Render scenes with Paint Effects strokes
 
 
 

Paint Effects strokes render seamlessly with the rest of your scenes. They are affected by motion blur, depth of field, and fog.

Render a scene with Paint Effects strokes

You can render a scene either from within Maya or from a Linux shell, or DOS window, or Terminal. Before rendering, close all applications (including Maya, if you are rendering from a Linux shell, or DOS window, or Terminal) to maximize the amount of memory available for rendering.

To render a scene with Paint Effects strokes

  1. Set up your lights, render camera, render options, and Paint Effects render options. For details, see Prepare to render scenes with Paint Effects,
  2. Render the scene as you would any Maya scene.
    • For information on rendering a single frame, see “Rendering a frame” in the Rendering guide.
    • For information on rendering an animation, see “Rendering an animation” in the Rendering guide.

After rendering an image or an animation, you will want to view the result. For information, see “Viewing Rendered Images” in the Rendering guide.

Note

Paint Effects renders are always multiprocessed. To turn off multiprocessing, do the following:

  • Exit Maya (or stop your batch render).
  • Set the MAYA_PAINT_EFFECTS_THREADS environment variable to a value between 1 and 3, for the number of processors you want to use.
  • Start Maya (or restart your batch render).
  • Re-render your scene.

Create a composite of Paint Effects strokes and your scene

You can render Paint Effects strokes independently of the rest of your scene, then composite the resulting images.

To create a composite

  1. Render the scene or animation without Paint Effects strokes as follows:
    • Select Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings.
    • If you are compositing an animation, beside Frame/Animation Ext, select name.#.ext.
    • Image formats which are.iff or.rla will have embedded depth information. Other formats will create a separate .iff file containing the depth information. This depth file would normally be written to the projects depth directory. For this example render the images as .iff.
    • In the Image File Output section, turn on Depth Channel (Z Depth) beside Channels.
    • In the Paint Effects Rendering Options section, turn off Enable Stroke Rendering.
    • Render the scene or animation (for example, rainyday). For details, see the Rendering guide.
  2. Save the scene using a different file name to ensure that the rendered images do not overwrite each other (for example, rainydaywithstrokes).
  3. Render the strokes with the scene as follows:
    • Make sure the camera and the lights are set up to match the camera and lights in step #1.
    • Select Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings.
    • If you are compositing an animation, beside Frame/Animation Ext, select name.#.ext.
    • In the Paint Effects Rendering Options section, turn on Enable Stroke RenderingandOnly Render Strokes.
    • Beside Read This Depth File, type the location and name of the depth file for the image you rendered in step #1. Make sure it is an absolute path name (for example, /h/pearce/rainyday.iff or c:\pearce\rainyday.iff).

    If you are rendering an animation, use the file name format name.#.iff (for example, rainyday.#.iff).

    • Render the scene or animation. For details, see the Rendering guide.

    Output images are created and named using the format name.#.iff (for example rainydaywithstrokes.5.iff).