Field Rendering

Location:

The Render Manager > Scene Render Options
Choose Render > Render > Scene Options from the Render toolbar.
Tab: Scene Globals [Properties Reference]
Options: Scene Field Rendering

Field rendering is a technique that involves rendering two alternating fields of horizontal scanlines (odd and even), and allows for smooth animations on interlaced video displays. To reduce flickering, video display devices display every other scanline of the picture first, and then display the remaining scanlines in a second sweep. Each sweep is called a field and two fields make up one frame. Since sweeps occur at one half the frame rate, animated objects may have moved between sweeps. Not taking this into account results in rough animations.

In general, use field rendering if you are rendering to video and you want very smooth motion in animation without strobing or when you need to match material that was shot with a video camera. Field rendering creates a more "electronic" look that resembles video camera shots and makes motion blur look like material shot on film.

To Set Field Rendering Options

Check the Scene Output Resolution settings to make sure that the output format is appropriate for field rendering: Video NTSC, Video PAL, Video HDTV, and so on.
Check the Enable Fields box to activate field rendering.
If you want the rendered fields to be interleaved automatically, check the Interleave box.

TipIf you do not use the Interleave option, you have to combine your field-rendered files yourself. One way to do this is using the Interlace operator in Softimage Illusion, Autodesk Softimage's built-in compositing and effects toolset. For more information about Softimage Illusion, see Compositing and Effects.
From the Field Orderlist, select one of the following:
- Lower Field First/Even (NTSC) renders to fields using even dominance. With mental ray, this means that even frame numbers contain the even fields. This is the dominance used by the NTSC and DV video standards.
- Upper Field First/Odd (PAL and HD) renders to fields using odd dominance. With mental ray, this means that odd frame numbers contain the odd fields. This is the dominance used by the PAL and HD video standards.
You can override the scene-level Field Rendering settings to activate or deactivate field rendering for specific passes only. See Setting Pass Field Rendering Options.