For information on the render settings, see Render Settings window.
Controls how Maya anti-aliases objects during rendering.
For more information about anti-aliasing and image quality, see Anti-aliasing and flicker.
Select a preset anti-aliasing quality from the drop-down list. When you select a preset, Maya automatically sets all Anti-aliasing Quality attributes. The default setting is Custom.
Controls how the edges of objects are anti-aliased during rendering. Select a quality setting from the drop-down list. The lower the quality, the more jagged the object’s edges appear, but the faster the render; the higher the quality, the smoother the object’s edges appear, but the render is slower.
When you select an Edge anti-aliasing quality from the drop-down list, Maya automatically sets all Anti-aliasing Quality attributes (in the subsections).
Highest quality anti-aliasing computes the image in two passes, looking for color contrasts within pixels and in surrounding pixels, such as highlights. The first pass is the High quality computation—the second pass looks for color contrast in the results of the first pass. In the regions where color contrast is high (for example, in regions containing highlights), more shading samples are taken.
Improves on the High quality and is excellent for picking up highlights that may be missed by a single pass (when you use High quality).
The number of shading samples for all surfaces. This option works in conjunction with Shading Samples, an attribute available from the Render Stats section of a surface’s Attribute Editor. Shading Samples sets the number of times Maya shades in a pixel. For details, see Render Stats and Shading Samples.
Not available if you choose Preview Quality from the Presets menu as the Anti-aliasing Quality.
The maximum number of shading samples for all surfaces. This option works in conjunction with Max Shading Samples, an attribute available from the Render Stats section of a surface’s Attribute Editor. Max Shading Samples sets the maximum number of times a pixel is shaded during the second pass of a Highest Quality render. The higher the number, the longer the rendering takes, but the more accurate the resulting image.
The number of visibility samples Maya takes to accurately compute a moving object’s visibility as it passes over another object
The number of shading samples for particles. This option works with Shading Samples, an attribute available from the Render Stats section of a surface’s Attribute Editor. Shading samples sets the number of times Maya shades each fragment in a pixel. See Render Stats and Shading Samples for more details.
Multipixel filtering blurs or softens the entire rendered image to help eliminate aliasing or jagged edges in rendered images, or roping or flicking in rendered animations.
These options are only available when the “Edge Anti-aliasing” quality is set to either High Quality or Highest Quality.
Controls how much the rendered image is blurred or softened when Use multi pixel filter is on. There are five preset filters to choose from—Box filter (very soft), Triangle filter (soft), Gaussian filter (only slightly soft), Quadratic B-Spline filter (the filter used in Maya 1.0) and Plug-in filter. The default is Triangle filter.
To use a custom filter, select Plug-in Filter.
To create a plug-in filter, Create and load a plug-in multipixel filter.
Determines adaptive sampling. Controls the number of shading samples taken during the second pass computation when Edge anti-aliasing is set to Highest quality.
Each color channel is evaluated and if the contrast of the neighboring pixel exceeds the threshold, more samples are taken. The valid range is 0 to 1. The default values are 0.4 (Red), 0.3 (Green), and 0.6 (Blue). If Presets is set to Contrast Sensitive Production, the default values are 0.2 (Red), 0.15 (Green), and 0.3 (Blue).
Only available when 3D motion Blur is on.
Controls number of Visibility Samples taken during 3D motion blur computation. If visibility variation exceeds the threshold, more samples are taken. For example, reducing this number helps the renderer detect the change of visible objects in a pixel (but also increases rendering times). The valid range is 0 to 1. The default value is 0.125.
Use these options to control how Maya renders images as fields.
To find out more about frames and fields, see Frames vs. Fields and Specify frame or field rendering.
Render
Controls whether Maya renders images as frames or fields, which is useful for output to video.
Zeroth scanline
Controls whether the first line of the first field Maya renders is at the top of the image or at the bottom.
At Top is on by default. If you encounter problems in an animation where field order appears wrong (for example, objects vibrate up and down), change the Zeroth Scanline setting and render the animation again. If this does not solve the problem, or if objects in the animation vibrate left to right, try different combinations of Field Dominance and Zeroth Scanline, until the problem is solved.
Field extension
Select one of the following options:
The attributes in this section do not take effect if the fields are interlaced automatically.
Maya saves the two field image files by adding an e (for even fields) and an o (for odd fields) onto the frame number extension or file name. For example, name.001e.iff and name.001o.iff. This is the default setting.
Controls whether a scene is raytraced during rendering, and controls the quality of raytraced images. When you change these global settings, the associated material attribute values also change. The resulting value is the smaller value of the two attribute settings.
For more information about raytracing, see Depth map and raytraced shadows in the Lighting guide.
The maximum number of times a light ray can be refracted. The valid range is 0 to 10. The default value is 6. For details, see Refraction Limit.
The maximum number of times a light ray can be reflected and, or refracted and still cause an object to cast a shadow. A value of 0 turns off shadows.
For example, if the Shadows value is 2, only light rays that have been reflected and, or refracted once cause an object to cast a shadow. The valid range is 0 to 10. The default value is 2.
If the scene contains 3D motion blurred objects and raytraced shadows, you may notice dark areas or incorrect shadows on the motion-blurred objects. To solve this problem, set the Bias value between 0.05 and 0.1. If the scene does not contain 3D motion blurred objects or raytraced shadows, leave the Bias value as 0. The valid range is 0 to 1. The default value is 0.
When you render an animation, motion blur gives the effect of movement by blurring objects in the scene. You can turn Motion blur on or off for objects. Maya uses the relationship between the Shutter Angle and Motion blur attributes to determine how much blur is applied to an object.
For information about how a camera’s shutter speed/angle affect motion blur, see Motion blur.
The amount moving objects are blurred. The higher the value the more motion blur is applied to objects. For example, if you motion blur by 1 frame, blur is calculated based on the motion of objects from one frame to the next; if you motion blur by 4 frames, blur is calculated based on the motion of objects every four frame lengths, during which time much motion is detected, and therefore much blur is applied. The default value is 1. The amount that moving objects are blurred is also based on the Shutter Angle of the camera. The length of the frame is determined by:
(Shutter Angle/360) * Blur by Frame
The Shutter Angle can be modified in the Special Effects section of the Camera’s Attribute Editor.
Shuttter open and close values. Default values are -0.5 for Shutter Open and 0.5 for Shutter Close. The Use Shutter Open/Close, Shutter Open and Shutter Close attributes can also be set using the renderGlobals node. The shutter duration cannot be negative. If a user alters the values in the Render Settings window such that the shutter duration is negative, the values will be altered to suit a positive duration. If a negative shutter duration is set on the renderGlobals node, the software renderer will disregard these values and render as if the Shutter Open / Shutter Close values have never been set.
This feature is an addition to the motion blur feature. If both Motion Blur and Use Shutter Open/Close are disabled, then motion blur is not used in the render. If Motion Blur is enabled but Use Shutter Open/Close is disabled, then Maya renders with motion blur and with the shutter opening and closing at their default values, which is [-0.5, 0.5]. If both Motion Blur and Use Shutter Open/Close are enabled, then Maya will open and close the shutter of the camera at the times you specified.
Smooth
Select one of the following options:
Sometimes, anti-aliasing performed by the Smooth Value attribute can fail and produce artifacts corresponding to edges in the alpha channel of the unblurred image. For example, when bright opaque objects pass in front of dark light fog. Turning on Alpha or Color in such cases eliminates artifacts by additionally blurring the objects.
The amount Maya blurs motion blur edges. The larger the value, the more the motion blur is anti-aliased.The valid range is 0 to infinity. The default value is 2.
If on, Maya saves the motion vector information for all visible objects in the rendered image but does not blur the image. This lets you blur the rendered images using the vector data with other 2D blur software (for example blur2d).
If off, Maya blurs the rendered image but does not save the motion vector information. Keep motion vectors is off by default.
You can specify the maximum amount of memory the operation uses. If Motion blur is on and the Motion blur type is set to 2D, the Use 2d blur memory limit is on by default and provides a default memory limit of 200 MB. This default limit should be sufficient to eliminate most problems. However, you can specify the size of the memory cap (in MB) in the field provided.
Creates an environment fog node. Environment fog (a Volumetric material) is used to simulate the effect of fine particles (fog, smoke, or dust) in the air. These particles affect the appearance of the atmosphere and the appearance of objects in the atmosphere.
For more information on Environment fog, see Environment Fog in the Shading guide.
If on, Maya renders the area of the scene visible in the Resolution Gate. If off, Maya renders the area of the scene visible in the Film Gate and the region outside is rendered background color. See Camera Settings and Film Gate for information on how to viewing the film gate boundary interactively. Ignore Film Gate is on by default.
You can reduce the rendering time required for your scene by linking lights with surfaces so that only the specified surfaces are included in the calculation of shadows (shadow linking) or illumination (light linking) by a given light.
Use the drop-down list to select one of the three choices available with this option:
The shadows in your scene can obey only one of light linking or shadow linking and not both. Therefore, you must decide whether to incorporate light linking or shadow linking in your scene and make your selection from the drop-down list accordingly.
You can also render part of your scene using the default settings (instead of obeying the links that you have created). Select Shadows ignore linking so that all links that you have established or broken using shadow linking or light linking are ignored.
The default is set to Shadows obey light linking.
See Shadow linking for more information regarding shadow linking. See Light linking for more information regarding light linking.
Color corrects rendered images according to the following formulas. The default value is 1 (no color correction).
If this option is on (default), premultiplication takes place (see Premultiplied images). If this option is off, the premultiply threshold option is enabled.
If off, Maya renders objects so that they are not anti-aliased against the background. For example, a pixel on the edge of an object is not mixed with the background color. (In TIFF terms, Maya generates unassociated alpha.) If on, Maya anti-aliases objects against the background. Premultiply is on by default.
If this option is enabled (when the default premultiply is turned off), per-pixel color values are output only if the pixel’s alpha channel value is above the threshold set here.
Controls the amount of edge anti-aliasing in a matte if Premultiply is on. If you are rendering images for use in a video game, and you are using 8 or 16 bit color, set Premultiply threshold to 1 for smooth matte edges, with no jagged edges. The default value is 0.
Memory and Performance Options
The Memory and Performance Options attributes help you optimize rendering to make scenes render faster.
For more information on render speed and image quality, see The speed/quality tradeoff.
Helps manage how Maya handles tessellation information for surfaces.
Enables the storing of geometry information into a “cache” file in the directory specified by the system’s TEMP (Windows and Mac OS X) or TMPDIR (Linux) environment variable to reduce the amount of memory used to store geometric data. Turning on this option lets the renderer perform its own swapping.
In the Maya.env file, enter TEMP = defaultPath, where defaultPath is the pathname of the new temporary directory.
If the above still fails to find a temporary directory, a final attempt is made to set the current directory you are working in as the temporary directory.
If on, Maya temporarily saves tessellation information to disk for each frame.
This is useful if a scene contains depth map shadows. For example, Maya tessellates surfaces when generating the depth map for a light (and saves the tessellation information to disk), and then reuses the tessellation information when generating depth maps for other lights and when rendering the frame. (Maya removes the tessellation information from disk, and recalculates it for the next frame.) Reuse tessellations is on by default.
Rendering can take a long time when you use displacement mapping because before rendering tiles, Maya tessellates all the displacement-mapped surfaces and calculates their bounding boxes. When you turn on Use displacement bounding box, Maya calculates the bounding box scale that you define for all displacement-mapped surfaces. This makes rendering faster. When off, Maya pre-tessellates all the displacement-mapped objects before rendering. See Bounding Box Scale for details.
Helps control raytracing. For information on raytracing attributes, see Raytracing Quality.
For more information on raytracing, see Depth map and raytraced shadows in the Lighting guide.
Represents the power that the number of triangles in a voxel is raised to in order to calculate how many voxels should be created when recursion is required. The default is 0.2500, which should be appropriate for most scenes. For extremely complex scenes or scenes with complex parts, this value can be increased slightly.
Multi-threaded interactive rendering is available for the Render View. It provides the same kind of performance gain for the batch renderer. The number of CPUs to use for interactive rendering and IPR are set separately. Maya saves the value you set with the scene.
For more information, see Network render with Maya software.
The slider can be dragged from values 1 to 8, but larger values up to 256 can be entered if needed. Entering a value of 0 or turning the option on enables all CPUs for interactive rendering.
These attributes determine which shading elements are saved to disk when you perform an IPR render. This can save time and disk space.
For more information on IPR, see Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR).
Depth map shadows are included in IPR renders.
Turn on to show depth map shadows in the scene and be able to update them when tuning. Because generating a depth map is a time consuming and processor-intensive operation (like a full rendering from the light’s point of view), IPR does not automatically generate depth maps when you adjust attributes.
Paint Effects Rendering Options
For more information about Paint Effects, see What is Painting in Maya? in the Paint Effects and 3D Paint Tool guide.
The following describes only render options for the Paint Tool.
Turn on to render only the Paint Effects strokes in the scene. You may want to render the strokes separately from the rest of the scene, then composite the strokes with the scene. See For more information about Paint Effects, see What is Painting in Maya? in the Paint Effects and 3D Paint Tool for details.
If compositing the rendered scene with rendered Paint Effects strokes, type the location and name of the depth file for the rendered scene. Use the absolute path name (for example, /h/username/rainyday.iff (Linux), or c:\username\rainyday.iff (Windows), or /username/rainyday.iff (Mac OS X)).
If rendering an animation and have an animated input file, place the # character where the frame number is in the source input files. For example, for files foo1.iff, foo2.iff, and so on, enter foo#.iff. For files foo1, foo2, and so on, enter foo#. When you render, the # character is replaced with the current frame number.
For more information about Paint Effects strokes, see What is Painting in Maya? in the Paint Effects and 3D Paint Tool guide.
Also, if you do not supply a depth file (an .IFF file with depth information), Paint Effects strokes that are behind objects in your scene are rendered. Maya does not overwrite your existing images supplied as a depth file—the output is named as shown at the top of the Render Settings window.