A typical rendering workflow

 
 
 

The exact workflow steps and the order in which you perform them vary. Rendering is an iterative process in which you tweak lights, textures, and cameras; adjust various scene and object settings; visualize your changes; then, when you are satisfied with the results, you render your final images.

Once you have completed shading and texturing objects, adding lights, and adding renderable cameras to your scene, you can render your scene. The following workflow outlines the typical steps.

Related topics

To render a scene

  1. Decide which renderer you want to use, and set scene options for it:
  2. If you plan to composite your work, you can render your scene in layers and passes.

    See Render layer overview and Render passes.

  3. Make any required per-object adjustments:
  4. Test iterations of your scene to visualize your the changes you make materials, textures, lights, cameras, and objects.
  5. When you are satisfied with the results, render the final images.
    • See Render a single frame.
    • See Command line rendering.
      Note

      When working on the Linux platform and rendering with the Maya Software renderer, you may choose to send the (rendering) output messages to a file instead of to the shell. Use the command maya >& logfile. A file with the name logfile is created and all output messages are saved to this file upon rendering in Maya.