- [Instructor] Having set up the desired quality
and features of the hardware rendering.
We're now ready to define parameters
to output an image sequence of this camera arc animation.
So let's go back into the render setup dialogue.
Previously, we set this up with Quicksilver
as our production renderer
with near production quality settings
for a standard definition frame size of 640 by 360.
We're going to render an image sequence,
up here at the top, we have the time output
by default it's set to a single frame.
In this case, we want to choose active time segment,
that's going to render all 150 frames,
from frame zero to frame 149.
We need to define the file output, the file format,
the name and its location.
We can find that if we scroll down in this window a bit,
down here we'll see a section labeled renderer output,
there's a checkbox, save file.
And there's also a files button
where we can determine the exact parameters,
the file format, its name and location.
At the top of the window,
there's an identical save file check box,
and a little ellipsis button that will let you browse,
and it's identical to this files button here.
So we can do the work in either location,
we can enable this save file checkbox up here,
and then click on the browse button,
we're taken to the render output file dialogue.
We're automatically taken
to our current project's render output folder by default.
In this case, it's the exercise files folder,
and then there's a sub folder called render output
that is designated for rendered images,
that's where we want to save.
But additionally,
it's a good practice to create a sub folder inside here.
And that's because we're going to be saving out
150 individuals still images, each one a separate file.
There are many reasons for this.
For example, if you render out a movie file such as an AVI,
then if anything interrupts the rendering,
it's very likely that you'll lose all the rendered frames
up to that point and you'll have to start over again.
And that can be very time consuming, it could take days.
Whereas if it's a numbered sequence
of individuals still frames,
then if there's any interruption,
you still have the files that you've rendered so far,
and you can just pick up rendering where you left off.
We want to create a sub folder in here
to store the image sequence,
so it doesn't get mixed up with any other images,
or image sequences.
Think of this sub-folder as a container for a movie,
in which the movie is made up of many individual files.
I'll click on the create new folder button,
and I'll give it a name.
We'll call it camera_arc_sequence and press enter.
Then we want to navigate into that folder,
so double click to go inside that folder
and this is where we're actually going to save.
We need to plug in a file name down here,
and it's already got a name in here
probably from when I was using this scene earlier.
But in any event we want to have the file name,
match the folder name.
So I'm going to call this once again,
camera_arc_sequence,
and then add another underscore at the end.
That trailing underscore is there for a reason,
it's a separator.
When we render this,
the frame number is going to be appended
to the end of the file name and that trailing underscore
makes it easier to read.
Then we need to choose a file format
from the save as type pull down list.
It's not good enough to put in the file name extension here,
it actually won't work,
and that's why I have not even bothered
to type in my extension.
We need to choose the file type from this pull down list.
We can see that it's currently set to open EXR
and that would be great
if we were intending to make adjustments in post-production,
we would be saving out a high dynamic range format
and it would give us a lot of options
in the post-production process.
But for this simple hardware rendering,
a standard dynamic range PNG format
will serve our purposes just fine.
Let's choose that from our list,
save as type PNG, or Portable Network Graphics.
The first time we choose a particular file format
in a particular scene, if we click the save button
that'll close the dialogue
and we should be to choose the options for that file type.
So let's try it,
click on save, and we do get the PNG configuration dialogue.
But if that doesn't appear for you,
then you might need to click on this setup button,
and you actually might need
to click on the setup button twice.
That's a long standing bug that's never been fixed,
but here in our PNG configuration,
we need to make some changes.
The default bit depth is 48 bits or 16 bits per channel,
and that is overkill in this case.
And actually many programs don't even support PNG files
in that format.
Now set the colors to RGB 24 bit,
or eight bits per channel.
We also see something down here labeled Alpha Channel,
and that's something of a misnomer
because the PNG format
doesn't really support a proper Alpha Channel.
PNG uses something called, embedded transparency
and it can be extremely difficult to deal with.
If you're going to be compositing elements
such as a background, then you don't want to save out a PNG,
you'd be much better off saving an EXR, or a tagger,
or a TIFF, or anything that supports a proper alpha.
In this case, we do have a background in our scene
and we want that to be visible in the final image.
In order to preserve that background,
we need to turn off the so-called Alpha Channel
in that PNG configuration, that's really important.
If that switch were on,
then the background would be removed.
It would be made permanently transparent
and there would be no way to get it back
due to the limitations of the PNG format.
With that so-called Alpha Channel disabled,
the environment will not be knocked out
by the embedded transparency.
We've got the options we want,
24 bit with no alpha and we can click okay.
And that exited out of the PNG configuration,
and it also exited out of our file save dialogue.
So we've chosen our file format and our options,
we've chosen the location and file name,
and we can see that here.
Now, by the way that save button that we clicked before,
just stores all those options here
in the render setup dialogue,
it doesn't actually save any files.
Having established all those rendering options,
such as quality and features and our file output parameters,
we are ready to execute the render and save some files.
So click the big render button up here at the top,
and the process will begin.
Now don't be alarmed if your screen flashes,
or if you see some really extreme bloom like this,
that is just part of the process.
Remember that Quicksilver is an iterative renderer,
so it renders in passes.
And also the display of max itself
might be a little bit glitchy,
or you might see quality issues,
but when you go back and look at the rendered frames,
they will all be what you expect
with these high quality settings.
Weirdly, when rendering a sequence in Quicksilver,
the rendered frame window
may not display the final iterations.
And the file saved to disk will often look better
than what you see during the render process.
Now, this may take an hour or two to complete the rendering,
in this little dialogue,
we actually have an estimate of the time remaining,
you can expand the size of that dialogue
and that may take a moment to catch up,
but we can see there is an estimated time
remaining down here.
So we'll let that finish rendering,
and the following movie,
we'll take a look at the image sequence in the Ram player.