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Rendering Preferences

Renderer | Region |Images

Specifies the default texture image and various other rendering options.

To display:

The Render Manager > Global Properties > Rendering (Preferences)
From the main menu, choose File > Preferences and click Rendering.

Renderer

Rendering Engine

[renderer]

Specifies which rendering engine to use when outputting your scene:

mental ray: renders the scene using the mental ray renderer, according to the settings defined in the mental ray Render Options Property Editor.

Hardware Renderer: renders the scene using a hardware renderer specified in the Hardware Renderer Property Editor.

Output Directory Template

Specifies the default template used to define the output path directory where your scene's frames are rendered to. By default, the scene output is to the Rendered_Pictures folder of your current project. See Setting the Output Directory [Rendering].

For more information about building paths and filenames using templates, see Tokens and Templates.

Frame Padding

Specifies the default frame padding used to define the frame settings. See Setting the Frame Padding [Rendering].

For more information about building paths and filenames using templates, see Tokens and Templates.

Framebuffer Template

Specifies the default framebuffer file name used when outputting images for a pass' active render channels. See Setting Pass Output Paths and File Names [Rendering].

For more information about building paths and filenames using templates, see Tokens and Templates.

Scene Archive Template

Specifies the default render archive path and file name used when exporting MI files. See Render Pass Property Editor [Properties Reference].

For more information about building paths and filenames using templates, see Tokens and Templates.

Object Archive Template

Specifies the default object render archive path and file name used when exporting MIA files. See the Export Object Render Archive Dialog Box [Properties Reference].

For more information about building paths and filenames using templates, see Tokens and Templates.

Default Output Image Formats

Sets the default output format, data type, and bit-depth for the built-in render channels. If you choose, these settings can be overridden for each pass. See Render Channels & Framebuffers.

Render Preview and Render Region

Default Save Picture File Type

Specifies the default format for saving render previews and render regions. This is automatically updated with the last format you specified when saving files.

Empty Rendering Cache

When Region Closes	Deletes all data pushed to mental ray, as well as all data that mental ray creates, whenever the render region is closed.
After Rendering a Pass	Deletes all data pushed to mental ray, as well as all data that mental ray creates, after each pass is rendered.
After Finishing a Preview	Deletes all data pushed to mental ray, as well as all data that mental ray creates, after each preview finishes rendering.

Render Pass

Show Rendered Images

Lets you specify whether or not output images are displayed in the progress window when rendering from the Softimage user interface.

When enabled, the rendering progress window displays each rendered frame with a progress bar that provides information such as the percentage of the scene that has been rendered and the average rendering time for each frame. This is the default setting.

To speed up your renders when outputting large sized images, you can disable this option so that only the progress bar is displayed when rendering from the Softimage user interface (as shown below).

Region

Region Settings

These preferences specify the default behavior for the render region.

Track Selection	Constrains the render region to the current selection so that it follows the selected object throughout its animation. If the selected object changes size, the render region is recomputed to fit around it. If you select another object, the render region tracks the new selection.
Draw Tile Borders	Displays white borders around the tiles that are currently being rendered in the region.
Clear Rendered Image on Interaction	Removes the previous image in the render region before drawing a new one. If this option is off, the old tiles are displayed while new ones are being drawn.
Refresh Mode	Controls how render regions refresh: Interactive: Render regions refresh automatically for any change in the scene that might affect the rendering. Camera, Time, and Region State: Render regions refresh automatically only when you modify the camera, change frames, or change the render region settings. Manual: Render regions never refresh automatically. You must always refresh manually. See Previewing Interactively with the Render Region.
Display Mode	Specifies what color channels to display in the render region. Choose any one of the following: Alpha-blended RGB displays the RGB channels overlaid over the scene using the alpha channel. RGB Only displays the RGB channels. Alpha displays the alpha channel of the scene in the render region. This is useful if you want to quickly check the accuracy of a particularly complex alpha channel. Red shows only the red channel. Green shows only the green channel. Blue shows only the blue channel.

Region Colors

Bar	The color of the control bar at the upper left of the render region.
Bar Bias	Affects the brightness of the control bar.
Handles	The color of the render region's resize handles.
Swipe	The color of the swiper between the stored and current image, as well as of the border around the stored image.

Region Mode Colors

Default	The color of the border around the render region in the default Interactive mode.
Camera, Time, and Region State	The color of the border around the render region in Camera, Time, and Region State mode.
Manual	The color of the border around the render region in Manual mode.

Images

Image Clip Default Settings

Management Type

Load in Memory: For editing the image clip and storing all clip changes in memory. When rendered, the image is sent to each slave.

Use from Disk: References the image clip (source) from disk, thus not considering any changes made from the FX tab. When rendered, the images are sent to the render slaves.

Broadcast: Also references the image clip from disk. When rendered, the image's path is sent to the render slaves.

Source

Specifies the location in the database of your default texture image. When you first create a texture space, this image appears on the element by default.

You can specify separate paths for Windows and UNIX systems. This is useful when you want to share the same preferences file between several Linux and Windows machines.

You have the option of specifying the path in the text box or in a browser (accessed by pressing the button to the right of the boxes).

For more information, see The Default Image [Texturing].

Color Profile

You can set a color profile preference that declares to mental ray the color space that you typically use to create your input images, so that by default, all newly created image clips will be converted accordingly.

For information about specifying a color profile and rendering user defined gamma correction for individual image clips, see the Color Profile options on the Adjust tab of the Image Clip Property Editor [Properties Reference].

Color Profile

Sets the default color profile to use when new image clips are created. Select one of the following:

Automatic: Find out automatically which color profile was used to create the image. A color profile of sRGB or Linear is chosen based on the image's format and bit-depth. The image is then processed by mental ray accordingly.

The color profile is chosen as follows:
- 8-bit images are considered sRGB.
- OpenEXR and HDR images are considered Linear.
- Cineon and DPX images are logarithmic, and they are automatically converted to linear floating point.
Linear: Specifies that the image clip was created in linear color space. The image is used (no conversion necessary) as is.
sRGB: Specifies that the image clip was created in sRGB color space. The image is converted to linear floating point.
User Gamma: Lets you perform a gamma correction on the rendered version of the image clip using the value specified by the Gamma parameter (below).

Gamma

When the Color Profile option is set to User Gamma, the gamma value specified here is removed from the image clip when it is created and eventually rendered out.

Map Conversion

Automatically Convert Images to .map Files

When activated, all of the image clips that are used in your scene, and meet the Minimum Size requirement, are converted to .map files at render time.

The auto-generated .map files are stored in a subdirectory (named mr_map) of the directory where the original image sources are stored. The .map files are used for rendering only, while the original image clips are used to display the textures within Softimage.

You can control whether the auto-generated .map files are used at render time by setting the Automatic Map Conversion options on the Optimization page of the mental ray Render Options Property Editor or the Render Region Options Property Editor.

Minimum size

Specifies the minimum resolution necessary to convert an image to .map format.

Images whose resolution in either axis is greater than or equal to this value are automatically converted. Images whose resolution in both axes is less than this value are not converted.

This helps you avoid converting images that are small enough that memory mapping them does not affect rendering speed.

Misc

Reload Externally Modified Clips on Focus

Checks whether image files have changed on disk and reloads them when the mouse pointer enters a window.

When Local Materials Overlap

Specifies the default behavior when you apply a local material to a cluster (or selection of polygons) that overlaps one or more clusters that already have local materials.

Prompt user before proceeding displays a dialog box that prompt you to choose one of the options listed below.
Remove the overlap from the selection applies the local material to all parts of the selection except for the area of overlap, leaving any existing material(s).
Remove the overlap from the existing cluster(s) applies the local material to the entire selection and removes any existing local material(s) from the area of overlap.
Ignore (allow overlaps) leaves all existing materials on the area of overlap. The clusters' internal display order determines which material is displayed at render time.

Image Proxies

Image proxies are scaled-down copies of the texture images that you use in your scenes. Although they do not affect the rendered scene, they can speed up display considerably by displaying lower-resolution version of texture images within the Softimage interface.

Image proxies are stored in subdirectories of the directory where the original image is stored. Each directory corresponds to a scale (2:1, 4:1, and so on). If you'd like, you can generate thumbnails along with proxies. They are stored in their own subdirectory alongside the proxies' directories.

Image proxies are used automatically whenever they exist.

Generate Automatically	When activated, proxy images and directories are automatically generated in accordance with the Generation Behavior and Max Proxy Level settings. This guarantees that all images in the scene use proxies and that all proxies are up to date (meaning they reflect changes made to the original image). When deactivated, you must generate image proxies yourself and place them in the correct directory structure. This is useful when you want to modify your image proxies, perhaps by adding text or changing the color depth.
Generation Behavior	Specifies whether or not image proxies and their directories should be generated for remote images files. Always generate proxies: image proxies and their directories are generated for all images used in the scene, regardless of their location. Generate only locally: proxies are only generated for images stored on the local machine.
Max Proxy Level	Image proxies are generated at every scaling level up to and including this one. Thus a setting of 4:1 produces 2:1 and 4:1 scale proxies, but not 8:1 or 16:1 scale proxies.
Min Proxy Size	Proxy images below this size are not created, even if the Max Proxy Level setting specifies that they should be. For example, in the case of a 256x256 image, where the Max Proxy Level is set to 16:1, but the Min Proxy Size is set to 128 pixels, Only the 2:1 scale proxy (128x128) is generated.
Generate Thumbnail	When activated, thumbnails are generated along with image proxies.
Verbose	When activated, all operations affecting image proxy use and generation are logged to the command history.