Legacy Render Layer render attributes

Note: A new render setup system is available in Maya 2016 Extension 2 that provides a modern approach to creating render layers, collections and overrides. This new approach simplifies the management of complex scenes for rendering and is now the recommended workflow. See Render setup in Maya for more information.

Render Layer Options

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.

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, turn Casts Shadows off.

  Notes:

  • 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.

  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.

  Visible In Reflections

  When on, the surface reflects in reflective surfaces.

  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 Override Volume Samples 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.

  Ignore Self Shadowing

  When on, the object does not cast shadow onto itself.

  Override Geometry Anti-aliasing

  When on, the surface overrides the geometry anti-aliasing settings.

  Tip: Motion-blurred objects ignore any changes to the Override Geometry Anti-aliasing settings. The blur generally hides any aliasing artifacts.

  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).

  Override Shading Samples

  When on, the surface overrides the global shading sample settings in the Render Settings window.

  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.

  Max Shading Samples

  Sets the maximum number of times a pixel is sampled during the second pass of a Highest Quality render (adaptive shading pass). The higher the number, the longer the rendering takes, but the more accurate the resulting image is.

  Max Shading Samples has an effect only when used in conjunction with Highest Quality edge anti-aliasing. Also, depending on the requirements to compute an accurate solution, the number of Shading Samples taken can be less than the number of Max Shading Samples.

  Tips:

  • Occasionally, when an object is moving, the object’s textured edges look distorted. To resolve this, try increasing the number of Max Shading Samples.
  • Sometimes, skinny highlights can exhibit roping or flickering artifacts. Try increasing the Max Shading Samples setting. You may also need to increase the Shading Samples setting, but you can set it on a per-object basis.

  Override Visibility Samples

  Activate the layer override on the global maximum number of motion blur visibility samples to be taken for surfaces during rendering.

  Level

  Sets the number of visibility samples for the layer override.

  Override Volume Samples

  When on, the object overrides the global volume shading settings and you can turn on the Depth Jitter option in Attribute Editor.

  Level

  Sets the number of volume samples for the layer override.