At a resolution of 640 x 480, it can take 1 minute or more to render each frame, depending on the speed of your computer, so you probably don't want to render the entire animation: At 200 frames, that would take a few hours on a standalone system. This lesson describes some ways to check your work and preview what the final result would be.
Set up the scene:
- Continue from the previous lesson or go to the
\scenes\data_exchange\AutoCAD\
folder and
open the file
wt_finalgather.max.
Render a preview animation:
- From the main menu, choose Tools
Preview - Grab Viewport Create Preview Animation. 3ds Max opens a Make Preview dialog.
- Click Create.
- Click OK to accept the default codec.
3ds Max renders the animation as an AVI movie file. As it creates the preview, 3ds Max displays a progress bar at the bottom of the 3ds Max window. When the preview is done, it launches the Windows Media Player and plays the preview animation.
You can replay the preview in the Media Player by clicking Play once more, or launch the Media Player from 3ds Max again by choosing Tools
Preview - Grab Viewport Play Preview Animation. The preview gives you a precise idea of the speed and rhythm of the animation, and lets you see if there is anything you need to fix. At this point, you might want to make adjustments by changing the camera's target position or the shape of the path.
A preview renders at low resolution, with shading but no rendering effects. It is a good way to check the animation you've created.
Render sample frames:
- Click
(Render Setup) or press F10. - On the Render Setup Dialog Common panel, on the Common Parameters rollout, find the Time Output group. Change the output from Single to Active Time segment, and then change Every Nth Frame to 50.
This will render five frames that are sampled along the duration of the animation, from frame 0 to frame 200. (Rendering five frames will take probably 5 to 10 minutes: Adjust the Every Nth Frame value to suit the time you want to spend on this lesson.)
For animations or multiple frames, you need to specify a file or files where the renderings will be saved.
- Scroll down to the Render Output group (also on the Common Parameters rollout). Click the Files button.
A Render Output File dialog appears.
- In the file dialog, enter wt_samples as the File Name, and then choose “JPEG File (*.jpg,*.jpe,*.jpeg)” from the Save As Type drop-down list.
When you render an animation to a still-image file type such as JPEG, 3ds Max creates a sequence of image files. Each has the file name you chose (wt_samples) followed by a sequence number (for example, wt_samples0000.jpg).
Tip: Leave the folder name set to \renderoutput . The \renderoutput folder is a sub-folder of the 3ds Max tutorials project folder. - Click Save.
3ds Max opens a JPEG Image Control dialog.
- Change the Quality value to 100 percent, and then click OK.
- On the Render Setup dialog, click Render.
As each image is rendered, it is stored in the \renderoutput folder. When a frame is completed, view it to see if there is a problem with it. If something seems wrong, stop the rendering by clicking Cancel in the Rendering dialog or by pressing Esc. Correct the problem, and then render sample frames once more. This sampling process should help you spot problems before you take the time to render the full animation.
While the preview shows the animation's speed and rhythm, it doesn't show how frames look when fully rendered. To get a better idea of the look of the animation, you can render sample frames.
When you are ready to render a full animation, you can change the output file type to a movie format. AVI and MOV are both available options. 3ds Max prompts you to choose a compressor/decompressor (codec) for the movie. Change Every Nth Frame back to 1, and then render the complete animation.
A final version of the scene is in the \using_autocad_files\walkthrough\ folder, saved as wt_final.max .
To see the rendered walkthrough, play this movie:
Summary
In this tutorial, you learned about basing a model and animation on imported AutoCAD geometry.