Group Members: Jane Drozd, Adam Kane,

Kang-che Lee, Shengying Shen,

Ross Wang

Arts Col 753, Animation Production with CSE 682, Computer Animation

Winter 2010Professors: Maria Palazzi and Rick Parent

Outline Rendering:

playblast controlling rendering quality software v. hardware rendering render output: image formats, channels, etc. batch rendering the ACCAD render-farm render layers

Project management groups sets and partitions making an object unselectable (template) display layers copies v. instances file referencing proxy references

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Rendering

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PlayblastA fast way to render in Maya

Use screen capture to make animation

Make sure the area to be displayed is not obstructed

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Playblast StepsWindow -> Playblast

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Playblast Steps

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Rendering QualityWindow -> Rendering Editors -> Render

Settings

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Rendering Quality

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Software VS Hardware Rendering

Software Computation done by the computer instead of

special hardware It is flexible programming Slower than hardware since it needs more time for

calculation

Hardware Computation done through video card and drivers

It is faster than software rendering Usually it produce a lower quality than software

rendering

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Render OutputFormats

Default: Maya Image File Format (IFF)

Two main types: Raster: pixel based format

TIFF, BMP, JPG… Vector: line/curve based format

AI, SWF, SVG…

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Render OutputChannels:

Four main channels per pixel 3 color channels

Red Green Blue

Alpha channel, used for transparency. Depth channel may be used to record how far

away a given pixel is.

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Channels

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Batch RenderingAllows rendering of multiple images at onceRendering an animation:

Configure optionsCheck Script Editor

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ACCAD Render FarmStart->Programs->Graphics 3D->Submit to

ACCAD Distributed Rendering

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Example from Maya documentation.

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Reasons to CompositeCreativityModifiabilityEfficiency

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Interface

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CaveatsBe mindful of compositor expectationsColor and channel interpretation

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Grouping

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Sets and PartitionsSets – collections of objects.Paritions – non-overlapping sets.

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Display Layers

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Display Layersvisibility off

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Display LayersTemplate – wireframe - not selectable

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Display LayersReference – not selectable

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Copies vs. Instances

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Copies vs. Instances

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Copies vs. Instances

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Copies vs. Instances

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File Referencingallows you to assemble multiple objects,

shading materials, animation, and so on, into a scene without importing the files into the scene.

allows users to segment scenes as required to suit the production workflow.

not like Importing where the objects get copied over. Referencing needs an active link.

reduces file size of the composited scene.

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File Referencing

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House.ma

Boy.ma Girl.ma

Parent Scene

Referenced Child scenes

House.ma

Boy.ma Girl.ma

Shoes.ma

Hat.maReferenced GrandChild scenes

multi-level referencing

File Referencing

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Lock: prevent them from being accidentally modified when they are referenced in your scene.

File ReferencingWhen modified within the parent scene, the edits are

recorded in a reference node that is created in the parent scene file.

The data in the original referenced child scene file remains unmodified.

Edits made to attributes within a parent scene have precedence over modifications made to the same attributes in the referenced child scene file lower in the hierarchy.

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Parent

Child

Scale in parent scene

Scale & change color in child scene

Proxy References substitute one or more file references by creating a set of possible

substitute references, known as proxies, for a given file reference. are used to temporarily simplify complex scenes by substituting

simpler versions of the objects into the scene. allowing you to focus on the elements you need to work on while

still maintaining a spatial context of the scene’s elements. A proxy reference can only be created for an existing file

reference.

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http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2009help/index.html?url=File_referencing_About_proxy_references.htm,topicNumber=d0e117929

Proxy References

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File Referencing 2 ‘complex’ cubes

exist proxy references

Proxy References

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Proxy References :2 ‘simple’ sphere

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