Rendering
your scene in Alias uses a similar workflow to photographing
a scene in the real world:
- First create and lay out the scene, placing
objects in position for the shot.
- Next you assign shaders to your model.
This is analogous to painting objects in the real world, except
that shaders control much more than just the color of the objects. They
control what type of material the object appears to be made of:
plastic, chrome, leather, smoke, water, and so on.
If you do not add shaders
to the model, objects render using the default matte blue color.
- Next, light the scene. Without light,
the scene will be completely dark and the camera will simply photograph
pitch black.
- Next, you position the camera to get
the angle you want on the scene. The camera in Alias is a near-perfect
simulation of a real camera.
- Next you can preview the shot. In the
real world this might involve looking down the viewfinder. In Alias,
it means checking the shaded view, and making quick test renders
to make sure that the scene is set up correctly.
- Finally, you render the scene. In the
real world, you snap the shutter, rendering the picture on film.
In Alias, you use the Render command to pass the scene to the
renderer, which saves the picture in an image file.