Here is a typical sequence of tasks you might follow when rendering. You do not need to follow these tasks strictly in the following order.
Set up render passes and define their options.
Render passes let you render different aspects of your scene separately, such as a matte pass, a shadow pass, a highlight pass, or a complete beauty pass. You can define as many render passes as you want: within each pass, you can create partitions of lights and objects, then apply shaders and control their settings together. See Passes & Partitions.
Set up render channels and define their options.
You can define render channels that allow you to output different information about the pass to separate files. See Render Channels & Framebuffers for details.
All objects, including lights and cameras, are defined by their rendering properties. For example, you can determine whether a geometric object is visible, whether its reflection is visible, and whether it casts shadows. Rendering properties can be set for the scene, for the specific renderer, and per pass as well. See Managing Rendering Options and mental ray Renderer Options.
Preview the results of any modifications.
The viewports can display your scene in different display modes, including wireframe, hidden-line removal, shaded, and textured.
In addition, you can view any portion of your scene in a viewport and rendered with mental ray by defining a render region. See Previewing Interactively with the Render Region.
You can preview a full frame using Render > Preview. See Previewing a Single Frame.
Softimage gives you the option of rendering using any one of the following methods:
Interactively from the Render Region, as described in Previewing Interactively with the Render Region.
Interactively, using the single-frame preview tool, as described in Previewinga Single Frame.
Interactively from the interface, as described in Rendering to File from the Softimage User Interface.
Using the [xsi -render | xsibatch -render] command line, as described in Batch Rendering.
Command-line scripting using the -script option, as described in Batch Rendering with Scripts.
Using the mental ray Standalone renderer from the command line, as described in mental ray Standalone Rendering.
Using mental ray's tile-base distributed rendering across several machines. To do so, you must define which machines to use and how. See Distributed Rendering.
Composite and apply effects to passes using Softimage Illusion, a fully–integrated compositing and effects toolset, but you are also free to use any other post-production tool.
For more information about Softimage Illusion, see Compositing and Effects.
