Recording Notes

Following are general notes that relate to recording and previewing:

• When recording a script, using ray tracing, radiosity solving, or particle tracing, in which the only motion is that of cameras or their targets, often it is desirable to use the Create single solution from frame setting. When this option is selected, a field to the right of the menu lets you nominate the frame from which to create the single solution. This procedure is useful for animations where there is no movement of actors, such as walk-throughs. It reduces rendering time by not regenerating the rendering database for each frame. Alternatively, you can load an existing solution from file.

  If recording using networked systems, it is advisable to ensure all systems use the exact same rendering database by rendering frame 1 (or at least some common view) on each system. As soon as the first line of the frame is ray traced on a particular system, you can safely Reset to abort the recording.

• The Freeze button in the Animation Producer dialog box acts only on design geometry (and viewpoint). It is not possible to freeze changing environmental parameters, such as material characteristics, lighting, and camera settings.

• Where objects move quickly in a sequence, motion blur can be used to give them a smooth and more realistic appearance of motion.

• Clear Pattern Maps should be turned on where you have a number of different pattern images used between frames, or where you are using a large number of very big animated patterns, or where you use many different images of RPC's. In some cases this can cause many more images to be loaded into memory, than when just rendering an individual frame, and could use up all your system's memory resources.