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168 Chapter 17: Rendering
minimum or maximum height value is updated
based on your selection.
B uffer mi n H eig ht —After you render a normal
bump projection, this value is set to the
minimum distance that a projection ray travelled.
Default=0.0.
Buffer max Height—After you render a normal
bump projection, this value is set to the
maximum distance that a projec tion r ay travelled.
Default=0.0.
IfyouwanttousetheHeightMaptextureelement,
you can render a normal bump map to obtain
theBuffervalues,andthensetMinHeightand
Max Height accordingly, in order to get the
best-looking possible Height Map.
R ender ing Pr ev iews
ApreviewisanAVI file (page 3–609) that can
help you preview the animation in your scene.
The preview uses lig hting but not materials, so it
renders much more quickly than a fully rendered
animation.
The preview commands are on the Animation
menu (page 3–681).
Make Preview (page 3–168)
View Preview (page 3–170)
Rename Preview ( page 3–170)
Make Preview
Animation menu > Make Preview
Make Preview displays the Make Preview dialog,
enabling you to create an AV I (page 3–609) file or
custom file type preview of the animation in the
current viewport. You can also render a preview to
aspecifieddevice.
When the preview is complete, the software starts
the Media Player with the preview _scene.avi
filereadytoplay. (Ifyoudon’twanttheMedia
Player to st art, choose Customize > Preferences
> General and, in the UI D isplay group, turn off
Autoplay Preview File (page 3–815).)
Note: Do not open any other program w indows
that cover up the viewport while rendering a
preview. Anything that covers the viewport will be
rendered into the preview AVI file.
Procedure
To create a pr ev iew:
1.
Choose Animation menu > Make Preview.
TheMakePreviewdialogappears.
2. Change the preview p a rameters or accept the
defaults, and then click OK.
IftheoutputtypeisAVI,thesoftwarerenders
the preview and saves it in a file called
_scene.avi,inthepathspecifiedbyConfigure
User Paths > File I/O (page 3–810) >Preview.
Immediately after rendering the preview, the
software runs Media Player with this animation
loaded.
3. View the preview by clicking Play in Media
Player.
If you dismiss Media Player and then want to
view the preview again, choose Animation >
View Preview. This restarts Media Player w ith
_scene.avi.
You can save the preview under a different
name, so it won’t be overwritten the next time
you make a preview. To do so, use Animation >
Rename Preview (page 3–170).