For information on the render settings, see Render Settings window.
For more information about render speed and image quality, see The speed/quality tradeoff.
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.
Lets you specify the hardware quality settings independently.
The Number Of Samples is set to 1. Color resolution is set to 128.Bump resolution is set to 256.
The Number Of Samples is set to 1. Color resolution is set to 256. Bump resolution is set to 512.
The Number Of Samples is set to 9. Color resolution is set to 512. Bump resolution is set to 1024.
The Number Of Samples is set to 9. Color resolution is set to 512. Bump resolution is set to 1024. Allows for transparency.
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.
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:
Turn on if you want to use transparent shadow maps.
The method by which sorting is performed prior to rendering to improve transparency.
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.
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.
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.
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 bump maps, which typically must be of a higher resolution than that used for mapped color channels. The default value for this option is 256, which means that any baked bump images have dimensions 256 by 256 pixels.
Enable or disable this option.
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.
Lets you control the type of culling used for rendering.
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.
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.
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.
When this performance-improving option is enabled (default), opaque objects that are smaller than the specified threshold are not drawn.
This option provides the same functionality as the Occlusion Culling option found in High Quality Rendering mode in scene views.
This is the threshold suboption for the Small Object Culling option. The threshold you provide is the percentage of the image size that an object occupies in the output image.
If an object is less than that percentage in size then it is not drawn. Size is measure in pixels in screen space (relative to the camera used for rendering). The default percentage is 0 percent.
This option ignores View->Camera Settings options (such as Gate and Fill options), which are used for image output only.
E.g. % = 10.0. Image size 100 by 100 (pixels). The threshold in pixels would be 100X100 * .10 = 1000 pixels. If an object was less than 1000 pixels in size then it would not be drawn.
E.g. % = 0.0 Image size 100 by 100 (pixels). The threshold in pixels would be 100X100 * 0 = 0 pixels. If an object was less than 0 pixels in size then it would not be drawn. This can occur when one opaque object completely obscures another object with respect to the current camera used for rendering.
Turn on this setting to cache geometry to your video card, when the video card memory is not being used elsewhere. In some cases, this can improve performance. You can set the Maximum cache size (in MB) if you want to limit the usage to a particular portion of the available video card memory, up to 512 MB.
Disable to interpret the Env Ball/Env Cube map in the same way as the Maya Software renderer.
Enable to interpret the Env Ball/Env Cube map according to the Maya Hardware Renderer.
If this option is on, you can change Motion Blur by Frame option and the Number of Exposures option.
In the hardware renderer, motion blur is achieved by rendering the scene at specific points in time and blending the resulting sample renders into a single image.
Blur by frame represents the absolute time range, starting from the current frame, that is blurred. This determines the approximate start and end times of the blur. This time range is then adjusted in accordance with the camera’s Camera Shutter Angle attribute in the Attribute Editor.
The number of exposures divides the above time range determined by the Motion Blur by Frame option into discrete moments in time, where the entire scene is re-rendered. The final image is the accumulated average of all the exposures. So to obtain a smooth blur, a larger number of exposures is desired. Similarly, for a motion trail, a smaller number of exposures is preferable.
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.
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.
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.