The photons within the specified world-space distance are merged. For scenes
with uneven photon distribution, this attribute can greatly reduce the size of
your photon map.
Caustics Turn caustics on or off (default). Caustics are produced only by light
sources for which photon emission is enabled. The material shader (which
must have a non-zero diffuse component) that receives the caustics must be
set to receive caustics.
Scale Use this setting to control the influence of indirect illumination effects
for caustics. You can select a color with the Color Chooser or use the slider to
set the Scale value. Scale is off by default.
Radius Controls the maximum distance at which mental ray for Maya
considers photons for caustics. When left at 0 (the default), mental ray for
Maya calculates an appropriate amount of radius, based on the bounding box
size of the scene. If the result is too noisy, increasing this value (to 1 to start,
then by small increments up to 2) decreases noise but gives a more blurry
result. To reduce the blur, you must increase the number of caustic photons
(Accuracy) emitted by the light source.
Merge Distance
The caustic photons within the specified world-space distance are merged.
This attribute can greatly reduce the size of your caustic photon map.
Cone Generally makes caustics looks smoother. It is more precise, but slower.
Gauss
Caustic Filter Kernel The bigger the kernel, the softer the caustic.
Photon Reflections Use this to limit the number of times a photon will reflect
in a scene (after the first bounce, which is taken care of by direct illumination).
It works in conjunction with Max Photon Depth on page 435.
Photon Refractions Use this to limit the number of times a photon will refract
in a scene (after the first bounce, which is taken care of by direct illumination).
It works in conjunction with Max Photon Depth on page 435.
Max Photon Depth Use this to limit the number of times a photon will
bounce around (reflect or refract) after the first bounce (which is taken care
of by direct illumination) in a scene.
Default is 5, but correct value depends on how many surfaces the photon
must go through or bounce off of before hitting a diffuse surface to stop. For
example, if a photon goes through 6 transparent surfaces, the default 5 would
produce incorrect results. After the depth trace limit has been met, photons
are not re-emitted and instead are absorbed.
Custom shaders may override these values.
Photon Map
Rebuild Photon Map If a filename is specified for the photon map (in Photon
Map File on page 435), the map is loaded and used (providing the file exists).
If this option is turned on, any existing file will be ignored, and the photon
map will be recomputed and an existing file will be overwritten. The default
is off. In other words, if you want to build a map, turn this option on; if not,
turn this option off and specify the file to be used in Photon Map File on page
435.
Photon Map File Specify the photon map file that mental ray for Maya should
use as the current photon map. It will be loaded and used without computing
a new photon map. If the photon map file does not exist, one will be created
and saved.
Diagnose photon
Select one of the following options:
Density When photon maps are used, select this option to replace all material
shaders in the scene with an internal shader that produces a false-color
rendering of the photon density.
Irradiance When photon maps are used, select this option to replace all
material shaders in the scene with an internal shader that produces a false-color
rendering of the average of the red, green and blue irradiance components.
Photon Volume
Accuracy Controls how the photon map is used to estimate the intensity of
caustics or global illumination within a participating medium. It applies to
photon volume shaders, which compute light patterns in 3D space, such as
volume caustics created by focused shafts of light cast by objects acting as
lenses.
Radius Controls the maximum distance at which mental ray for Maya
considers photons for a participating medium.
Merge Distance
Importons
Importons
Density Number of importons shot from the camera per pixel. The minimum
value for this attribute is 0.02, which is approximately 1 importon per 50
pixels. The default and recommended value is 1. Lower values speed up
importon emission but could also decrease final image quality.
Merge Distance The importons within the specified world-space distance are
merged. The default value is 0, which means that merging is disabled.
Max Depth Controls the diffusion of importons in the scene. If set to zero,
importons will not scatter on the diffuse bounces. The default is zero. In some
cases you may need to use more than a single diffuse bounce, for example,
when you are using final gather, or when the Traverse option is disabled.
Traverse Enable this attribute so that importons are not blocked by even
completely opaque geometry. Instead, they are stored for all intersections with
geometry on the ray from the camera to infinity. This leads to a significantly
higher number of importons stored in the scene. However, it removes the
discontinuity in the distribution of the importons originated from the visibility
to the camera function.
Final Gathering
Final Gathering Use this to turn Final Gathering for global illumination on
or off. The default is off. Final gathering is a different means of calculating
Accuracy Controls how many rays are shot in each final gathering step to
compute the indirect illumination. The default is 100 per sample point. Higher
values are required for final renders. Increasing the value reduces noise but
also increases the rendering time.
NOTE When the Final Gather Accuracy is changed, the Primary Final Gather File
on page 439is always ignored and new Final Gather rays are emitted.
You can see, in the Output window, when this happens:
Primary Diffuse Scale The Scale value allows you to easily control the intensity
and color of the final gather contribution on a global scene level. You can use
the Color Chooser or use the slider to set the Scale value.
Secondary Diffuse Bounces Use this attribute to set multiple diffuse bounces
for final gathering. This option controls whether indirect diffuse lighting
contributes to final gather, up to a sum of the Final Gather Reflection and
Final Gather Refraction values. Use this attribute to add more light and color
bleeding to your final gather results. Also, use this option to prevent unnatural
darkening of corners in your scene. The higher the value, the longer the final
gather computation process.
Rebuild
If this is on (default), any previously generated Final Gather file is ignored
and all final gather points are recomputed. See Primary Final Gather File on
page 439for more information about the file.
If this file is off, Final Gather is forced to use the results from a previous Final
Gather render. Existing final gather points are not recalculated, and any new
final gather points are appended to the existing file.
Freeze The Freeze option stops any new data from being written to the final
gather file. It is useful to reduce light flickering in your animation. See
Troubleshoot final gather causes flicker on page 283.
TIP
■ If you are rendering out a still image and are not changing the Final Gather
settings, turn this attribute off to save rendering time.
■ If you are rendering out a camera animation sequence, you may be able
to use previous frames’ Final Gather results (that is, you can turn this
attribute off), depending on how the irradiance changes during the
animation. However, if objects in the scene move, this option must be on.
Primary Final Gather File This is the file that stores the Final Gather results
that mental ray for Maya can use for irradiance lookups. You can reuse Final
Gather results from a frame rendered earlier, or from a previous scene render:
■ If no filename is specified and Rebuild is turned on, rendered results are
placed in a default file.
■ If you specify an existing filename here, and Rebuild is turned on, the
specified file is overwritten with the newly rendered Final Gather results.
■ If you specify an existing filename here, and Rebuild is turned off, the
newly rendered results are appended to the existing file. (This means that
the file may grow without bounds.)
You can provide several final gather map files as lookup map files for the
rendering. You can therefore use the final gather map rendered from different
cameras and combine the lookups at render time. Also, a secondary final
gather map can be used to lookup final gather map files from different frames.
For example, you can make the primary final gather map file lookup the final
gather map file for the current frame T, and the secondary final gather map
file to look up other final gather map files from other frames such as T+1 and
T-1 (assuming that you have pre-generated a final gather map file using the
Render Mode Final Gathering Only).
Preview Final Gather Tiles If turned on, this setting lets you see tiles as they
render. That is, you can see the image as it renders.
Precompute Photon Lookup This option (which also turns on Final Gather)
causes photon tracing to compute and store an estimate of the local irradiance
at every photon location. This means that far fewer final gathering points are
required because the photon map carried a good approximation of the
irradiance in the scene—mental ray for Maya can estimate irradiance with a
single lookup, instead of many photons. In this case, photon tracing takes
longer than before and requires slightly more memory, but rendering is faster.
Filter Use this to control how Final Gather uses a speckle elimination filter
to prevent samples with extreme brightness from skewing the overall energy
stored in a Final Gather sampling region.
Neighboring samples are filtered so that extreme values are discarded in the
filter size. By default, the filter size is 1. Setting this to 0 disables speckle
elimination, which can add speckles but will better converge towards the
correct total image brightness for extremely low accuracy settings. Size values
greater than 1 eliminate more speckles and soften sample contrasts. Sizes
greater than 4 or so are not normally useful.
Falloff Start, Falloff Stop Use these settings to limit the reach of indirect light
for Final Gather (but not photons). If no object is found within a distance of
start, the ray defaults to the environment color. Objects farther away than
stop from the illuminated point will not cast light. An extra advantage is that
this speeds up final gather computation, since final gather does not evaluate
all visible surfaces, but only the ones visible within defined ranges.
Reflections Use this to limit the number of times subrays will reflect in a
scene. It works in conjunction with Max Trace Depth on page 441.
Refractions Use this to limit the number of times subrays will refract in a
scene. It works in conjunction with Max Trace Depth on page 441.
Max Trace Depth Use this option to specify the number of subrays for the
final gather render. The default is 0, which means that indirect illumination
computed by final gathering cannot pass through glass or bounce off mirrors,
for example. A depth of 1 would allow a single refraction or reflection.
Typically, a depth greater than 2 is not necessary.
Use Radius Quality Control Switch back to the first generation final gather
algorithm where the radius is used to control final gathering sampling and
interpolation.
View (Radii in Pixel Size) This option causes the Min Radius and Max Radius
of final gather rays to be calculated in pixel size, rather than in object space.
This allows you to set the visual quality in pixel size, without knowing the
object or scene bounds.
Irradiance Particles
Rays The number of rays shot while estimating the irradiance. This attribute
is similar to the number of rays used for final gathering, but instead, it specifies
the maximum number of rays and delivers better quality than final gathering
Indirect Passes The number of possible passes of indirect lighting. If >0, then
a sequence of passes is computed to collect the irradiance coming from multiple
indirect illumination bounces and irradiance Particles would have both direct
illumination and indirect illumination information. If =0, then Irradiance
Particles will only have direct illumination information. The default value is
0.
Scale Global scale factor applied to the intensity of the irradiance during
rendering. Values other than the default do not lead to a physically correct
rendering but are useful for artistic purposes. The value is expanded to a color
having the same R, G and B components. The default value is 1.0.
Env. Rays The number of rays used for the computation of irradiance coming
from the environment map. The default for Env. Rays is the same as the
number of Rays set for the Irradiance Particles option. For outdoor scenes, the
default works fine, but increase this value for indoor scenes.
Env. Scale Global scale factor applied to the irradiance contribution of the
environment. The scaling factor is relative because it applies to the
environment irradiance only. The environment irradiance can be further
scaled (multiplicatively) if the user specifies a global scaling factor with the
Scale option. The default value 1.
Rebuild If enabled, mental ray for Maya computes the irradiance particle map
even if a file with the specified name already exists. If disabled, mental ray
reads the irradiance particle map from the specified file, or, it reuses the
irradiance particle map that comes from the previous frame rendered.
Disabling this feature is useful for animations, which are flicker-free. However,
the irradiance particle map may lose quality if the objects and camera are
moving, so this is only recommended for fly-throughs. In addition, since the
Map File Specifies the map file for the irradiance particle map.
If the specified file exists, mental ray for Maya tries to read the irradiance
particle map from this file (unless Rebuild is enabled). If the irradiance particle
map is not successfully read from the file, mental ray for Maya computes it
and saves it to a file with the given name. This behavior is consistent with
the photon maps option.
Ambient Occlusion
Ambient Occlusion
Rays Number of ambient occlusion rays used for the computation of each
ambient occlusion value. mental ray shaders using ambient occlusion API can
override this value internally.
Cache Density Upper bound to the number of ambient occlusion points per
pixel.
Cache Points Number of cache points close to the lookup location used for
interpolation. Default is 64.
Options tab
Diagnostics
Diagnose samples Shows how spatial supersamples were placed in the rendered
image, by producing a grayscale image signifying sample density. This is useful
when tuning the level and the contrast threshold for spatial supersampling.
Diagnose grid Renders a grid on top of all objects in the scene, in object,
camera, or world space. Gives you an idea of the scene scale and rough
estimates of distances and areas.
Grid size Defines the size of the grid (in Diagnose grid).
Diagnose photon
Select one of the following options:
Density When photon maps are used, select this option to replace all material
shaders in the scene with an internal shader that produces a false-color
rendering of the photon density.
Irradiance When photon maps are used, select this option to replace all
material shaders in the scene with an internal shader that produces a false-color
rendering of the average of the red, green and blue irradiance components.
Preview
Preview Motion Blur Calculate and preview render motion blur if enabled
in the Render Settings. The Preview Animation option doesn’t need to be
turned on for this to work.
Preview Tonemap Tiles and Tonemap Scale The Preview Tonemap Tiles
option previews image tiles for floating-point framebuffer types where the
color values exceed the typical 0-1 range (because the color values are RGB).
This option is on by default.
The Tonemap Scale value is used to rescale the color data of image tiles prior
to clipping. This is useful when rendering high dynamic range images. The
final rendered image is not affected by this value. The default value is 1.
Displacement
Shadow Map
Shadow Map Bias This option applies the specified Shadow Map Bias value
to all light sources that do not have their own biases. This adds a slight offset
to the shadow depths, resulting in a slightly shifted shadow. This option is
useful in tuning shadows in specific cases, such as when rendering Fur.
Global Illumination/Caustics
Turn caustics and global illumination generators and receivers on or off for
the entire scene.
Tessellation
Use these options to create and assign a Surface and, or Displace approximation
globally to the scene.
Translation
Contains options for specifying the settings and items to be included when
rendering a Maya scene with mental ray for Maya.
NOTE In Maya 8.0, the Export Verbosity attribute was used to control the rendering
verbosity. In Maya 2009, this control has been moved to the mental ray Render
Option editor and the mental ray Batch Render Option editor. See Render > Render
Current Frame on page 320 and Render > Batch Render on page 324 for more
information.
Export Full Dagpath Uses the full DAG path names instead of the shortest
possible name for mental ray scene entities. This is not required to generate
a valid scene, but ensures reproducible names even if DAG entity names are
reused in Maya. On the other hand, with deeply nested DAG hierarchy names,
you may exceed the maximum supported name length in mental ray. Default
is off.
Export Textures First Collects all file texture references in the scene first. This
ensures that missing texture files are reported early in the process, but may
slow down scene processing depending on the number of file textures being
used. It may also write out textures references that are never used in the
Export Hair
Select one of the following options:
Hair Geometry Shader The geometry shader creates the hair. This option
should be used for rendering interactively in Maya and offers the best Maya
Hair translation performance.
Hair Primitive Select this option to convert Maya hair to native mental ray
hair so that it can be rendered with mental ray standalone. This option can
be used for rendering interactively in Maya or for exporting the file to render
with standalone but better suited for mi file rendering.
Export Vertex Colors Lets you force the export of all the CPV (color per
vertex) data for all the meshes in your scene. Exporting CPV data can be
process-intensive, so do not turn on this attribute unless necessary.
Performance
NOTE You should turn Optimize Non-animated Display Visibility off if an object’s
visibility is animated.
Select this option to render the proxies in your scene instead of the placeholder
geometry that you used. For more information regarding render proxies, see
Using render proxies in your scene on page 242.
NOTE Raising the Motion Steps on page 428 value beyond 1 (the default) implies
a performance degradation of translation caused by extra subframe scene
evaluations in Maya and computations in the plug-in.
This option forces the computation of motion transform and per vertex motion
vector. Normally, this is automatically done when you enable motion blur;
however, if you do not want mental ray to render the motion blur effect, but
you want the motion vectors and motion transforms to be available during
rendering (without blurring the image), you can enable this option so that
mental ray for Maya provides the motion data. For example, you must enable
this option if you creating the motion vector type passes (2D Motion Vector,
3D Motion Vector, Normalized 2D Motion Vector).
Export Polygon Derivatives Calculate and export first order derivatives for
polygons. This is required for bump mapping and shader filtering to produce
comparable results to Maya.
When on (default), the Maya derivatives and Smooth Polygon Derivatives
options are available.
Maya Derivatives This option uses Maya’s derivatives calculation for bump
mapping and shader filtering, providing compatibility with Maya.
This option is off by default, and is only available when Export Polygon
Derivatives is on.
Customization
Disable this option to use render pass compliant shaders. This option is off
by default. Enable this option to use legacy Maya base shaders.
Export State Shader This should only be turned off when exporting to .mi
file and only the standard mental ray base shaders are used exclusively (for
example, when no Maya shaders are used). Default is on.
Export Light Linker This controls the export of the Maya Light Linker node.
Default is on.
Export Maya Options This enables the export of special options as mental
ray user data, to control several advanced Maya features performed in the
mayabase shaders. Default is on.
Export Custom Colors Common mental ray shaders often use 4-component
RGBA color parameters instead of the usual 3-component Maya color
compounds. With this option enabled all custom nodes are provided with
full RGBA colors, with the alpha component set to 1.0 (fully opaque). Default
is off.
If this option is disabled, then mental ray shaders should ensure that they can
set the alpha component explicitly to reasonable values, away from mental
ray’s default, which is 0 (fully transparent).
Export Custom Text This should only be turned on for .mi file export to
recognize and translate Custom Text nodes. It is automatically turned off for
the integrated rendering if Preview Custom has been turned off.
Custom Entities
Contains controls for creating and managing custom global text, textures,
and scene element text. Use these options to take advantage of alternate
channel computations when writing custom shaders.
Pass Custom Alpha Channel This option passes the mental ray alpha
component of the final color as the alpha channel, ignoring the Maya alpha
component. This is useful when a custom shader is producing an alpha value.
This option is off by default.
Pass Custom Depth Channel This option overrides the Maya depth channel
calculation with the default mental ray depth channel calculation. This option
Pass Custom Label Channel This option passes label data untouched, rather
than allowing adjustment for Maya shaders. This option is off by default.
Custom Globals
These allow for the customized output of version, link, and include statements.
If these text boxes are empty, mental ray for Maya generates the usual default
statements that are required for rendering Maya scenes. Otherwise, it expects
a space separated list of entries, which are exported in the appropriate section
of the mi stream instead of the defaults.
In the Versions text box, the first entry is written as the min version, the second
entry as the max version statement.
The Includes text
base.mi mayabase.mi
Global Text The global text control is especially useful for adding custom
link, $include and code statements. It can also be used to add texture and
shader declarations.
Within a scene many types of text nodes can be created, but just the selected
one gets exported. The contained text is written once at the beginning of the
.mi stream right before the first option block gets written. Certain modes are
available which determine how the custom text should be applied to the
generated output.
Note that incorrect .mi text could be introduced that cannot be recognized
nor corrected by mental ray for Maya processing.
Root Group Text The Root Group Text control can be used to customize the
final root group specifying all cameras and objects to be rendered. This control
is applied to the content of the root group, not the whole root group section
(like other types of scene text).
Render Text The Render Text control can be used to customize render
commands for renderable cameras. For example, it can be used to perform
operations between renderings, like file operations.
Quality
For more information about render speed and image quality, see The
speed/quality tradeoff on page 153.
Presets
When you select a Preset here, settings in the applicable sections in the rest
of the tab are automatically set.
Use these settings as a starting point for rendering your image at a given quality
and with a certain effect.
At higher quality settings, objects appear smooth, but may take more time to
render. At lower quality settings, objects may appear a little more jagged, but
render quickly.
Custom Lets you specify the hardware quality settings independently.
Number Of Samples Lets you select the exact number of samples per pixel
used to control the anti-aliasing of objects during rendering.
For software rendering, each pixel is sampled first in the center, then slightly
off center for subsequent samples. For hardware, each pixel is sampled in the
center. For subsequent samples, the image is then re-rendered slightly offset,
and each pixel is sampled in the center again. The images are then aligned to
produce the final image.
Frame buffer format A frame buffer is the video memory that holds the pixels
from which the video display (frame) is refreshed. Select the type of frame
buffer you want to use from the drop-down list:
Transparency sorting
The method by which sorting is performed prior to rendering to improve
transparency.
Per object
Transparent objects are sorted and drawn from furthest to closest in
distance. This option provides faster results buy may not render complex
transparent objects correctly.
Per polygon
Each object's polygons are sorted and drawn from furthest to closest in
distance from the viewer. This option provides more accurate transparency
representation but may take longer to process.
Color resolution
If hardware rendering cannot directly evaluate a shading network, the
shading network is baked to a 2D image that the hardware renderer can
use. This option specifies the dimension of the baked image for supported
mapped color channels on a material. Supported channels include color,
incandescence, ambient, reflected color, and transparency. The default
value is 128, which means that any baked color images have dimensions
128 by 128 pixels.
Texture compression
Enable or disable this option.
Disabled/Enabled
Texture compression can reduce memory usage by up to 75%, and may
increase draw performance. The algorithm used (DXT5) typically introduces
very little compression artifacts, so it's generally appropriate for a wide
range of textures.
Render Options
For more information about render layers and passes, see Render layer overview
on page 68 and Render passes on page 301.
Shading Model
Culling
Lets you control the type of culling used for rendering.
Per object The Culling option is based on the per object settings found in
the Render Stats section of the selected object’s Attribute Editor. The current
options are:
Double Sided renders double sided lighting with the current normals on the
object.
Single Sided renders with single sided lighting with the current normals on the
object.
Opposite renders with single sided lighting with the reversed normals on the
object.
All Double Sided Forces all objects to render using the All Double Sided
option, whether or not you set that option on the object. All Single Sided
offers better rendering performance than All Double Sided.
All Single Sided Forces all objects to render using the All Singled Sided options
whether or not you set that option on the object. If the Opposite suboption
is enabled then that suboption is used. All Single Sided offers better rendering
performance than All Double Sided.
Motion blur If this option is on, you can change Motion Blur by Frame option
and the Number of Exposures option.
Enable Geometry Mask For hardware rendering. When this option is turned
on, opaque geometry objects mask out particle objects, and transparent
geometry is not drawn. This is especially useful when compositing particles
over software-rendered geometry.
Blend Specular With Alpha Enable this option to avoid the specular appearing
as if it is floating on top of a surface. When this option is enabled, the specular
is multiplied with the alpha and the resulting highlight only appears on the
opaque surface and not the transparent surface.
Shadow linking You can reduce the rendering time required for your scene
by linking lights with surfaces so that only the specified surfaces are included
in the calculation of shadows (shadow linking) or illumination (light linking)
by a given light.
Use the drop-down list to select one of the three choices available with this
option:
The shadows in your scene can obey only one of light linking or shadow
linking and not both. Therefore, you must decide whether to incorporate light
linking or shadow linking in your scene and make your selection from the
drop-down list accordingly.
You can also render part of your scene using the default settings (instead of
obeying the links that you have created). Select Shadows Ignore Linking so
that all links that you have established or broken using shadow linking or
light linking are ignored.
The default is set to Shadows Obey Light Linking.
See Shadow linking for more information regarding shadow linking. See Light
linking for more information regarding light linking.
Frame Rate (SWF and SVG only) The frame rate of the Flash Player file or
SVG file (measured in frames per second).
Flash Version (SWF only) The version of the rendered Flash Player file: Flash
3, Flash 4, or Flash 5. The rendered Flash Player file plays back in any version
of the Flash Player (and import into any version of the Flash authoring
application) that is equal to or greater than the Flash Version.
NOTE When Flash Version is Flash 4, and Fill Style is Area Gradient or Mesh
Gradient, the rendered animation contains a dummy frame at its beginning. (This
is to compensate for a limitation in the Flash 4 authoring application.) After
importing your animation into the Flash 4 authoring application, delete this extra
frame.
Open in Browser (SWF only) Displays the vector image or animation in your
default browser after it is rendered (using Render > Render Current Frame,
Render > Batch Render, or mayaVectorRender).
NOTE You must have the Flash browser plug-in installed on your system in order
to display the rendered image or animation.
Combine Fills and Edges (SWF only) When Combine Fills and Edges is on,
outlines and fills for a surface are a single object. If you import the file into
the Flash authoring application, you cannot separate the outlines and fills
unless you break apart the object. However, the size of the rendered file is
smaller than when Combine Fills and Edges is off.
When Combine Fills and Edges is off, outlines and fills for a surface are separate
objects. If you import the file into the Flash authoring application, you can
separate the outlines and fills without breaking apart the object. However,
the size of the rendered file is larger than when Combine Fills and Edges is
on.
Svg Animation (SVG only) If Svg Animation is Native, Maya creates one SVG
file containing the frames of your animation and the scripting that drives it.
Compress (SVG only) Compresses the rendered SVG file, significantly reducing
its file size.
If you plan to publish the SVG file directly to the web, you may want to turn
on Compress. If you plan to import the SVG file into another application and
edit it, turn off Compress. You cannot edit a compressed SVG file.
Appearance Options
NOTE Adjusting the Curve Tolerance value may have no apparent effect on file
size when another setting (for example, Fill Style) is the dominant factor affecting
file size.
Secondary Curve Fitting Provides more control over the conversion of line
segments into curves by adding a second pass. Typically this results in more
linear segments converted to curves. While this option increases render time,
it can help produce better results and smaller files.
Detail Level Preset, Detail Level Determines the level of detail in the rendered
image. A High Detail Level (30) produces a more detailed image and a more
accurate render than a Low Detail Level (10), but takes longer to render and
NOTE
■ Doubling the Detail Level value produces twice as much detail in the
rendered image.
Fill Options
Fill Objects Surfaces are shaded based on the Fill Style. To render surfaces as
unfilled outlines, turn off Fill Objects and turn on Include Edges.
Fill Style The style of shading used to fill surfaces in the rendered image.
For all fill styles (except Single Color) the fill color is based on surface material
color and lighting from point lights only; all other types of lights are ignored.
If your scene does not contain point lights, a default point light (located at
the camera) is automatically created during rendering (and removed after
rendering).
NOTE Surface fills are re-calculated for each frame and may appear to change,
shift or jump during an animation.
Single Color Fills each surface with one solid color based on the surface
material color.
NOTE The Single Color fill color is actually based on the surface material color
and an ambient light (located at the camera) that is automatically created during
rendering (and removed after rendering). Therefore, the fill color may not exactly
match the surface material color. The fill color should not change during an
animation.
Two Color Fills each surface with two solid colors based on the surface material
color and on scene lighting.
Two Color produces results that look slightly more 3D than Single Color, but
also produces larger file sizes.
TIP For geometric objects that consist of many flat planes (for example, a cube),
Two Color may produce unnatural looking results (that is, each flat surface is filled
with two solid colors). For such objects Average Color is usually more appropriate.
Four Color Fills each surface with four solid colors based on the surface
material color and on scene lighting.
TIP For geometric objects that consist of many flat planes (for example, a cube),
Four Color may produce unnatural looking results (that is, each flat surface is filled
with four solid colors). For such objects Average Color is usually more appropriate.
Full Color Fills each polygon on a surface with one solid color based on the
surface material color and on scene lighting.
Full Color produces realistic 3D results, but also produces very large file sizes.
(The greater the number of polygons in your model, the greater the file size.)
TIP If you want to produce a high level of detail, and file size is not an issue, Mesh
Gradient usually produces better results than Full Color.
NOTE Full Color is the highest quality fill style available when rendering to AI and
EPS formats.
Average Color Fills each surface with one solid color based on the surface
material color and on scene lighting.
Area Gradient (SWF and SVG only) Fills each surface with one radial gradient
based on the surface material color and on scene lighting.
Area Gradient can produce nice 3D effects with a small increase in file size.
TIP
■ For scenes that contain faceted objects (objects composed of many distinctly
defined surfaces), Area Gradient produces very good results.
■ For scenes that contain a combination of flat and smooth surfaces, Area
Gradient produces a nice balance of fills. The smooth surfaces are filled
with gradients, and the flat surfaces are filled with a more even color.
■ For scenes that contain only smooth surfaces, Area Gradient may produce
an overwhelming number of gradient fills.
NOTE This option is only available when File Format is SWF or SVG.
Mesh Gradient (SWF and SVG only) Fills each polygon on a surface with a
linear gradient based on the surface material color and on scene lighting.
NOTE In certain rare situations shading may be incorrect when Fill Style is Mesh
Gradient. For example, a plane having a ramp texture applied to it may render
with an area of solid color. Try adjusting the texture very slightly and re-rendering.
Show Back Faces Surfaces with normals facing away from the camera are
rendered as if they were facing the camera. When Show Back Faces is off,
surfaces with normals facing away from the camera are not rendered.
NOTE Surfaces with normals facing away from the camera may not be visible,
even if Show Back Faces is on, if another surface is between it and the camera.
TIP Turning off Show Back Faces may decrease rendering times and file size.
Shadows (SWF and bitmap formats only) Object shadows are rendered
(based only on shadow-casting point lights in your scene). Shadows can greatly
enhance the 3D effect. However, shadows also increase file size and
significantly increase render time.
When Shadows is turned on, shadows are rendered for all objects. You cannot
render shadows only on certain objects (for example, by turning off Casts
Shadows or Receive Shadows for an object).
Shadows are only rendered if there is a shadow-casting point light in your
scene (that is, a point light that has Use Depth Map Shadows or Use Ray Trace
Shadows turned on).
NOTE
■ You cannot set the shadow color.
Regions of surfaces that are close to being perpendicular to a point light are
filled with a number of concentric solid color regions (based on surface material
Specular Color and on the Highlight Level value) that are lighter than the rest
of the surface.
For this material... Surface shininess is based only on...
Anisotropic Roughness
Blinn Eccentricity
Phong E Roughness
NOTE
■ This option is only available when Fill Style is Single Color, Average Color
or Area Gradient.
■ Highlights are only rendered if there is a point light in your scene that has
Emit Specular turned on.
Reflections (SWF and bitmap formats only) Surface reflections are rendered
(based on the surface material Reflectivity).
Reflection Depth (SWF and bitmap formats only) The maximum number
of times a surface can inter-reflect with other surfaces. The valid range is 1 to
4. The default value is 2.
Edge Options
Edge Weight Preset, Edge Weight The thickness of surface outlines (measured
in points).
NOTE When File Format is SWF, changes in Edge Weight less than 1 Point are not
noticeable unless you zoom into the outline.
Edge Style When Edge Style is Outlines, surface edges and silhouettes are
rendered as outlines. (Use Detail Edges to also render sharp polygon edges as
outlines.)
When Edge Style is Entire Mesh, all polygon edges are rendered as outlines.
Entire Mesh produces very large file sizes. (The greater the number of polygons
in your model, the greater the file size.)
Hidden Edges increases rendered file size because of the extra vector
information.
TIP If you are rendering a model with many polygons, avoid turning on Hidden
Edges and setting Edge Style to Entire Mesh; too many lines will likely appear in
the rendered image.
Edge Detail Sharp edges between polygons are rendered as outlines. The Min
Edge Angle controls which polygon edges are rendered as outlines.
Edge Detail can help define the shape of a 3D object, especially when the
object is composed of few surfaces, but also produces larger file sizes.
Outlines at Intersections When you turn this attribute on, an outline appears
along the point where two objects intersect. Use the Edge Priority setting to
resolve edge outline conflicts (when depth does not automatically do so). This
attribute is also located in the Render Settings, Maya Vector tab, in the Edge
Options section.
Min Edge Angle Determines which polygon edges are rendered as outlines
when Edge Detail is on. Min Edge Angle is the minimum angle (measured in
Render Optimizations
The Render Optimization setting specifies how the Vector renderer optimizes
the current frame to reduce file sizes. You can select one of the following types
of optimizations:
Safe Removes redundant geometry in areas of high detail, especially geometry
that is only visible by zooming in on the area. Redundant edges occur on the
at the intersection of the visible and invisible areas of the scene, and are always
safe to remove.
NOTE Using Aggressive optimization makes it possible to visibly detect the missing
geometry without zooming in on the area. It may also result in inconsistent
geometry (like unclosed shapes).
You can access the Create Render Passes window by selecting mental ray as
your renderer, then selecting the Passes tab, and clicking the New Pass
button.
Pass List Select, from the list, the render passes that you want to create. You
can multi-select render passes by shift-clicking or control-clicking.
All render pass presets that you have created are also available from this list.
Create Pass Set / Pass Set Name Select the Create Pass Set option to create a
new pass set. All render passes that you created simultaneously with the render
pass set are automatically associated with the set.
Create and Close / Create Click the Create and Close button to create the
selected render passes and close the Create Render Passes window. Click the
Create button to keep the Create Render Passes window open and create
multiple versions of the selected passes.
The Custom Stereo Editor is used when you want to create a custom stereocopic
camera rig with MEL or Python scripting.
Modifying existing rigs - displays all the editable rigs you’ve created in the
scene.
Registering a new rig - creates a new rig for the scene. Enter in the Custom
Rig Name, select the type of Language used: MEL/Python from the drop down
menu and the enter the procedure you want to occur for the rig. Click Add
New Rig to create the new rig.
File menu
Open Image Loads one image from disk into Render View. Images usually
end with suffixes indicating their image format.
Save Image Saves the image to disk in the /images directory (as specified by
your current project management settings).
Open IPR File Opens the file browser to the iprImages directory from where
you can open a saved IPR file into Render View.
NOTE Make sure the IPR file you load corresponds to the current scene file. If the
name of a surface in the IPR file does not match a corresponding surface in the
current scene, you are unable to adjust the shading characteristics of that surface.
Save IPR File Saves the current IPR file to the iprImages directory.
Close IPR File Closes the IPR file on which you are working and ends the
current IPR session.
Render Diagnostics The Script Editor window appears providing you with
valuable information about how to improve performance or avoid certain
limitations. You can run the diagnostics while experimenting with different
settings, or before you start final rendering.
Keep Image in Render View Keeps the current image so you can view it later
and compare it against newly rendered images. When you keep more than
one image, a slider displays at the bottom of the window letting you bring a
specific image into view without loading the image. The images are lost when
you end your Maya session.
Remove Image from Render View Dismisses the current image (and the
memory needed by it) from Render View. Select the image that you want to
remove using the slider.
Remove All Images from Render View Dismisses all images (and the memory
these images need) from Render View so that only the most recently rendered
image remains.
If you are viewing one of the saved images in the Render View window, this
option still removes all saved images, including the currently displayed image.
View menu
Frame Image Frames the image you are rendering to fit Render View.
Frame Region Frames the region you marquee to fit Render View.
Real Size Automatically adjusts the view so the zoom factor is 1.0, and each
pixel of the image occupies one pixel on the display.
Reset Region Marquee Resets the render region marquee to surround the
entire image.
Redo Previous Render Renders the same view you last rendered. If you
rendered a region the last time, Redo Previous Render renders the entire image.
Render Region When you draw a marquee around an area in Render View,
select this option to render only that area. This is useful if you’ve made a
change to part of the surface on which you want to perform a quick test render.
Composite and Keep Layers Renders all your layers as individual images, but
displays a composited result.
Render Selected Objects Only Allows you to render only specified objects.
Select the objects that you wish to render and choose this option. This was
formerly the "Renderable Objects" option in the Common tab of the Render
Settings window.
Render
Snapshot Does not work when IPR rendering. Opens a menu from which you
can choose the view. A wireframe snapshot is taken of the view you select and
loaded as a background into Render View. You can then marquee a region to
render in front of the snapshot’s background and select the Render Region
icon.
TIP Zoom into the view you select if you want to see the results up close.
IPR menu
IPR Render Opens a menu, from which you can choose the view to IPR render.
Update Shadow Maps Regenerates shadow maps and updates the IPR image.
You cannot interactively adjust shadow maps.
Refresh IPR Image Completely updates (re-shades) the entire image based
on all changes you have made. The refresh occurs a bit at a time because
loading all samples for the entire image often uses too much memory.
IPR Quality
Selects quality settings for the IPR.
Preview If selected, a good balance between quality and time is achieved.
Preview Raytrace If selected, the IPR quality is slightly better than the IPR
quality in the Preview setting due to Raytracing.
Render Settings If selected, the quality presets specified in the Render Settings
Window are used.
Update Shader Glow If on, the IPR image updates whenever you adjust a
shader glow (post-process) attribute.
Update Light Glow If on, the IPR image updates whenever you adjust lighting
or light glow attributes, or move a light.
Update 2D Motion Blur If on, the IPR image updates whenever you adjust
2D motion blur attributes. Modifying the scene’s animation (for example, to
make an object move faster and increase the blur) does not affect the IPR
image’s motion blur because modifying the animation changes the information
that was generated during the initial IPR render (motion vectors are changed),
which is a change to the visibility calculation. You have to perform a new IPR
render to see the results.
Pause IPR Tuning Pauses the updating of the selected IPR region in the Render
View.
Options menu
Some menu items are renderer specific. For example, the Ignore Shadows
menu item does not appear for Maya hardware rendering.
Render Settings Opens the Render Settings window on page 376 when
test-rendering (not IPR).
Render using Select the type of renderer you use to render the image: Maya
Software, Maya Hardware, Maya Vector, mental ray.
Test Resolution Select the resolution at which you want to render the image.
Use a reduced resolution to test render the scene if possible. See also Test
render a low-res still or frame on page 127 or Test render a low-res animation
on page 128
Auto Resize Allows Render View to resize the image each time you render.
When on, always displays the rendered image in the center of Render View,
and at real size if the image fits (one to one pixel matching). When off, the
image always displays in the same place according to the last view.
Auto Render Region When on, renders the image as soon as you finish
dragging a marquee in Render View. This can make rendering a region a
Ignore Shadows Tells Maya not to test render any shadows in the scene. This
can speed up test rendering.
Ignore Glows Tells Maya not to test render any glows in the scene. This can
speed up test rendering.
Display menu
Red Channel, Green Channel, Blue Channel Displays the red, green, or blue
channels only.
Stereo Display
After you have rendered your scene using the stereo camera (by selecting
Render > Render > stereoRig), you can view your render output in different
stereo modes such as Anaglyph and Freeview (Parallel), or, from only the left
or right camera. For more information regarding the stereo modes, see Stereo
on page 358.
Render Info
Select the type(s) of render information you want displayed in the Render
View.
Frame Number Displays the frame number of the image.
Render Time Displays the time it took to render the image, for example 0:05
(five seconds).
Camera Name Displays the name of the camera used to render the image.
Layer Name If the scene has render layers, the name of the layer used in the
image is displayed.
Dithered Turn off Dithered to display the best version of a image. Turn on
Dithered to display a dithered image (does not flicker when displayed).
Dithered is on by default.
Renders the same view you rendered last. If you rendered a region the last
time, Redo Previous Render renders the entire image.
Right-click this button to select a camera. All cameras, default and user-defined,
are available.
Render Region
Renders only the region with a marquee. This is useful if you’ve made a change
to part of the surface on which you want to perform a quick test render. See
Render a region of your scene on page 130 for details.
Snapshot
Opens a menu from which you can choose the view. A wireframe snapshot
is taken of the view you select and loaded as a background into Render View.
Completely updates the entire image based on all changes you have made.
The refresh occurs a bit at a time—loading all the samples for the entire image
may use large amounts of memory.
Displays the image with RGB channels. This is the default display mode.
Right-click this button to select individual channels. Each channel has a
corresponding icon:
Channel Icon
RGB Channels
Red
Green
Blue
Luminance
Displays the image’s alpha channel only. See Use Background and Matte
Opacity for a few examples of how the alpha channel is used.
Displays the image at its exact pixel resolution. See also Test render a low-res
still or frame on page 127.
Keep Image
Keeps the current image so you can view it later. When you keep more than
one image, a slider displays at the bottom of the window. Drag this slider to
view a previously “kept” image.
NOTE The stored (“kept”) images are lost when you end your Maya session.
Right-click the icon to select either the Remove Current Image or Remove All
Images option.
These options can also be selected via the File > Remove Image from Render
View and File > Remove All Images from Render View menus in the Render
View window. See Render View menu bar on page 472 for more information.
Remove Current Image Releases the current image (and the memory it uses)
from Render View. Select the image you want to remove using the slider at
the bottom of the window.
Remove All Images Releases all images (and the memory these images use)
from Render View so that only the most recently rendered image remains.
If you are viewing one of the saved images in the Render View window, this
option still removes all saved images, including the currently displayed image.
Only the most recently rendered image is kept.
TIP Only “kept” images can be removed. If you are viewing a newly rendered
image in the Render View window that has not been kept, selecting this option
will display an error message that the current image cannot be removed.
Renderer Select a renderer from the drop-down list: Maya Software, Maya
Hardware, Maya Vector, mental ray and any additional 3rd party renderers
you have installed.
Pauses the updating of the selected IPR region in the Render View.
Closes the current IPR file and ends the current IPR session.
Rendering Flags
Click the down arrow to display the Show menu, then select an item or items
for which you want a list of attributes.
The attributes for these items are listed in the right panel where you can change
and set them, much like in the Channel Box.
The Rendering Flags window contains two panels. The left panel lists the items
you select from the Show menu, and the right panel lists the attributes for
the selected items. In the left panel, click the list item for which you want to
change or set the attributes and the details display in the right panel.
1 You can change or set attributes for several related objects by selecting
them in the left panel, and setting the attribute value in the right panel.
For example, if you want to turn the visibility off for two NURBS spheres
in the scene, select both spheres from the left panel and type off beside
Visibility in the right panel.
Once you change an attribute for a selected item, the heading changes
color in the list reminding you of the change.
NOTE The Hardware renderer, with its greater capabilities, is now recommended
to perform hardware rendering. See Maya Hardware renderer on page 5.
The Hardware Render Buffer lets you render an animation using your
computer’s display graphics card. Hardware rendering is much faster than
software rendering, although the result may be of lower quality. You can use
the Hardware Render Buffer to preview animations, or to render specific types
of particle effects.
Render Sequence will not render particles successfully if the Render Passes and
“Motion Blur” options (found in the Multi-Pass Render Options section of the
Hardware Render Buffer Attribute section) are equivalent integers. For example,
if Render Passes is set to 3 and Motion Blur is set to 3, hardware particle
rendering will not work.
Set them to non-equivalent values or to use the Disk Cache option (Solvers >
Create Particle Disk Cache).
NOTE When the overscan attribute of the camera is anything other than 1.0,
image planes are positioned incorrectly in the hardware render buffer (as can be
seen compared to the correct placement in software rendering).
To work around this limitation, temporarily set the overscan to 1.0 when
hardware buffer rendering.
NOTE On Mac OS X, the Hardware Render Buffer does not open in a panel;
the panel is blank when you select it.
1 In the Hardware Render Buffer, click Render > Attributes. For a description
of the options, see Hardware Render Buffer menus on page 491.
1 In the Shading menu in the view panel, make sure Smooth Shade All and
Hardware Texturing are selected.
NOTE
■ You can only view one channel at a time.
4 Select the resolution you want from the Texture resolution menu.
1 Select the sequence from the Flipbooks menu. The sequence is displayed
using the Fcheck utility.
Filename The base name for all hardware rendered image files. The default
file name is im.
Extension The format of the extension(s) added to the base name for all
rendered image files. Options with ext include the Image Format in the
extension. The default setting is name.001.
Start Frame, End Frame The first and last frame to render. The default value
for Start Frame is 1. The default value for End Frame is 10.
Image Format The format for saving hardware rendered image files. The
default setting is Maya IFF.
Resolution The resolution of hardware rendered image files. Click the Select
button to select a preset image resolution.
Alpha Source The type of alpha information saved with the hardware rendered
images. Alpha information represents the opacity of each pixel, and is used
for compositing images using compositor software. (Alpha information is also
referred to as alpha channel, mask, matte, or alpha buffer.) If you do not plan
to composite hardware rendered images, set Alpha Source Off. The default
setting is Off.
Write ZDepth If Write ZDepth is on, the hardware rendered contains depth
information (the distance of objects from the camera). Write ZDepth is off by
default.
Render Modes
Lighting Mode
Controls how objects are lit during hardware rendering. The default setting
is Default Light.
Default Light A default directional light illuminates the scene in the direction
that the camera faces.
Selected Lights The lights in the scene that you’ve selected (for example, in
the Outliner) illuminate the scene.
Draw Style
Controls how objects are hardware rendered. (If Geometry Mask is on, Draw
Style has no effect.) The default setting is Smooth Shaded.
Points NURBS surfaces are rendered as points evenly spaced along surface,
polygonal surfaces are rendered as points (corresponding to vertices), and
particles are rendered as points.
Line Smoothing If on, sharp, jagged edges on surfaces and streaks on Streak
or MultiStreak particles are softened. Line Smoothing is off by default.
Geometry Mask When off, surfaces are hardware rendered. When on, Maya
masks out all geometry by setting the mask values to 0. Pixels of the rendered
image belonging to any geometry have a zero opacity in the image’s alpha
channel. Geometry Mask is off by default.
Display Shadows Turn this on to display shadows from directional and spot
lights for geometry (NURBS, polygons, subdivision surfaces) and particles
(points, multipoints, and spheres only). This is available only when All Lights
or Selected Lights are specified in the Lighting Mode drop-down list.
Multi Pass Rendering If off, the Hardware Render Buffer renders each frame
using one pass. If on, the Hardware Render Buffer renders each frame using
more than one pass (based on the Render Passes setting, next). This softens
or blurs particles with a MultiStreak or MultiPoint Render Type. Multi Pass
Rendering is off by default.
Render Passes The number of passes the Hardware Render Buffer uses to
render each frame. The more passes per frame, the greater the softening or
blurring of particles with a MultiStreak or MultiPoint Render Type (and a
longer rendering time). Render Passes is only available if Multi Pass Rendering
is on. The default setting is 3.
TIP If the Motion Blur value is greater than 0, set the Render Passes value to at
least the Motion Blur value minus 1. For example, if the Motion Blur value is 4,
set the Render Passes value to at least 3.
Edge Smoothing Controls how much sharp, jagged surface edges are softened
(anti-aliased) during hardware rendering when Anti-Alias Polygons is on. The
higher the value, the softer the edges.
Set Edge Smoothing to 1 for clear, smooth edges. If Edge Smoothing is too
large (for example, 5), surface edges are excessively blurred. An Edge Smoothing
value of 0 has the same effect as turning off Anti-Alias Polygons. The default
value is 1.
Motion Blur Controls how much objects are motion blurred. The higher the
Motion Blur value, the greater the motion blur effect. A Motion Blur value of
0 means no motion blur. A value of 0.5 means the shutter is open for half the
frame duration. The default value is 0.
TIP If the Motion Blur value is greater than 0, set the Render Passes value to at
least the Motion Blur value minus 1. (For example, if the Motion Blur value is 4,
set the Render Passes value to at least 3.)
Controls which icons are hardware rendered, and the background color for
hardware rendered images.
Grid If on, the grid is hardware rendered. Grid is off by default.
Camera Icons If on, any camera icons visible in the Hardware Render Buffer
are rendered. Camera Icons is off by default.
Light Icons If on, any light icons visible in the Hardware Render Buffer are
rendered. Light Icons is off by default.
Emitter Icons If on, any emitter icons visible in the Hardware Render Buffer
are rendered. Emitter Icons is off by default.
Field Icons If on, any field icons visible in the Hardware Render Buffer are
rendered. Field Icons is off by default.
Collision Icons If on, any collision icons visible in the Hardware Render Buffer
are rendered. Collision Icons is off by default.
Transform Icons If on, any transform icons (from the translate, rotate, or
scale tools) visible in the Hardware Render Buffer are rendered. Transform
Icons is off by default.
Background Color The background color for hardware rendered images. The
default color is black.
TIP If you plan to composite hardware rendered images, set the Background Color
to black.
Contains the Close option. Either click the box at the top right of the window
or select this option to close the Hardware Render Buffer window.
Render menu
Scale Buffer Scales the size of the Hardware Render Buffer so the rendered
image is 100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, or 10% of the Resolution.
TIP
■ Set Scale Buffer to 100% for the final render.
■ Scaling down the size of the rendered image decreases the amount of
rendering time required and increases the speed of playback.
■ A dimmed Scale Buffer option (percentage) means that the rendered image
would either be too large to display on the screen, or too small to see
adequately.
Time Slider Displays the time slider and transport controls at the bottom of
the Hardware Render Buffer. Click to turn the Time Slider at the bottom of
the window on or off.
TIP In the Hardware Render Buffer window, Render > Attributes... window,
unsupported image file formats appear in the Image Format drop-down list. The
following are the supported image file formats: Tiff, Tiff16, SGI, MayaIFF, JPEG,
Maya16IFF, Targa, Windows Bitmap, MacPaint, Photoshop, PNG, QuickDraw, and
Quick Time Image.
When you select another (unsupported) format from the drop-down list, Maya
renders the image as an .iff file.
The view in the Hardware Render Buffer is actually a copy of the corresponding
camera view. For example, if the camera view displays the resolution gate, the
Hardware Render Buffer view also displays the resolution gate.
The Cameras menu contains a list of all cameras in the scene. Select a camera
view by selecting it from the Cameras menu. For example, if you select camera
1, the Hardware Render Buffer displays the view as seen from the camera. If
side, it displays the side view.
You can select and move objects in the Hardware Render Buffer view just as
you would in a regular view. You can also adjust the camera in the Hardware
Render Buffer using the Alt (Linux and Windows) or Option (Mac OS X) key
and the left, middle or right mouse buttons.
When you playback an animation in the Hardware Render Buffer, it also plays
back in the corresponding view. To make an animation play back only in the
Hardware Render Buffer, click anywhere in the Hardware Render Buffer view
while the animation is playing.
IMPORTANT
Make sure nothing on the screen covers any part of the Hardware Render
Buffer during rendering. (Hardware rendering uses screen captures to create
rendered frames.)
Flipbooks menu
The Flipbooks menu contains the list of sequences you rendered in the
Hardware Render Buffer (if you selected Render Sequence from the Render
menu) as well as the Clear Flipbook Menu option and Flipbook Flags.
Flipbook Options
These options control how sequences of images rendered from the Hardware
Render Buffer are displayed.
Options
Flipbook Flags Displays the Flipbook Options window. This option in available
for only Linux and Windows.
See also “fcheck” in the Rendering Utilities online documentation for
information on fcheck options.
The time slider and transport controls in the Hardware Render Buffer are
similar to the time slider and transport controls in the main Maya window.
Find this section in each render layer’s Attribute Editor. Right-click the desired
layer and select Attributes from the right-mouse menu to display the render
layer’s Attribute Editor.
Renderable Determines whether the select layer is renderable. When a layer is
rendered, it is processed into a final image or image sequence.
Global Converts the selected layer into a Global layer. A Global layer is a render
layer that does not have membership. Instead it contains all the objects in the
scene. By converting a layer into Global, all the objects in your scene
automatically appears in the layer.
A sample application of this attribute is if you have created a model and wanted
to test different colors for the model. For example, if you have modeled a car,
and wanted to test out different colors of paint, you can create five global layers,
and in the Attribute Editor for the shader, override the color attribute for each
paint color and then batch render all layers.
Number Render layer index number. Use this attribute to merge layers when
importing files with render layers. You can choose to merge by layer name or
layer number. Set your layer number in this field.
You can also merge layers when importing files with display layers. See Display
Layer editor in the Basics guide for more information.
497
Member Overrides
Casts Shadows Turns on the shadow casting ability of the surface. To make
shadows render faster, for surfaces that do not need to cast shadows, turn off
Casts Shadows. Consider the following:
■ If you want the object’s shadow to render—the shadow the object casts
onto other objects—make sure Casts Shadows is on.
■ If you do not want the object’s shadow to render—the shadow the object
casts onto other objects—turn Casts Shadows off.
NOTE
■ If you render shadows separately, use the mask channel of the rendered
shadow image in your compositing software to reduce the brightness
of another image.
■ When you render from the Render View window, you can render only
the selected objects by selecting Render>Render Selected Objects Only.
Receive Shadows
Turns on the shadow-catching ability of the surface.
Motion Blur
Turns on motion blur for the surface. You must also turn on Motion Blur
in the Render Settings window on page 376.
Primary Visibility
When on, the surface is visible in the view and renders.
TIP A surface’s shadow renders, however, if its Primary Visibility is off and Cast
Shadows is on. This also applies to reflections and refractions.
Smooth shading
If this is on, each vertex uses its own normal vector - meaning smoother
transition between two faces. If this is off, one normal vector is used for a
face; 3 vertices in a triangle uses a same normal vector, resulting flat looking
shading.
Visible In Refractions
When on, the surface refracts in transparent surfaces. This is supported by
mental ray for Maya.
Visible In Reflections
Double Sided
Determines if the surface is double-sided. If single-sided, you can decrease
memory use and use the Opposite option.
Opposite
Opposite flips the surface normals. Double-Sided must be off to set Opposite.
Depth Jitter
If you set Volume Sample Override on, you can turn on Depth Jitter option.
Randomizes the samples of the volume with depth which replaces banding
artifacts in volume renders with noise. The noise can be dramatically
reduced by increasing the volume samples and anti-aliasing levels.
Level
Select one of the following options:
Level 1
The default. It takes 32 visibility samples.
Level 2
Takes 96 visibility samples.
Level 3
Takes 288 visibility samples.
Level 4
Takes 512 visibility samples.
Level 5
Takes 800 visibility samples. Level 5 gives the best edge anti aliasing quality,
but it is also the most expensive (in both memory and speed).
TIP
■ Occasionally, when an object is moving, the object’s textured edges
look distorted. To resolve this, try increasing the number of Max
Shading Samples.
Level
Sets the number of visibility samples for the layer override.
Level
For a description of each render pass, see Render passes on page 301.
Select this option to render a global illumination pass for this layer. For more
information on global illumination, see Global illumination.
Use this node to set your options for your render pass.
Render Pass Options
Renderable Select this option to set the render pass as renderable. When set
as renderable, the render pass (frame buffer) is defined in mental ray and
written to disk upon rendering completion.
Type Select the desired render pass type from the drop-down list.
Numbers of Channels Set the number of channels for your render pass output.
Some render passes support all types of channels, while some others only
support a limited number of channels.
Frame Buffer Type Select the framebuffer type from the drop-down list.
Filtering Enable this option to use the same filter settings as selected in the
Render Settings window. This option should be enabled in most cases.
Pass Group Name Use this attribute to sort your render passes into logical
file groups. The pass group name that you enter in this field is appended to
the image file name when you include the <RenderPassFileGroup> render
token in your File name prefix attribute in the File Output section in the
Render Settings: Common tab on page 377.
A render pass node may also have several of the following attributes, depending
on the pass type:
NOTE The terms hidden and visible refer to whether or not an object is associated
with the pass through one or more pass contribution maps.
Use Transparency When this option is disabled, all objects in the scene turn
opaque.
Holdout Allows hidden objects to occlude. This option is useful for some
compositing workflows.
Min Reflection Level / Max Reflection Level The minimum and maximum
number of times a light ray can be reflected. The maximum value is clamped
by the Max Trace Depth value set in the Render Settings window, Quality tab.
Min Refraction Level / Max Refraction Level The minimum and maximum
number of times a light ray can be refracted. The maximum value is clamped
by the Max Trace Depth value set in the Render Settings window, Quality tab.
The Normalized 2D Motion Vector pass node also includes these attributes:
Min. Disp. Range / Max. Disp. Range Specify how the motion vector should
be remapped. For example, the default is 0 for the minimum and 1 for the
maximum, with a maximum displacement of 256. Therefore, any value less
than 0 is remapped to 0. Any value greater than 256 is remapped to 1, and a
displacement of 128 is remapped to 0.5.
The Camera Depth pass node also includes these attributes: Near clipping
plane / Far clipping plane, and Minimum buffer value and Maximum buffer
value.
Use the attributes to normalize the camera depth value. For example, using
the default values, any value less than 0 is normalized to 0 and any value
greater than 1000 is normalized to 1. Alternatively, you can also use these
attributes to clip objects out of the scene. You must enable the Remap Depth
Values option in order for the near and far clipping planes and minimum and
maximum buffer values to take effect.
A pass contribution map associates a subset of the lights and renderable objects
in the scene to one or more render passes. When rendering a given render
layer, only the pass contribution maps linked to the layer are applied. Render
passes that are not connected to any objects through pass contribution maps
are implicitly associated to all objects.
Pass Contribution Map Options
Active Enable this attribute to use the pass contribution map.
Open Render Settings Click this button to open the Render Settings window.
Use this attribute if you want to use mental ray derivatives for NURBS and
subdivision surfaces (to interact with shaders), instead of the default mental
ray for Maya derivatives.
Create this attribute on the shape node as follows:
addAttr -ln "miDerivatives" -at "enum" -en "none:first:second:both"
-dv 0 pSphereShape1;
■ 0 = no derivatives
Use this attribute to specify how much to offset a ray from the geometry. Ray
Offset is useful in scenes with raytraced self-shadowing artifacts.
Create this attribute on the shape node as follows:
addAttr -ln miRayOffset -at "float" -dv 0.0 pSphereShape1;
This attribute is often used to help resolve shading artifacts such as the
tessellation that appears in shadows or raytracing effects.
Find this section in some selected objects' transform node Attribute Editor.
Flags
Use these flags to override your global settings.
Derive From Maya Select this option to follow the global settings in the
Render Settings window.
Visible Use this flag to control the visibility of the selected object.
Trace Use this flag to turn raytracing on or off for the selected object.
Shadow Use this flag to enable or disable shadows for the selected object.
Caustic Use this flag to enable or disable caustics for the selected object.
Render Proxy
Renderable
If you are using render proxies to manage your scene, use this option to set
your render proxy as renderable so that it is rendered instead of your base
geometry.
This is a per instance flag. Therefore, if you have five instances of your base
geometry, and you only want to replace three of them with your render proxy,
you can use this flag to set the three instances as Renderable.
Render proxies allow for more efficient renders. Using this flag, you can choose
not to load and render complex geometry that you do not need in your scene.
For more information regarding render proxies, see Using render proxies in
your scene on page 242.
Geometry Shader
Enable Geometry Shader Use this option to override your geometry with a
mental ray geometry shader or a user defined mental ray shader.
mental ray
Find this section in the selected object’s shape node. Expand the mental ray
section of the shape node’s Attribute Editor to see these options.
The following options are on by default: Visible In Transparency, Transmit
Transparency, Trace Reflection, Transmit Refraction, Final Gather Cast, and
Final Gather Receive.
Trace Reflection Uncheck this option so that reflection rays stop immediately
after they hit the object instead of bouncing in a scene several times.
Final Gather Cast Uncheck this option so that object does not contribute
any light to final gather.
Final Gather Receive Uncheck this option so that object does not receive any
final gather light.
NOTE Areas surrounding the selected object may appear darkened or shadowed
even if both Final Gather Cast and Final Gather Receive are unchecked for the
object. This effect occurs because although the object does not contribute any
light to final gather, final gather rays still hit the object and interpret the object
as dark.
Render Proxy
Select your render proxy .mi file to render your render proxy instead of your
base geometry placeholder.
For each instance of your base geometry, you can make the selection between
rendering the base geometry or replacing it with the render proxy. Use the
per-instance Renderable flag. See Renderable on page 506for more information.
Update the placeholder object with only the render proxy bounding box
attributes but not the render proxy geometry.
Update the placeholder object with only the render proxy geometry but not
the render proxy bounding box attributes.
None
Anti-aliasing Sampling Override Use the Min Sample Level and Max Sample
Level attributes to set the range of samples used for the selected object. Note
that the min and max sample level values set for each object are bound by
the global min and max sample level values. See Anti-Aliasing Quality on page
416 for more information regarding the global sample level values.
Min Sample Level This is the object specific minimum number of samples
per pixel used when processing an image. This value is clamped to the global
min sample level value. For example, if the object specific min sample level
is set to -1 and the global min sample level is set to 1, then the global setting
of 1 will be used. Based on the Anti-aliasing Contrast on page 418 (adaptive)
settings, mental ray for Maya will increase these samples as needed.
Max Sample Level This is the object specific maximum number of samples
per pixel used when processing an image. This value is clamped to the global
max sample level value. For example, if the object specific max sample level
Final Gather Override When on, the object overrides the global final gather
settings that you have set in the Render Settings window.
Final Gather Rays Controls how many rays are shot in each final gathering
step to compute the indirect illumination. The default is 1000 per sample
point, but this tends to be high for test renders (renders can take hours). Test
rendering at lower values, usually 100 or 200, is sufficient; higher values are
required for final renders. Increasing the value reduces noise but also increases
the rendering time.
Min Radius, Max Radius Max Radius and Min Radius control the size of the
sampling region within which Final Gather rays search for irradiance
information from other surfaces.
With the default values, Maya calculates values that seem appropriate based
on scene dimensions to speed up the render, but this calculation doesn’t allow
for complex geometry. Generally, enter a value that is 10% of scene’s overall
dimension for the Max Radius, then enter 0.0 for Min Radius. Make further
adjustments based on scene geometry detail, how the geometry is arranged
in the scene, and how the render looks. For example, use smaller radii to
achieve better detailing in nooks and crannies in your scene.
View (Radii in Pixel Size) This option causes the Min Radius and Max Radius
of final gather rays to be calculated in pixel size, rather than in object space.
This allows you to set the visual quality in pixel size, without knowing the
object or scene bounds.
Filter Use this to control how Final Gather uses a speckle elimination filter
to prevent samples with extreme brightness from skewing the overall energy
stored in a Final Gather sampling region.
Neighboring samples are filtered so that extreme values are discarded in the
filter size. By default, the filter size is 1. Setting this to 0 disables speckle
elimination, which can add speckles but will better converge towards the
correct total image brightness for extremely low accuracy settings. Size values
greater than 1 eliminate more speckles and soften sample contrasts. Sizes
greater than 4 or so are not normally useful.
Global Illumination Override When on, the object overrides the global
global illumination settings that you have set in the Render Settings window.
Global Illum Radius Controls the maximum distance at which mental ray
for Maya considers photons for global illumination. When left at 0 (the
default), mental ray for Maya calculates an appropriate amount of radius,
based on the bounding box size of the scene. If the result is too noisy,
increasing this value (to 1 to start, then by small increments up to 2) decreases
noise but gives a more blurry result. To reduce the blur, you must increase the
number of global illumination photons (Global illumination Accuracy) emitted
by the light source.
Caustics Override When on, the object overrides the global caustics settings
that you have set in the Render Settings window.
Caustic Accuracy Controls the number of photons used to estimate the caustic
brightness. The default is 64. Higher settings (up to 100 to start, tested in small
increments) larger numbers make the caustic smoother.
Caustic Radius Controls the maximum distance at which mental ray for Maya
considers photons for caustics. When left at 0 (the default), mental ray for
Maya calculates an appropriate amount of radius, based on the bounding box
size of the scene. If the result is too noisy, increasing this value (to 1 to start,
then by small increments up to 2) decreases noise but gives a more blurry
result. To reduce the blur, you must increase the number of caustic photons
(Caustic Accuracy) emitted by the light source.
Override Maximum Displace When on, the object overrides the global Max
Displace settings that you have set in the Render Settings window.
Render Stats
Find this section in some selected objects’ Attribute Editor, from the Attribute
Spread Sheet (Window > General Editors > Attribute Spread Sheet) or the
Rendering Flags window (Window > Rendering Editors > Rendering Flags).
The Render Stats section lets you turn on or off various rendering options for
selected objects.
NOTE Render Stats for IBL (image-based lighting) nodes are described in Image
based lighting node attributes in the Lighting guide.
Casts Shadows Turns on the shadow casting ability of the surface. To make
shadows render faster, for surfaces that do not need to cast shadows, turn off
Casts Shadows. Consider the following:
■ If you want the object’s shadow to render—the shadow the object casts
onto other objects—make sure Casts Shadows is on.
■ If you do not want the object’s shadow to render—the shadow the object
casts onto other objects—turn Casts Shadows off.
NOTE
■ If you render shadows separately, use the mask channel of the rendered
shadow image in your compositing software to reduce the brightness
of another image.
■ When you render from the Render View window, you can render only
the selected objects by selecting Render>Render Selected Objects Only.
Receive Shadows
Turns on the shadow-catching ability of the surface.
Motion Blur
Turns on motion blur for the surface. You must also turn on Motion Blur
in the Render Settings window on page 376.
Primary Visibility
TIP A surface’s shadow renders, however, if its Primary Visibility is off and Cast
Shadows is on. This also applies to reflections and refractions.
Smooth Shading
If this is on, each vertex uses its own normal vector - meaning smoother
transition between two faces. If this is off, one normal vector is used for a
face; 3 vertices in a triangle uses a same normal vector, resulting flat looking
shading.
Visible In Reflections
When on, the surface reflects in reflective surfaces. This is supported by
mental ray for Maya.
Visible In Refractions
When on, the surface refracts in transparent surfaces. This is supported by
mental ray for Maya.
Double Sided
Determines if the surface is double-sided. If single-sided, you can decrease
memory use and use the Opposite option.
Opposite
Opposite flips the surface normals. Double-Sided must be off to set Opposite.
Antialiasing Level
Select one of the following options:
Level 1
The default. It takes 32 visibility samples.
Level 2
Takes 96 visibility samples.
Level 3
Takes 288 visibility samples.
Level 4
Takes 512 visibility samples.
Level 5
Shading Samples
Sets the minimum number of times Maya samples each pixel. For example,
if set to 1, Maya samples each pixel once; if set to 8, Maya samples each
pixel 8 times. The number of shading samples taken per pixel is limited
by the number of visibility samples performed by the Edge Anti-Aliasing
computation. So, if you use Medium Quality (which performs 8 visibility
samples per pixel), you cannot get more than 8 shading samples regardless
of the Shading Samples attribute setting.
Since Shading Samples computation is very expensive, you should try
adjusting the Max Shading Samples first. See Max Shading Samples on
page 513.
TIP
■ Occasionally, when an object is moving, the object’s textured edges
look distorted. To resolve this, try increasing the number of Max
Shading Samples.
NOTE The following attributes are only applicable to volume primitives and
fluid shapes. They only appear in the Attribute Editor of the shape node of a
volume primitive or fluid shape.
Volume samples
Adjusts the number of samples placed inside the fog volume.
Depth Jitter
If you set Volume Sample Override on, you can turn on Depth Jitter option.
Randomizes the samples of the volume with depth which replaces banding
artifacts in volume renders with noise. The noise can be dramatically
reduced by increasing the volume samples and anti-aliasing levels.
3D Motion Blur
Max Visibility Samples Override / Max Visib Samples Override, for the
selected shape node, the global maximum number of motion blur visibility
samples to be taken for surfaces during rendering.
Find these attributes under the Smooth Mesh section and Subdivision Levels
sub-section on the polyShape node for the selected mesh.
Use Preview Level for Rendering / Render Division Levels You can set up
a smooth preview in the 3D viewport and then render it.
The division level controls the number of times the original version of the
mesh is subdivided. The slider range is between 0 and 4. A value of 0 indicates
no smoothing, in other words, rendering the hull, while a value of 4 is the
highest smoothing within the range of the slider. You can input values higher
than 4, up to a maximum of 7, in the text field. You should exercise caution
when tweaking this attribute, however, because each time you increase the
level, you multiply the number of quads by 4.
By default, the same division level is used for both preview and render. To use
a different Render Division Level from the Preview Division Level, unselect
the Use Preview Level for Rendering option and use the Render Division Levels
slider or text field to enter the desired division level for your render.
■ In order to obtain smooth render effects, you must enable the Export
Triangulated Polygons option in the Render Settings: mental ray tabs,
Options tab on page 444 under the Translation section and Performance
sub-section.
Outlines At Intersections When you turn this attribute on, an outline appears
along the point where two objects intersect. Use the Edge Priority setting to
resolve edge outline conflicts (when depth does not automatically do so). This
attribute is also located in the Render Settings, Maya Vector tab, in the Edge
Options section.
Edge Priority The Edge Priority value determines which outline style is
rendered at the intersection when the intersecting objects have different
outline style settings, or when edges come very close to intersecting.
Typically, if objects are at differing depths, the edge priority makes no
difference because the object that is closer to the camera supersedes, and its
outline style is rendered. This setting is useful when the depth of the objects
are the same, or very close. In this situation, the edge priority can determine
which object’s outline style is rendered. The higher the value, the higher its
priority.
Texture Map
Find this section in the Attribute Editor for NURBS, under the shape node.
Provides you with various adjustable attributes as well as a way to fix texture
warp on objects with 2D textures. This is especially useful, for example, waving
fabric, like a flag.
Fix Texture Warp The Texture Map attributes only apply to NURBS surfaces.
NOTE Convert to File Texture does not support Fix Texture Warp If the surface
uses Fix Texture Warp, it is ignored when converting the material.
If you are rendering in mental ray for Maya, Fix Texture Warp may use
significant memory and result in large .mi output file size. In addition, you
may notice that rendered results in mental ray for Maya are different than
those in Maya Software.
Fix Texture Warp adjusts a texture’s UV parameters so the texture does not
rely on a NURBS object’s UV parameterization, which alleviates texture warp
on objects with 2D textures. For example, if you want to create and animate
a flag with a Checker texture, you can create a NURBS plane on which to map
the Checker texture, transform the CVs, and turn Fix Texture Warp on in the
object’s Attribute Editor.
When you animate the flag by moving some of the CVs to simulate the wind
blowing the flag, the checker pattern on the flag expands and shrinks
appropriately.
Grid Div Per Span V Specifies the number of divisions per span of the Chord
Length grid along the V parameter.
Tessellation
Tessellation | 517
Refresh tessellation When advanced tessellation with min screen is on, the
tessellation only updates when refresh is pressed.
Triangle count This is the number of render triangles in the surface when a
tessellation is displayed.
519 | Index
deleting 206 Background Color
approximation nodes 182 Display Options 491
approximation settings 181 Background Color attribute
overriding 207 Environment attributes 352
Approximation settings 209 Basic camera 14
approximation styles 183 Batch Render 324
Area Gradient (SWF and SVG only) 464 about 52
Area Lights advantages 52
mental ray 175 and IPR 125
artifacts cancel 326
2D motion blur 145 error handling 177, 251
about 155 show 326
clipping plane 155 Batch Render Frame window 132
fixing 157 Best Guess Based on Screen Size
troubleshooting 143 primary tessellation 331
aspect ratio Bias
pixel 65, 88 Raytracing Quality 394
At Top/At Bottom attribute 392 bitmap
atmosphere 396 image file format 59
Attribute Editor Blend Specular with Alpha option 458
Rendering Flags 176 blobby surface
surface settings 363 anti-aliasing problem 143
Attributes block ordered textures 163
option in Hardware Render Blue Channel
Buffer 491 Render View 477
Auto Memory Limit 320, 325 Blur
Auto Render Region By Frame, Motion Blur 394
in Render View 476 Length, 2D Motion Blur 395
Auto Render Threads 320, 322, 325 Sharpness, 2D Motion Blur 395
Auto Resize Blur by Frame attribute 457
in Render View 476 BOT 163
Auto Tiling 320, 322, 325 BOT files 163
Autodesk Pix format 54 Both attribute 409
Automatic Both Fields
tessellation mode 328 Interlaced 392
Average Color 463 Separate 392
AVI image format 54 Bounding Box
azimuth Dolly camera setting 356
description 18 Box attribute 434
Box Filter attribute 418
BSP Depth attribute 422
B BSP settings 248
Back attribute 409 BSP Size attribute 422
background BSP2 Attribute 421
rendering problems 144 Bump mapping 279
Bump Resolution attribute 456
520 | Index
Bump Texture Resolution 456 Gate Mask color 354
By Frame Gate Mask opacity 353
Hardware Render Settings 487 horizontal 344
Image File Output 87, 381 looking through 26, 29–30
Renumber Frames, Render making renderable 23
Settings 381 oversan 345
perspective 340
resolution gate 343
C rolling 18
Cache Density (Ambient Occlusion) safe action 344
attribute 444 safe title 21, 344
Cache Points (Ambient Occlusion) save movements 30
attribute 444 selecting current 26
cache size limit, for approximation 208 tilt 18
Caching (Ambient Occlusion) tracking 17
attribute 444 tumbling 17
Calculate 321 types of 14
Calculation attribute 427 undoable movements 340
camera viewing vs. rendering 13
Center of Interest option 313, 354 yaw 18
Camera zoom 18
optimizing, render faster 162 Cancel Batch Render 326
Select Camera option 340 cancelling
Camera and Aim 14 IPR 124
Camera Aperture 348 Casts Shadows
Camera Icons attribute 491 Render Layer Member Overrides 498
Camera Properties attributes 313 Render Stats 511
Camera Settings option, View menu 340 Casts Shadows attribute
camera tools 17 Render Stats attributes 498, 511
Camera Tools option, View menu 28 Caustic
Camera, Aim, and Up 14 Rendering Flag 176
cameras Caustic Accuracy
adjusting attributes 22 mental ray 510
aiming 17, 27 Caustic Filter Kernel attribute 434
azimuth 18 Caustic Filter Type attribute 434
changing settings 340 Caustic Radius
creating 22 mental ray 510
dollying 17 causticPhotonsEmit 267
elevation 18 caustics
field chart 344 troubleshooting 162
fill 344 Caustics attribute 434
film gate 341 Caustics Override
fly 19 mental ray 510
frustrum 341 Caustics/Global Illumination
gate 341 attribute 447
gate mask 343 Center of interest 313, 354
Index | 521
channels Cone Angle 161, 250
about 67, 78 Cone attribute 434
premultiplication 78 Console 177, 251
Chord Height Ratio attribute 332 Contours 217, 410
Chord Height Ratio, Use 332 Contrast Sensitive Production
Cineon format 55, 167 attribute 388
client 200 control visibility/reflection per layer 120
client setup 252 Coverage attribute
Clip Final Shaded Color attribute 398 Anti-aliasing Quality attributes 391
clipping plane CPUs
artifacts 155 multi-thread rendering 401
clipping planes use all available for multi-thread
about 21 rendering 401
Close IPR File Culling attribute 456
Render View window 472 Culling Threshold attribute 457
Close option Current Frame
Hardware Render Buffer 491 for tessellation 329
Closest Visible Depth Current View
Depth Type 352 for tessellation 329
Collision Icons attribute 491 Curvature Tolerance
color channels Set NURBS Tessellation 329
about 67 Curve Tolerance 460
enabling 89 Custom attribute 388, 415, 454
Color Contrast attribute 429 custom element 270
Color Resolution attribute 455 Custom Extension attribute 393
Color Texture Resolution 455 Custom Globals 176
Colorclip attribute 430 Custom Globals attribute 453
Combine Fills and Edges (SWF only) 459 Custom Motion Offsets 429
command line rendering 53, 133, 186, Custom Motion Vectors 266
239, 262 Custom Sampling attribute 417
common tab Custom Scene 176, 453
Render Settings 377 Custom Scene attribute 453
component shading groups Custom Scene Text
render layers 108 Render Text 454
Composite Root Group Text 454
Threshold 399 Custom Textures 176
compositing Custom Vertex Data 176
arranging objects 79 Customization attribute 451
rendering tips 78 customizations
Compositing Interoperability Plug-in 80 mental ray for Maya 176
compositingInterop 137–138 Cutout opacity 266
Compress (SVG only) 460
Compression attribute
Image File Output attributes 380
D
Compute From Data Type 307
for tessellation 329 Data Type attribute 429
522 | Index
Default Field Extension (o and e) Diagnose Samples 251
attribute 393 Diagnose Samples attribute 417, 444
Density (Importons) attribute 437 diagnosing
Depth attribute scenes 156, 197
Output Settings attributes 351 Diagnostics 251
depth channel differences
description 79 mental ray for Maya 174
Depth Channel (Z Depth) 383 Diffuse
depth channels Render Layer Pass 302
about 67, 78 Direct Illumination Shadow Effects
enabling 89 attribute 435
depth file Disable Animation Detection 264
description, for cameras 351 Disable DG Cycle Detection 265
depth files Disk Based Dmaps 161, 250
creating 89 disk swapping 271
depth information Displace Motion Factor attribute 427
IFF files 174 displacement 279
Depth Jitter displacement mapping
Render Layer Member Overrides 499 performance 160, 249
Render Stats 514 troubleshooting 147
depth map shadows Display Alpha Channel button
optimizing 161, 250 Render View window 480
Depth of Field Display Field Chart attribute 354
rendering 25 Display Film Gate attribute 353
Depth Of Field 350 display layers
Depth Of Field attribute 350 merge when importing files 122
Depth Type Display menu
Closest Visible Depth 352 Render View window 477
Furthest Visible Depth 352 Display Options attributes
Output Settings attributes 352 cameras 353
Depth-of-field 280 Hardware Render Settings 491
depth-of-field samples override 271 Display Real Size button
derive from Maya 181, 278 Render View window 480
Desaturate attribute 431 Display Resolution attribute 353
Detail Level 460 Display RGB Channels button
Detail Level Preset 460 Render View window 479
Detail Shadow map 424 Display Safe Action attribute 354
Device Aspect Ratio attribute 387 Display Safe Title attribute 354
Diagnose Bsp 422 Display Shadows attribute 489
Diagnose BSP attribute 445 distributed rendering 169, 199
Diagnose finalgather 440, 445 Dither attribute 431
Diagnose Grid 251 Dithered option
Diagnose Grid attribute 445 Render View window 478
Diagnose Photon 251 Dmap Filter Size 161, 250
Diagnose Photon attribute 436, 445 Dmap Focus attribute 161, 250
Diagnose Photon Density 251 Dmap Resolution 161, 250
Index | 523
dofLensSamples 271 Env. Scale (Irradiance Particles)
Dolly attribute 443
Bounding Box camera setting 356 Environment (Irradiance Particles)
camera settings 356 attribute 443
Local camera setting 356 Environment attributes 352
Snap box dolly to camera Environment Fog attribute 396
settings 356 error handling
Surface camera setting 356 mental ray for Maya 177, 251
dollying, cameras 17 errors, rendering 166
Double Sided Even Field 392–393
Render Layer Member Overrides 499 Exact 176, 180
Render Stats 512 examples
Draft attribute 415 render layers 71
Draft motion blur attribute 415 export
DraftRapidMotion attribute 415 to mi 241
Draw Style attribute 489 to mi using the command line 242
duplicate render layers 118 Export All Incoming Shaders 310
Dynamic Attributes 263, 504 Export All Layers to Toxik 2007 334
Export Custom Colors attribute 452
Export Custom Data attribute 452
E Export Custom Text attribute 452
Edge Anti-aliasing attribute 388 Export Custom Vectors attribute 452
Edge Color 468 Export Entire Child DAG 311
Edge Detail 469 Export Exact Hierarchy attribute 447
Edge Smoothing attribute 490 Export Full Dagpath attribute 447
Edge Style 468 Export Hair 448
Edge Swap Export Light Linker attribute 452
Set NURBS Tessellation 330 Export Maya Options attribute 452
Edge Weight 468 Export Motion Segments 449
edges Export Nurbs Derivatives attribute 451
rendering problems 143 Export Objects On Demand 265
troubleshooting 146 Export Objects On Demand
elevation attribute 451
description, for azimuth elevation Export Polygon Derivatives attribute 450
tool 18 Export Render Proxy attribute 449
Emitter Icons attribute 491 Export Selected Layers to Toxik 2007 335
Enable Default Light 387 Export Shadow Shader 264
Enable Default Light attribute 387 Export Shape Deformation attribute 450
Enable Depth Maps attribute 398 Export State Shader attribute 451
Enable Map Visualizer attribute 435, 440 Export Textures First attribute 447
Enable Stroke Rendering attribute 402 Export to Toxik 2007 135, 335
End Frame attribute Export to Toxik 2008 139, 336
Image File Output attributes 87, 381 Export to Toxik 2009 337
Image Output Files attributes 486 Export Toxik IMSQ File 334
Env. Rays (Irradiance Particles) Export Triangulated Polygons 449
attribute 443
524 | Index
exporting files
.mi files 186, 241 rendering output location 64
optimizing .mi format 186 Fill Objects 461
Extension attribute 486 Fill option 344
extension, image 86 Fill Style 461
Film Aspect Ratio attribute 348
Film Back attributes 348
F Film Back Properties attributes 314
F Stop attribute 351 Film Gate attribute 348
Faces attribute 409 Film Gate option 341
Falloff Start attribute 441 Film Offset attribute 348
Falloff Stop attribute 441 Filter attribute 441
Far Clip Plane attribute 315 mental ray 509
far clipping plane 21 Filter Size attribute 419
feedback from IPR 150 final gather
Field troubleshooting 162, 283
options 392 Final Gather attribute 437
Field Chart option 344 Final Gather Cast
Field Dominance mental ray 507
Even Fields 392 Final Gather Override
Odd Fields 392 mental ray 509
render options 392 Final Gather Rays
Field Dominance attribute 144 mental ray 509
Field Extension Final Gather Receive
render options 393 mental ray 507
Field Icons attribute 491 fine approximation 183
Field Options attributes 391 controlling triangles 208
field rendering 65 setting cache limit 208
fields 66 Fine Approximation 209
description 66 Fine Displacement 209
Even 393 Fix Texture Warp 516
interlacing 92 description 50
rendering 91 Fixed Sampling attribute 417
rendering problems 144 Flash
vs. frames 65 rendering 8
File Export 174 Flash Version (SWF only) 459
file format, image 86 flicker
file formats about 154
bitmap vs. vector 54 fixing 157
rendering 53 flickering animations
File menu troubleshooting 147
Render View window 472 Flipbook Options 493–494
File Name Prefix attribute 377 Flipbooks menu
file name, image 86 Hardware Render Buffer 493
Filename attribute 486 Fly Tool 19
fly, cameras 19
Index | 525
focal length 19 frustrum 341
Focus Distance attribute 350 renderable 343
Focus Region Scale attribute 351 fstop 15
fog Full Color 463
motion blur artifacts 145 Full Image Resolution attribute 489
Fog Shadow Samples 161, 250 Furthest Visible Depth
Force Displacement Animation 267 Depth Type 352
force lights emitted photons 267
Force Motion Vector Computation
attribute 450
G
Force On-demand Translation 265 Gamma attribute 429
force triangle export of polygon Gamma Correction attribute 398
meshes 267 gate 341
format, image file Gate Mask color 354
setting 86 Gate Mask opacity 353
Four Color 462 Gate Mask option 343
frame Gauss attribute 434
rendering 52 Gaussian Filter attribute 418
Frame All option geometry
Maya View menu 30 mental ray approximation 184
Frame Image option NURBS 41
Render View window 473 Geometry Antialiasing Override
Frame Padding attribute 87, 380 Render Stats 512
Frame Range, Use Geometry Mask attribute 489
for tessellation 328 geometry shaking
Frame Rate (SWF and SVG only) 459 mental ray 276
Frame Region option geometry types
Render View window 473 mental ray for Maya 184
Frame Selection 30 gGlobal illumination
Frame/Animation Ext attribute 87, 380 troubleshooting 162
framebuffers 303 GIF format 55
create 304 Global Illum Accuracy
delete 304 mental ray 510
edit 304 Global Illum Radius
User Buffer Attributes 307 mental ray 510
frames 67 Global Illumination attribute 433
batch rendering 52 Global Illumination Override
command line rendering 53, 133, mental ray 509
186, 239 globIllPhotonsEmit 267
rendering 91 Globillum
rendering single 131 Rendering Flag 176
vs. fields 65 Grab Swatch to Hypershade and Visor
Frames button
render 392 Render View window 473
Freeze 439 Green attribute 391
Front attribute 409
526 | Index
Green Channel option Ignore Glows
Render View 477 Render View 477
Grid attribute 491 Ignore Self Shadowing
Grid Div Per Span U Render Layer Member Overrides 499
Fix Texture Warp 517 Ignore Shadows
Grid Div Per Span V Render View 477
Fix Texture Warp 517 Image attribute
Grid Size 251 Output Settings 351
Grid Size attribute 445 Image Based Lighting attributes 432
guidelines, in scene views 24 image file formats
setting 86
Image File Output attributes 377
H Image Format attribute
Hardware Environment Lookup Image File Output attributes 86, 379
option 457 Image Output Files attributes 487
Hardware Geometry Cache attribute 457 Image Output Files attributes 486
hardware rendering 3 Image Plane attribute
Render Settings 454 Environment attributes 353
HDR images 175 image plane, display options
HDRI 175 IPR 150
HDTV 167 Image Size attributes 384
Height attribute images
Image Size attributes 386 directory 88
Resolution attributes 88 extension 86
Hidden Edges 469 fields 66
High Quality attribute 389 file format 86
High Quality Renderer 360 file name 86
Highest Quality attribute 389 frames 67
Highlight Level (SWF and bitmap formats name 86
only) 467 pixel aspect ratio 88
highlights premultiplied 78
troubleshooting 148 rendering quality 153
Highlights (SWF and bitmap formats rendering speed 153
only) 466 resolution 88
Horizontal Film Aperture attribute (see images, keeping rendered
Camera Aperture attribute) 314 Render View 480
Horizontal Film Offset attribute (see Film images, removing all
Offset attribute) 314 Render View 481
Horizontal option 344 images, removing current
Render View 481
Importons 437
I Include Edges 467
Indirect Passes (Irradiance Particles)
IBL attribute 432 attribute 443
IFF image Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (see
depth information 174 IPR) 47
Ignore Film Gate attribute 397
Index | 527
interactive rendering, K
multi-threaded 401
interlacing Keep Image
description 66 Render View 480
Intermediate 454 Keep Image in Render View option
Intermediate Quality attribute 388 Render View window 473
Interpoints (Irradiance Particles) Keep Motion Vectors
attribute 443 2D Motion Blur 396
Interpolate (Irradiance Particles)
attribute 443
Interpolate Samples 307, 430
L
IPR Label 266
about 47 Lanczos attribute 419
batch rendering 125 Large BSP attribute 421
canceling 123 Layered Shader
cancelling 124 performance 160, 249
how it works 48 layers, display
limitations 49 merge when importing files 122
options 98 layers, render
pausing 123 assign component shading
rendering with 123 groups 108
saving 123 blend modes 112
troubleshooting 149 control visibility/reflection per
IPR default light 49 layer 120
IPR menu copy 118
Render View window 475 merge when importing files 122
IPR Quality name 119
Render View Window 475 overrides 102, 105
IPR Render Current Frame 321 presets 294
IPR Render option recycle render output for layers 119
Render View window 475 working with 100
IPR Tuning Options Leaf Primitives attribute 401
Render View window 475 lens 19
IRP Lens Properties attributes 313
troubleshooting 145 Light Icons attribute 491
Irradiance Particles 442 Lighting Mode attribute 488
lightMapsNetwork 274
J Line Smoothing attribute 489
Linear 176, 180
Jitter attribute 419 Linux setup 252
Jitter Final Color attribute 398 Local
Journal 30 Dolly camera setting 356
JPEG format 56 Locked
Tumble camera setting 355
Logfile 177, 251
Look At Selection 29
528 | Index
Look Through Selected option, Panels Max Shading Samples
menu 26 Render Layer Member Overrides 500
Low Quality attribute 389 Render Stats 513
Luminance option Max Shading Samples attribute 389
Render View window 477 Max Trace Depth attribute 420, 441
Max Visib Samples attribute 390
Maya derivatives attribute 450
M Maya Hardware
Maintain Width/Height Ratio Render Settings 454
attribute 386 Maya IFF format 56
Manual Maya Vector
tessellation mode 328 Render Settings 459
Map File (Irradiance Particles) maya.rayhosts 201
attribute 444 maya.rayrc 202
mask Maya16 IFF format 56
description, for cameras 351 Medium Quality attribute 389
Mask attribute MEL commands
Output Settings attributes 351 run at render time 68
Mask Channel Memory and Performance Options 401
or alpha channel 79 Memory and Performance Options
mask channels attributes 399
about 78 memory exceptions 143
about, alpha channels Memory Limit 321, 326
about 67 memory mode 272
enabling 89 memoryMode 272
modifying 90, 237 mental ray
matte opacity 279 approximation 39
Matte Opacity attribute 90–91, 237–238 Area Lights 175
Matte Opacity Mode attribute 90–91, BSP settings 248
237–238 configuration files 201
matte transparency (see Matte exporting .mi files 241
Opacity) 237 exporting files 186
matte transparency, (see Matte extra Render Settings 289
Opacity) 90 geometry shaking 276
Max 3D Blur Visib attribute 390 motion blur 180
Max Depth (Importons) attribute 437 network rendering 199
Max Displace 446 output window messages 203
Max Photon Depth attribute 435 Render Settings 404
Max Radius rendering problems 277–278
mental ray 509 rendering with 241–242
Max Radius attribute 442 mental ray Derivatives 504
Max Sample Level mental ray for Maya
mental ray 508 Animation 176
Max Sample Level attribute 417 customizations 176
Max Shading attribute 389 differences 174
error handling 177, 251
Index | 529
geometry types 184 Min Sample Level attribute 417
NURBS surfaces 184 Min Screen attribute
polygonal meshes 185 Secondary Tessellation
shading networks 174 Attributes 333
subdivision surfaces 185 miPhotonsOnly 268
mental ray Ray Offset 505 miPlaceholder 265
mental ray specific image formats 177 miRayOffset 505
mentalrayOutputPass node 308 miReflection 268
mentalrayUserBuffer node 307 miRefraction 268
mentay ray miShadingSamples 270
approximation 181 miTangents 187
merge display layers when importing Mitchell attribute 419
files 122 miTransparency 268
Merge Distance (Caustics) attribute 434 miTrianles 267
Merge Distance (Global Illumination) Mode U attribute
attribute 433 Tessellation 331
Merge Distance (Importons) Mode V attribute
attribute 437 Tessellation 331
Merge Distance (Photon Volume) moire patterns 419
attribute 437 Motion Back Offset 429
merge render layers when importing motion blur
files 122 about 16
Mesh Gradient (SWF and SVG only) 464 artifacts 145
miAnimated 264 troubleshooting 148
miCustomMotion 266 Motion Blur 176, 180
micutAwayOpacity 266 2D troubleshooting 144
miData 263 creating 96, 239
miDefaultOptions node 306 diagnostics 166
miDeformation 187 Render Layer Member Overrides 498
miDerivatives 504 Render Stats 511
miDiskSwapDir 271 Tips 396
miDiskSwapLimit 271 Motion Blur attribute 394, 408, 426, 457
miDisplaceAnimation 267 Multi-Pass Render Options 490
miElement 270 Motion Blur attributes
miExportCCMesh 268 Create Camera Options 316
miExportElement 270 Render Settings window 394
miExportMaterial 270 Motion Blur By attribute 426
miExportShadowShader 264 Motion Blur Shadow Maps
miLabel 266 attribute 425, 427
miMaterial 270 Motion Blur Type attribute 394
Min Edge Angle 469 motion picture
Min Radius rendering fields 65
mental ray 509 Motion Quality Factor attribute 428
Min Radius attribute 442 Motion Steps attribute 428
Min Sample Level Movement Options attributes
mental ray 508 cameras 354
530 | Index
Multi Pass Rendering attribute 490 Number of Processors to Use
Multi Processing 401 attribute 132, 324
Multi-Pass Render Options attributes 490 Number of Samples 455
multi-pixel filter 94 Number of Samples attribute 417, 455
multi-processor rendering 132 Number U attribute
multi-render pass Tessellation 332
pass contribution maps 369 Number V attribute
render pass contribution map Tessellation 332
node 504 NURBs
multi-render passes 188, 218, 224, 233 multi-uv rendering problems 141
Create Render Passes window 470 NURBS
file output 60 approximation 184
Render Layer Editor 367 display tessellation 43
render pass contribution map surfaces 41
node 504 NURBS surfaces
render pass node 501 mental ray for Maya 184
render pass set node 503
Render Settings Passes tab 404
multi-thread interactive rendering 401
O
multiple processors 98 objects
framing with camera 29–30
N mental ray approximation 184
rendering 85
name tesselation settings 41
images, setting 86 vibrating 144
naming render layers 119 when to tessellate 43
Near Clip Plane attribute 315 Odd Field attribute 393
near clipping plane 21 Odd Fields 392
Network 321–322, 326 Only Render Strokes attribute 403
network baking Open Image option
turn off 274 Render View window 472
network rendering 169, 199, 262 Open in Browser (SWF only) 459
troubleshooting 284 Open IPR File
No Field Extension attribute 393 Render View window 472
No Gate option 341 Open Render Settings Window 479
nodeCycleCheck 265 Opposite
nodes Render Layer Member Overrides 499
approximation 182 Render Stats 512
creating approximation 203 Optimize Animation Detection 449
mentalrayOutputPass, output pass Optimize Animation Detection
mental ray node 308 attribute 448
NTSC 144 Optimize for Animations attribute 441
NTSC video 66, 167 Optimize Instances 159, 248
Number of CPUs to use 401 Optimize Instances attribute 400
Number of Exposures attribute 458 Optimize Non-animated Display
Visibility 448
Index | 531
Optimize Raytrace Shadows 449 Pause IPR Tuning
Optimize Vertex Sharing 449 Render View window 476
optimized texture format 197 Per object attribute 455–456
optimizing Per polygon attribute 455
cameras 162 Per Span # of Isoparms
scenes 158, 247 primary tessellation 331
shadows 161, 250 Per Surf # of Isoparms
Options attribute 494 primary tessellation 331
Options menu Per Surf # of Isoparms in 3D
Render View window 476 primary tessellation 331
Ortho step Performance attribute 448
Tumble camera setting 355 Perspective option 26, 340
orthographic camera Photon Auto Volume attribute 436
width of 317 Photon Density attribute 436, 445
Orthographic Camera 317 Photon Map File attribute 435
Orthographic views photon only lights 268
camera settings 355 Photon Reflections attribute 435
Orthographic Width 317 Photon Refractions attribute 435
Outlines at Intersections 469 Photoshop format 57
Output Settings 334 Pix format 54
Output Settings attributes 351 pixel aspect ratio 88
Output Window 177, 251 about 65
Override Geometry Anti-aliasing Pixel Aspect Ratio attribute 88, 387
Render Layer Member Overrides 499 Pixel Filter Type attribute 390
Override Shading Samples Pixel Filter Width X attribute 391
Render Layer Member Overrides 499 Pixel Filter Width Y attribute 391
Override Visibility Samples pixels 48, 65, 67
Render Layer Member Overrides 500 plug-ins
Override Volume Samples multi-pixel 94
Render Layer Member Overrides 500 PNG format 57
overriding attributes per layer 109 polygonal meshes
Overscan camera attribute 343 mental ray for Maya 185
Overscan option 345 polygonal surfaces 50
polygons
approximation 184
P port number
PAL 144 troubleshooting 284
PAL video 66, 167 Post Fog Blur
parallel rendering 199 Render Options 397
particle rendering Post Fog Blurt
mental ray 280 Render Options 397
Particles attribute 390 Post Render MEL attribute 92
Pass Custom Depth Channel 452 Pre Render MEL attribute 92
Pass Custom Label Channel 453 Precompute Photon Lookup
passes attribute 440
about 301 preemultiplied images, defined 78
532 | Index
Presets Per Surf # of Isoparms in 3D 331
Render Resolution 384 Primary Visibility
Presets attribute 415 Render Layer Member Overrides 498
presets, mental ray Render Stats 512
Custom 415 problems
Draft 415 messages 166
DraftMotionBlur 415 rendering 166
DraftRapidMotion 415 processor, multiple 98
Preview 416 Production 455
PreviewCaustics 416 Production attribute 416
PreviewGlobalIllum 416 Production Quality attribute 388
PreviewMotionBlur 416 Production Quality with
PreviewRapidMotion 416 Transparency 455
Production 416 ProductionMotionBlur attribute 416
ProductionMotionBlur 416 ProductionRapidFur attribute 416
ProductionRapidFur 416 ProductionRapidHair attribute 416
ProductionRapidHair 416 ProductionRapidMotion attribute 416
ProductionTraceDetail 416 ProductionTraceDetail attribute 416
Preview 454 projection textures
Preview Animation attribute 445 troubleshooting 143
Preview attribute 416 Prune Invisible Parts 448
Preview Convert Tiles 446 Prune Objects Without Material 448
Preview Final Gather Tiles attribute 440
Preview Motion Blur attribute 445
Preview Quality attribute 388
Q
Preview Render Tiles attribute 446 quality
Preview Tonemap Tiles 446 raytracing 96
preview workflow Quantel format 57
render layers 70 QuickDraw format 57
preview, renders 1 Quicktime image format (UNIX only) 57
PreviewCaustics attribute 416
PreviewFinalGather attributepresets,
mental ray R
PreviewFinalGather 416
PreviewGlobalIllum attribute 416 Radius (Caustics) attribute 434
previewing Radius (Global Illumination)
Resolution Gate 24 attribute 433
previewing render layers 111 Radius (Photon Volume) attribute 436
PreviewMotionBlur attribute 416 Ramp Shader
PreviewRapidMotion attribute 416 Motion Blur tips 396
Primary Final Gather File attribute 439 Rasterizer attribute 407
primary tessellation 40 Rasterizer Pixel Samples 425
Primary Tessellation rasterizer shading samples override 270
Best Guess Based on Screen Size 331 Rasterizer Transparency 422
Per Span # of Isoparms 331 Rasterizer use opacity 431
Per Surf # of Isoparms 331 Raw attribute 430
Ray Depth Limit 162, 251
Index | 533
Ray Tracing attribute 419 Regular BSP attribute 421
Rays (Ambient Occlusion) attribute 444 Remote Machine Name attribute 325
Rays (Irradiance Particles) attribute 442 Remove All Images from Render View
rayserver option
troubleshooting 284 Render View window 473
raytraced shadows Remove Image
optimizing 162, 251 Render View 481
raytracing Remove Image from Render View
setting quality 96 option
Raytracing Render View window 473
description 96 remove material overrides
Raytracing attribute 393, 407 render layers 105
Raytracing Quality attributes 393 Render 2D Motion Blur attribute 402
Real Size option Render All Layers option
Render View window 473 Render View window 474
Rebuild (Irradiance Particles) Render Current Frame 320
attribute 443 Maya Render menu 131
Rebuild attribute 439 Render Diagnostics 166, 324
Rebuild Mode attribute 425 Render Diagnostics attribute 473
Rebuild Photon Map attribute 435 Render Division Levels 514
Receive Shadows Render Info
Render Layer Member Overrides 498 Render View 477
Render Stats 511 Render Layer editor 367
Recursion Depth attribute 401 render layers
recycle rendered images 119 batch 116
Red attribute 391 command-line 116
Red Channel option control visibility/reflection per
Render View 477 layer 120
Redo Previous IPR Render option copy 118
Maya Render menu 323 examples 71
Render View window 475 layer blend modes 112
Redo Previous Render 131 layer presets 294
Redo Previous Render option merge when importing files 122
Maya Render menu 321 name 119
Render View window 474 overriding attributes 109
Reflection Depth 467 preview workflow 70
Reflection Limit 160, 249 previewing render layers 111
Reflections attribute 393, 420 recycle render output for layers 119
Reflections attribute (final gather) 441 workflow 69
Refraction Limit 160, 249 Render menu
Refractions attribute Render View window 474
Raytracing Quality attributes 393, tearing off 281
420 Render Mode 289
Refractions attribute (final gather) 441 Render Modes attributes 488
Refresh IPR Image Render Optimizations 470
Render View window 475 Aggressive 470
534 | Index
Good 470 vector 8
Safe 470 rendering
Render option active objects 85
Render View window 475 at low-res 128
Render Options attributes 387, 396 background problems 144
Render pass set node 503 BOT files 163
Render Passes attribute 490 cameras 13
render proxies 243 command line 262
Bounding Box Update attribute 508 depth of field 25
Render Proxy attribute 507 errors 166
Renderable attribute 506 exporting .mi files 186, 241
Render Proxy (Assembly) 310 extra mental ray render settings 289
Render Region option fields 91
Render View window 474, 478 file formats 53
Render Resolution 88 file output location 64
Render Selected Objects Only option final rendering 84
Render View window 474 final renders 1
Render Settings Flash 8
common tab 377 frames 91, 131
for tessellation 329 hardware 3
Render Settings option hardware render settings 454
Render View window 476 image output location 88
Render Settings window 84, 236 image resolution 65
Render Shading, Lighting and Glow layers and passes 301
attribute 402 looping forever 149
Render Shadow Maps attribute 402 MEL scripts 68
Render Stats 511 mental ray BSP settings 248
Render Threads 320, 322, 325 mental ray problems 277–278
Render utility 128, 133–135, 240–241 mental ray render settings 404
Render View multi-processor 132
about 52 multiple scenes 135
Render View window network 169, 199
menus 472 network (mental ray) 199
Renderable attribute 351 object vibration in 144
renderable cameras 167 over a network 262
Renderable Cameras previewing 1, 47
attributes in Render Settings 382 problems 166
Renderable Scene 309 render settings window 84, 236
renderer resolution 88
choosing 12 safe region for TV 20
setting default 12 single frames 131
renderers software 2
Maya hardware 5 speed 155
Maya software 4 speed vs. quality 153
mental ray for Maya 173 test animation 128
selecting 11 testing 1, 47
Index | 535
tips 2 Save Image option
typical workflow 81 Render View window 472
vector 4, 8 Save IPR File
vector render settings 459 Render View window 472
with command line 133, 239 Save IPR File option 125
with IPR 47 Scale (Caustics) attribute 434
with Maya 262 Scale (Global Illumination) attribute 433
with mental ray 241–242, 262 Scale (Irradiance Particles) attribute 443
with Render View 52 Scale attribute (final gather) 438
with the command line 53, 186 Scale setting 356–357
Rendering CPU attribute 325 Scanline attribute 407
Rendering Flags Scanline Only Rendering 278
Attribute Editor 176 Scene Fragment 310
Renumber Frames Using attribute 381 scene views
Reset Region Marquee option guidelines 24
Render View window 473 selecting camera 26
resolution view lighting 126
image 88 view shading 126
low-res rendering, Render View scenes
low-res rendering 128 diagnosing 156
of rendered images 65 diagnosing (mental ray) 197
Resolution attribute 487 finding problems
Image Size attributes 387 Render Diagnostics 156, 197
Resolution Gate attribute 24 framing with camera 30
Resolution Gate option 343 optimizing 158, 247
Resolution Units attribute rendering multiple 135
Image Size attributes 387 Secondary Bounce Scale attribute 438
Reuse Existing Dmap(s) 161, 250 Secondary Curve Fitting 460
Reuse Tessellations attribute 400 Secondary Diffuse Bounces attribute 438
RGB 78 Secondary Final Gather File attribute 440
RGB (default) attribute 430 secondary tessellation 40
RGBA 78 Segments attribute 423
RGBAZ 78 Select Camera 340
RLA format 57 Selected Surfaces
Roll Scale setting 357 tessellation 327
rolling, cameras 18 Separate Shadow Bsp attribute 422
Root Group Name 311 server 200
Rotation type setting 357 server setup 252
service file
troubleshooting 284
S Set NURBS Tessellation 42
Safe Action option 344 setting 88
Safe Title option 21, 344 setup
Sample Lock attribute 419 client 252
Sampling Mode attribute 417 server 252
SGI format 58
536 | Index
SGI Movie format (UNIX only) 58 shutter setting
SGI16 format 58 mental ray vs. Maya 427
shaders 176 shutter speed 15
Shading attribute 389 Simple attribute 422
shading networks Single Color 461
mental ray for Maya 174 Size Units attribute
Shading Quality 418 Image Size attributes 386
Shading Samples Small Object Culling Threshold
Render Layer Member Overrides 500 attribute 457
Render Stats 513 Smooth
Shading Samples attribute 389–390 2D Motion Blur 395
Shading Samples Override Smooth Alpha
Render Stats 513 2D Motion Blur 395
Shading Samples Override attribute 148 Smooth Color
Shadow 176 2D Motion Blur 395
Shadow attribute 420 Smooth Edge Ratio
Shadow Map Bias 446 Set NURBS Tessellation 330
shadow mapping 279 Smooth Polygon Derivatives
Shadow Rays attribute 162, 251 attribute 450
shadows smooth polygon mesh
optimizing 161, 250 render 215, 514
Shadows (SWF and bitmap formats Smooth shading
only) 465 Render Layer Member Overrides 498
Shadows attribute 394, 420 Render Stats 512
Shadows Ignore Linking attribute 397, Smooth Value
424, 458 2D Motion Blur 395
Shadows Obey Light Linking tip, Motion Blur 396
attribute 397, 424, 458 Snap box dolly to
Shadows Obey Shadow Linking camera settings 356
attribute 397, 424, 458 Snapshot
Shake attribute 349 in Render View 129–130
Shake Enabled attribute 349 Snapshot option
Shake Overscan attribute 349 Render View window, Render
Shake Overscan Enabled attribute 349 menu 475
Show Back Faces 465 SoftImage format 58
Show Batch Render 326 software rendering 2
Show menu memory and performance 97
Rendering Flags window 482 Sort attribute 423
Show Region Marquee option Special Effects attributes
Render View window 473 cameras 353
shutter angle 15 Specular
Shutter Angle Render Layer Pass 303
description, for cameras 316 Start Frame attribute
Shutter Angle attribute 353 Image File Output attributes 87, 381
Shutter Close attribute 426 Image Output Files attributes 486
Shutter Open attribute 426 Start Number attribute 381
Index | 537
Static Object Offset 429 tessellation 146
Stepped about 39
Tumble camera setting 355 display for NURBs 43
Stereoscopic display for subDs 44
Edit 33 memory and performance 97
Registering custom rig 35 primary 40
Render 34 problems with 143
Scripting 34 secondary 40
stereoscopic camera 14 span-based 44
create 32 strategies for 40
stereoscopic cameras surface types 41
custom rig 471 viewing settings 41
stereo menu 358 vs. approximation 39
String options 272, 306 when to adjust 39
Subdivision Power attribute 401 Tessellation attribute 447
subdivision surfaces Tessellation Mode 328
mental ray for Maya 185 tessellation passes
subDs about 40
approximation 184 test render 1
display tessellation 44 Test Resolution 476
obtaining quads for Test Resolution option 323
approximation 207 Render View window 127
Surface Texture Compression attribute 456
Dolly camera setting 356 Texture Map 515–516
surfaces Texture resolution menu 485
background showing through 144 Textured channel menu 485
identical 159, 248 textures
mental ray approximation 184 popping 333
performance 160, 249 troubleshooting 143
polygonal 50 Texturing attribute 489
single-sided 160, 249 Threshold
tessellation settings 41 Output Settings attribute 352
troubleshooting 146, 148, 283 Threshold attribute 451
Svg Animation (SVG only) 459 Tiff format 59
Tiff16 format 59
tilt, cameras 18
T Time Contrast
Targa format 58 Motion Blur 176, 180
Task Size 320, 322, 325 Time Contrast R attribute 429
tear off menu Time Samples attribute 428
Render menu 281 Time slider
television Hardware Render Buffer 494
safe region rendering 20 Time Slider
tessellate for tessellation 329
strategies 43 Tonemap Scale 446
538 | Index
Toolbar option Orthographic views camera
Render View window 478 settings 355
Toxik Export Options (Toxik 2008) 336 Stepped camera setting 355
Toxik pre-compositing 233, 337, 406 Tumble camera about camera
Toxik Scene Settings 334 settings 355
Toxik User Settings (Toxik 2007) 334 Tumble pivot camera setting 355
Trace 176 Tumble scale camera setting 355
Trace Reflection Tumble camera about
mental ray 507 camera settings 355
Track Geometry setting 355 Tumble pivot
Track Scale setting 356 Tumble camera setting 355
tracking, cameras 17 Tumble Pivot attribute 354
Transform Icons attribute 491 tumble, cameras 17
translate polygon meshes as subdivision tuning
base mesh primitives 268 region 123
Transmit Refraction TV production
mental ray 507 safe region rendering 20
Transmit Transparency Two Color 462
mental ray 507
transparency
channels 67
U
matte (see Matte Opacity) 90, 237 U Divisions Factor
premultiplication 78 Set NURBS Tessellation 329
Transparency Based depth U Divisions Factor attribute 146
Output Settings attributes, for Undoable Movements attribute 354
cameras 352 Undoable Movements option 340
Transparency sorting attribute 455 Update 2D Motion Blur
transparent objects on or off for IPR 476
motion blur problems 145 Update Image Planes/Background
Transparent Shadow maps attribute 455 option
Traverse (Importons) attribute 437 IPR menu 50
Triangle (default) attribute 418 Render View window 475
troubleshooting 284 Update Light Glow
caustics 162 on or off for IPR 476
displacement maps 147 Update Shader Glow
edges 146 on or off for IPR 476
final gather 162 Update Shading and Lighting
flickering 147 on or off for IPR 476
global illumination 162 Update Shadow Maps option
highlights 148 IPR menu 50
image quality and render speed 153 Render View window 475
motion blur 148 Update Toxik 335
surfaces 148 Use 2d Blur memory Limit
Tumble 2D Motion Blur 396
Locked camera setting 355 Use all available CPUs 401
Ortho step camera setting 355
Index | 539
Use all available processors vector rendering 4
attribute 132, 324 per-material attributes 99
Use Chord Height attribute 332 Render Settings 459
Use Chord Height Ratio 332 verbosity 177, 251
Use Custom Extension attribute 87, 381 Verbosity Level 290, 320, 322, 325
Use Displacement Bounding Box Verbosity Level attribute 320, 322, 325
attribute 400 Version Label attribute 381
Use Dmap Auto Focus 161, 250 Vertical Film Aperture attribute (see
Use File Cache attribute 399 Camera Aperture attribute) 314
Use Frame Range Vertical Film Offset attribute (see Film
for tessellation 328 Offset attribute) 314
Use Legacy Maya Base Shaders Vertical option 344
attribute 451 video 65
Use Min Screen attribute frame rendering 65
Secondary Tessellation video fields 66
Attributes 333 View (Radii in Pixel Size) 442
Use Multi Pixel Filter attribute 390 mental ray 509
Use Pivot As Local Space attribute 354 View menu
Use Preview Level for Rendering 514 Render View window 473
Use Radius Quality Control attribute 441 Visibility Samples 418
Use Smooth Edge Visible 176
Set NURBS Tessellation 330 Visible in Reflections
Use X- Dmap attribute 250 Render Layer Member Overrides 499
Use X- Map attribute 161 Render Stats 512
Use X+ Dmap attribute 250 Visible in Refractions
Use X+ Map attribute 161 Render Layer Member Overrides 498
Use Y- Dmap attribute 250 Render Stats 512
Use Y- Map attribute 161 Visible In Transparency
Use Y+ Dmap attribute 250 mental ray 507
Use Y+ Map attribute 161 visualization
Use Z- Dmap attribute 250 IPR rendering 123
Use Z- Map attribute 161 rendering 83
Use Z+ Dmap attribute 250 visualization, renders 1
Use Z+ Map attribute 161 Volume Samples
User Data 263 Render Stats 514
UVs 50 Volume Samples attribute 409
Volume Samples Override 514
voxels, example of 421
V
V Divisions Factor W
Set NURBS Tessellation 329
V Divisions Factor attribute 146 walk throughs 19
vector file formats, bitmap file Width attribute
formats 54 Image Size attributes 386
vector renderer 8 Resolution attributes 88
Vector Renderer Control 515
540 | Index
Windows Bitmap Z
image file format 59
Windows setup 252 Z buffer channel 79
workflow Z depth channel 79
render layers 69 Zeroth Scanline attribute 144, 392
working with render layers 100 Zoom Scale setting 356
Write ZDepth attribute 487 zooming, cameras 18
Y
yaw, cameras 18
Index | 541
542