Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview

You can use animated maps to add movement to a scene. For example, to simulate a sky view, you could map an animation of moving clouds to a clerestory window. The Make Preview options let you experiment with the effect in the Material Editor before you apply it to your scene.

• (Material Editor): Compact > Make/Play/Save Preview flyout
• Compact Material Editor menu bar > Material menu > Make Preview, View Preview, or Save Preview
• (Slate Material Editor: Select a map node. > Utilities menu > Render Map, or right-click a map node and choose Render Map.)

The buttons on the Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview flyout let you preview the effect of an animated map on the object in a sample slot (see Sample Type for alternatives to the default sphere.) You can use an AVI file, or IFL file as a source for the animation. The finished preview is saved as a new AVI file and automatically played back. You can also view the preview in a sample slot by dragging the time slider.

This flyout has three options:

• Make Preview Displays a Create Material Preview dialog to create an AVI file of the animated material.

  When the preview is complete, it is saved as _medit.avi in the \previews subdirectory. The file is then opened in the Windows Media Player and played back.

  Without this option, the only other way to preview a complex animated material in real time is to use the renderer to render an animated sequence and save it to an AVI file, a digital disk recorder, or a video tape recorder.

• Play Preview Uses the Windows Media Player to play the current _medit.avi preview file in the \previews subdirectory.
• Save Preview Saves the _medit.avi preview to an AVI file of a different name in the \previews subdirectory.

Procedures

To create a preview of an animated material:

1. Choose (Make Preview) from the flyout.
2. In the Create Material Preview dialog, set the preview conditions you want, and then click OK.

   The preview is created, and then plays.

To play back a preview of an animated material:

• Choose (Play Preview) from the flyout.

  The Material Editor starts the Windows Media Player. The Player then loads the current _medit.avi preview file in the \previews subdirectory and plays it in a separate window.

To view an animated material in a sample slot:

• Drag the time slider through the range of frames.

  By default, all sample slots with animated maps update at the same time. To change this, see Material Editor Options.

To save a preview under a different name:

1. Choose (Save Preview) from the flyout.

   The Material Editor displays a File Save dialog.

2. Enter a new name for the preview, and then click OK to save the file in the \previews subdirectory.

To play a renamed preview:

1. Choose Rendering menu View Image File.
2. In the View File dialog, change to the \previews subdirectory.
3. Select the renamed preview file and click Open.

   The preview is played in a separate window.