After
completing a particular scene or animation you will
probably want to distribute your work in some way.
There are several Render options available in 3D Studio
Max, although some are not as obvious as others. The
following goes through the main parts of the Render
Scene options. The render menu can be found by clicking
Render>Rendering on the topmost main toolbar.
Part One - Time Output
 The
menu portion displayed above details the frame(s) that
should be rendered to disk. You can choose a single
frame, a series of frames, or even specific frame numbers.
This last option may be useful when you want to see
only keyframes of your animation rendered out.
 The
option Every Nth Frame allows you to render out every
frame, or every 2nd frame, or every 3rd, etc.
 The
last option, entitled File Number Base, allows you
to render out still images in a sequence starting with
a particular base number. This is particularly important
if you are creating a high quality sequence of files
that you will want to load easily into an Non Linear
Editor (such as Adobe Premiere) and want to add frames
to an existing sequence.
Part Two - Output Size
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The Output Size is fairly self-explanatory, howevery,
a larger output size is directly related to quality
which is directly realted to the time needed to complete
the render. Therefore, if you are making an Internet
movie at 320*240, it would be a waste of time to
render out a higher quality file because of the amount
of time it would take to create a larger output size.
If you don't need to create a Custom
file size, choose one of the drop down options that
suits your needs.
The
Aperture Width relates to the lense you used to take
the snapshot or video. If you know what the aperture
was, you should enter it into this area.
The
Image Aspect and Pixel Aspect relates to the ratio
relationship between width and height as well as how
the pixels are drawn onto the screen respectively.
A Pixel Aspect of 1.0 looks great on a computer screen,
but DV uses 0.9. This often looks a bit distorted on
a computer screen, but looks great on a TV source.
Part Three - Options
The
Options menu allows additional control over how the
file will be rendered.
Atmospherics,
Effects, and Displacement are rendered out by default,
however, they can take a long time to render. If you
want to speed up the render time and render out a quick
test, atmospherics can be turned off in the renderer.
On
the other hand, items like Force 2-Sided is unselected
by default. When a basic shape like a box or a sphere
are created, they only have an outside. If you zoom
towards one of these shapes to the point that you are
inside of it, the inside has no colour or material.
There are ways to modify the shape and the way colours
and materials affect it to show both the inside and
outside, however, forcing a 2-sided render will accomplish
this task.
If you completed the box explosion
tutorial, you will have noticed that when the box's
pieces flip in the air, they disappear. This is a result
of the box only having one side. By rendering both
sides a more realistic tumble through the air will
be created.
Part Four - Render Output
The
Render Output menu is as important as choosing which
frames to render. If you do not complete this step,
clicking on render will create nothing at all. You
MUST select the Files... button in order to decide
the name of the output file, where it will be saved,
and in what format. This may include a series of still
images, or it may be an avi file using the DiVX codec.
When you choose to render a particular
output type for the first time, you will be provided
with specific options for the chosen codec.
The
Use Device... option is related to an external video
device that you may want to record to.
The
Virtual Frame Buffer, if selected, will allow you to
see each frame as it is rendered.
 Net
Render, if selected, will check to see if you have
a network render farm setup and will request which
frames it should render while other computers on your
network are working hard to complete other frames.
 Finally,
Skip Existing Images refers to the possibility that
you rendered using individual images rather than an
AVI file and that for some reason the rendering was
interupted. You can resume the render without having
to rerender existing images. Unfortunately, an AVI
will need to be rerendered rather than being appended
too.
Part Five - Final Options
The
Final Options provide some basic, but important features.
The first allows you to choose between a Production,
Draft, or Active Shade. The last has only been available
since r4 of Max. Production is the highest quality,
while Draft is obviously a lower quality that renders
out much faster.
The
icon to the right with the arrows allows you to copy
the attributes you have setup for one and transfer
it to the other. If you do not use this icon when switching
between the two, all options reset to default.
The
Viewport option is also quite important. Of the four
possible views that are displayed on your screen at
any one time, you can choose which of those to render
out. The perspective view, for example, will provide
a 3D view whereas a front, right, left, etc. view will
be 2D.
Finally,
by clicking on Render you confirm all options and will
render out your still or video.
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