- RAY TRACING: SPEEDING UP THINGS (OBJECTS)
- RAY TRACING: SPEEDING UP THINGS (GLOBALS)
- RAYTRACING: INDEX OF REFRACTION (IOR)
- RENDERING: FILTERS FOR STILL IMAGES VERSUS VIDEO
- RENDERING VIDEO: RENDER FRAMES, NOT FIELDS
- RENDERING VIDEO: MAKE SURE VIDEO COLOR CHECK IS ON
- RENDERING VIDEO: CHECK YOUR GAMMA!
- RENDERING GREAT BIG, GIANT, HONKING, ENORMOUS IMAGES SUCCESSFULLY
- DON'T RENDER MOVIES—RENDER FRAMES!
- SPEAKING OF THE RAM PLAYER...
- RERENDERING FROM THE ENVIRONMENT BACKGROUND
- OKAY, SO YOU REALLY WANT TO RERENDER YOUR ANIMATION...
- IFL = IMAGE FILE LIST
- YOU CAN'T CREATE .IFL FILES ON READ-ONLY MEDIA!
- MANIPULATING IMAGE SEQUENCES USING .IFLS
- CREATE NESTED .IFL FILES
- A CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM: HOW DO YOU SET UP AN ANIMATED BACKGROUND FOR A SCENE IF YOU HAVEN'T RENDERED THE BACKGROUND YET?
- COULD YOU MAKE THINGS MORE COMPLICATED, PLEASE? (WHAT ABOUT USING A COMPOSITING PROGRAM?)
- COMPOSITING USING VIDEO POST
- RENDERING WITH SCANLINE MOTION BLUR: MULTI-PASS AND IMAGE
- RENDERING WITH SCANLINE: MIX IMAGE AND MULTI-PASS MOTION BLUR
- RENDERING IMAGES FOR PRINT: TEACH THOSE PRINT FOLKS A LESSON (OR TWO...)
- RENDERING IMAGES FOR PRINT: OH YEAH, ANOTHER THING...
- "THOSE PRINT PEOPLE"—MAKE IT EASIER ON THEM WITH 3DS MAX 6
- THE PRINT SIZE WIZARD (ENOUGH WITH THE PRINTING STUFF ALREADY!)
- MENTAL RAY IS IN THE BUILDING!
- MENTAL RAY IS ON THE COUCH!
- USE MENTAL RAY'S IMAGE SAMPLING WISELY
- IN MENTAL RAY, CONTRAST CAN SAVE YOUR DAY!
- HIDDEN LINE RENDERING: RENDER TO VECTORS IN MENTAL RAY
- TRIM YOUR (BSP) TREE IN MENTAL RAY
- MENTAL RAY PREFERENCES: PLEASE LEAVE ME A MESSAGE
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: OUTER SPACE SCENES
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: UNDERWATER SCENES
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: DISTANT LANDSCAPES
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: STILL LIFE AND MACROPHOTOGRAPHY
- "HELLO... YOU'VE GOT RENDER!"
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
COMPOSITING USING VIDEO POST
Okay, even if you don't have the cash for a commercial compositing program, you can still do simple alpha composites using the venerable 3ds max Video Post feature. (Discreet occasionally muses about removing this long-neglected feature from the program, yet there are still battle-hardened 3ds max veterans, as well as newbies, who scream "No! Over my dead body!")
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Figure
6.21Here's how to do a simple alpha composite in Video Post: First, make sure you have your rendered elements (such as background and foreground elements) rendered with proper alpha channels. (You should have rendered them as .TGA, .TIF, .PNG, .RPF, or .RLA files.) Although the background images don't have to have an alpha channel, foreground elements most definitely do. Go to Rendering/Video Post, and click the Add Image Input Event button. Click the Files button, and then browse to the appropriate directory and load your background image sequence first. Then repeat the process with the foreground element. (Sorry. You can do only two elements at once with this technique.) When you have both elements loaded in the Video Post queue, Ctrl-click on each element to select both of them, and then click on the (now active) Add Image Layer Event button. Choose Alpha Compositor from the menu, click the Add Image Output Event button, set your final filename to the appropriate composite name, set your render resolution parameters, and then render. (Note that nothing can be selected in the queue if you want to choose the output event.) If you want to layer more elements on top of this composite, just repeat the process, and make sure you render your composite to an image format with an alpha channel, as above.
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