After you've completed your scene and rendered it, you're finished, right? Well, not exactly. You still have post-production to complete—that's where you work with the final rendered images to add some additional effects. This phase of production typically takes place in another package, such as Photoshop, Autodesk's Combustion, or Adobe's After Effects, and understanding how to interact with these packages can be a lifesaver when your client wants some last-minute changes (and they always do).
You can set Max to render any part in the rendering pipeline individually. These settings are called render elements. By rendering out just the Specular layer or just the shadow, you have more control over these elements in your compositor.
If you don't have access to a compositing package or even if you do, Max includes a simple interface that can be used to add some post-production effects. This interface is the Video Post interface.
You can use the Video Post window to composite the final rendered image with several other images and filters. These filters let you add lens effects like glows and flares, and other effects like blur and fade, to the final output. The Video Post window provides a post-processing environment within the Max interface.
Note
Many of the post-processing effects, such as glows and blurs, also are available as render effects, but the Video Post window is capable of much more. Render effects are covered in Chapter 45, "Using Atmospheric and Render Effects."
Before delving into the Video Post interface, let's take a quick look at some of the available compositing packages. Several of these packages have direct links into Max that can be used to give you a jump on the post-production process.
Perhaps the most common tool for compositing images is Photoshop. Photoshop can bring multiple images together in a single file and position them relative to one another. Working with layers makes applying simple filters and effects to the various element pieces easy.
Figure 48.1 shows Photoshop with several separate pieces, each on a different layer.
To composite images in Photoshop, you need to load all the separate images into Photoshop and then select the portions of the images that you want to combine. When saving image files in Max, be sure to include an alpha channel. You can see the alpha channel in the Rendered Frame window if you click the Display Alpha Channel button, as shown in Figure 48.2.
In Photoshop, you can see an image's alpha channel if you select the Channels panel in the Layers palette. Selecting the alpha channel and using the Magic Wand tool makes selecting the rendered object easy. After it's selected, you can copy and paste the rendered image onto your background image as a new layer.
Note
Not all image file formats support an alpha channel. When rendering images to be composited, but sure to use an alpha channel format such as RLA, RPF, PNG, or TGA.
After all your images have been positioned on the background image, you can apply a Filter, such as a Gaussian Blur, to smooth the edges between the composite images.
Photoshop works with still images, but if you work with animations, then Adobe has Premiere to help with your video editing needs. The editing that Premiere makes possible includes patching several animation clips together, adding sound, color-correcting the frames, and adding transitions between animation clips.
Within Premiere, various animation clips can be imported (or dragged directly from Windows Explorer) into the Project panel. From here, the clips can be dropped onto the Timeline in the desired order. The Monitor panel shows the current animation or individual animation clips.
Sound clips can be dropped in the Timeline in the Audio track. The Title menu also can be used to add text to the animation. Another common activity in Premiere is to add transition effects between clips. This is done by clicking the Effects tab in the Project panel, selecting a transition effect, dragging the effect to the Timeline, and dropping it between two animation clips.
When the entire sequence is completed, you can render it using the Sequence
In this example, you combine several animations into a single animation sequence.
To create a montage of several animations using Premiere, follow these steps:
Open Premiere, and drag the Space Warp animations from the Chap 48 directory on the DVD to the Project panel. This file was saved using an older version of Premiere.
Select all five animation clips, and drag them to the Video 1 row in the Timeline panel. Select Sequence
If you want to change the order of the animation clips, just drag them to the desired position in the Timeline panel. Make sure that they run consecutively.
Click the Effects tab in the Project panel, and open the Video Transitions folder. Select one of the transition effects, and drag it from the Project panel to the Timeline panel. You can drop a different effect where each animation clip meets its neighbor.
Click the Play button in the Monitor panel to see the resulting animation sequence. If you're comfortable with it, select Sequence
When the rendering completes, save the animation using the File
Figure 48.3 shows the Premiere interface with the animation clips loaded and positioned in the Timeline panel.
If you need to add a little more to your animations than just transitions, you should look into Adobe's After Effects. After Effects lets you composite 2D and 3D clips into a single image or animation. You can paint directly on the animation frames, add lights and cameras, and create visual effects such as Distort, Shatter, and Warp.
After Effects includes a library of resources much like those found in Premiere. These resources can be positioned on a Composition pane. Effects applied to the loaded animation clip are listed in the Effects panel along with all the effects settings.
After Effects includes many of the same tools used in Photoshop and Illustrator. These tools let you paint and select portions of the animation clip as if it were a still image, but the results can be added or removed over time.
Some effects are much easier to add using a package like After Effects than to create in Max. A good example is adding a blurry look and the waves coming from a heat source to the melting snowman animation created in Chapter 21.
To add video effects using After Effects, follow these steps:
Open After Effects and drag the Melting snowman.avi file from the Chap 48 directory to the Project panel.
Select Composition
Drag the Melting snowman.avi file from the Project panel, and drop it on the Composition pane.
With the animation selected in the Composition pane, select Effect
Select Effect
In the Timeline panel, drag the Work Area End icon so that it coincides with the end of the animation.
Select Composition
Figure 48.4 shows the After Effects interface with the animation clip loaded.
Autodesk offers an end-to-end solution for production houses to complete their work; on the receiving end of Max is a product called Combustion. Combustion is a different animal from Max, but its array of weapons is just as deadly in a slightly different arena. The biggest difference between Combustion and Photoshop is that Combustion can handle animations and Photoshop can work only with static images.
Combustion enables motion graphics, compositing, and visual effects, which doesn't sound too different from what Max does, except for that funny word—compositing. If you think of the final rendered image produced using Max as just an image that needs to be combined with other elements such as text, logos, other images, or even a DVD menu, then you're starting to see what post-production teams know. Compositing is the process of combining several different elements into a finished product. Positioning these elements can even be done in 3D by placing images behind or in front of other images or in time by working with animations.
But wait, you say: this is a book about Max, not about Combustion. Yes, but Combustion is integrated with Max very nicely, and that is what I want to show. Several key integration points include Combustion maps and Render Elements.
If you apply a Combustion type map to the Diffuse map channel of a material, then the Combustion Parameters rollout, shown in Figure 48.5, appears. Clicking the Edit button in the rollout actually opens Combustion and lets you create a new workspace.
If you select a Paint type workspace, then you can paint right on the composite object in Combustion, and the painted map shows up in Max. Figure 48.6 shows a simple spiral shape painted in Combustion using its tools. Figure 48.7 shows a magnified sample slot in Max that has the same painted shape.
The Live Edit section of the Combustion Parameters rollout includes features that you can access from Combustion. The Operator button lets you select and update an operator from Combustion to apply to the texture map. The Unwrap button shows an unwrapped mesh in Combustion, allowing you to easily paint precisely. The Paint button lets you paint directly in the viewports using Combustion's Paint tools, and the Filtering options let you specify the type of anti-aliasing to use.
At the bottom of the Render Elements rollout found in the Render Elements panel of the Render Scene dialog box is an option to Output to Combustion. If this option is Enabled, then you can specify a filename for the Combustion files that are generated, and the Render button actually creates the Render Elements and saves them in a Combustion Workspace (.cws) file.
In addition to the packages mentioned here, several other compositing solutions are available. Another popular compositing package is Digital Fusion. Most of these products are similar enough, but look through the feature set before buying a solution to make sure that it meets your needs.
If your production group includes a strong post-processing team that does compositing, then there may be times when you just want to render certain elements of the scene, such as the alpha information or a specific atmospheric effect. Applying individual elements to a composite image gives you better control over the elements. For example, you can reposition or lighten a shadow without having to re-render the entire scene.
Using the Render Elements rollout of the Render Scene dialog box, shown in Figure 48.8, you can render a single effect and save it as an image.
You can select and render several render elements at the same time. The available render elements include Alpha, Atmosphere, Background, Blend, Diffuse, Hair and Fur, Illuminance HDR Data, Ink, Lighting, Luminance HDR Data, Material ID, Matte, Object ID, Paint, Reflection, Refraction, Self-Illumination, Shadow, Specular, Velocity, and Z Depth.
If the mental ray rendering engine is enabled, then many more Render Elements are also available, including all the parameters that are included as part of the Arch&Design materials along with a mental ray Shader Element and the mental ray Labeled Render Element.
Note
The new mr A&D, mr Labeled, and mr Shader Render Elements are new to 3ds Max 2009.
The Render Elements rollout can render several elements at once. The Add button opens the Render Elements dialog box, where you can select the elements to include. The Merge button lets you merge the elements from another Max scene, and the Delete button lets you delete elements from the list. To be included in the rendered image, the Elements Active option must be checked. The Display Elements option causes the results to be rendered separately and displayed in the Rendered Frame Window.
The Enable check box can turn off individual elements; Enable Filtering enables the anti-aliasing filtering as specified in the Max Default Scanline A-Buffer rollout. A separate Rendered Frame Window is opened for each render element that is enabled.
Clicking the Browse button opens a file dialog box where you can give the rendered element a name. Max automatically appends an underscore and the name of the element on the end of the filename. For example, if you name the file myScene and select to render the Alpha element, the filename for this element is myScene_alpha.
When you select the Blend and Z Depth render elements, an additional rollout of parameters appears. You can use the Blend render element to combine several separate elements together. The Blend Element Parameters rollout includes check boxes for each render element type. The Z Depth render element includes parameters for setting Min and Max depth values.
Figure 48.9 shows the resulting image in the Rendered Frame Window for the Alpha render element.
The Render Elements rollout can also output files that Autodesk's Combustion product can use. These files have the .cws extension. Combustion is a compositing product that can work with individual elements to increase the highlights, change color hues, darken and blur shadows, and do many other things without having to re-render the scene.
Post-production is the work that comes after the scene is rendered. It is the time when you add effects, such as glows and highlights, as well as add transitional effects to an animation. For example, if you want to include a logo in the lower-right corner of your animation, you can create and render the logo and composite several rendered images into one during post-production.
Video Post interface is the post-processing interface within Max that you can use to combine the current scene with different images, effects, and image processing filters. Compositing is the process of combining several different images into a single image. Each element of the composite is included as a separate event. These events are lined up in a queue and processed in the order in which they appear in the queue. The queue can also include looping events.
The Video Post interface, like the Render Scene dialog box (covered in Chapter 22, "Learning to Render a Scene"), provides another way to produce final output. You can think of the Video Post process as an artistic assembly line. As the image moves down the line, each item in the queue adds an image, drops a rendered image on the stack, or applies a filter effect. This process continues until the final output event is reached.
The Video Post interface, shown in Figure 48.10, includes a toolbar, a pane of events and ranges, and a status bar. You can open it by choosing Rendering
In many ways, the Video Post interface is similar to the Track View interfaces. Each event is displayed as a track in the Queue pane to the left. To the right is the Range pane, where the range for each track is displayed as lines with square boxes at each end. You can edit these ranges by dragging the squares on either end. The time bar, above the Range pane, displays the frames for the current sequence, and the status bar at the bottom of the interface includes information and view buttons.
At the top of the Video Post interface is a toolbar with several buttons for managing the Video Post features. Table 48.1 shows and explains these buttons.
Table 48.1. Video Post Toolbar Buttons
Toolbar Button | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 | New Sequence | Creates a new sequence |
 | Open Sequence | Opens an existing sequence |
 | Save Sequence | Saves the current sequence |
 | Edit Current Event | Opens the Edit Current Event dialog box where you can edit events |
 | Delete Current Event | Removes the current event from the sequence |
 | Swap Events | Changes the position in the queue of two selected events |
 | Execute Sequence | Runs the current sequence |
 | Edit Range Bar | Enables you to edit the event ranges |
 | Align Selected Left | Aligns the left ranges of the selected events |
 | Align Selected Right | Aligns the right ranges of the selected events |
 | Make Selected Same Size | Makes the ranges for the selected events the same size |
 | Abut Selected | Places event ranges end-to-end |
 | Add Scene Event | Adds a rendered scene to the queue |
 | Add Image Input Event | Adds an image to the queue |
 | Add Image Filter Event | Adds an image filter to the queue |
 | Add Image Layer Event | Adds a compositing plug-in to the queue when two events are selected |
 | Add Image Output Event | Sends the final composited image to a file or device |
 | Add External Event | Adds an external image-processing event to the queue |
 | Add Loop Event | Causes other events to loop |
Below the toolbar are the Video Post Queue and Range panes. The Queue pane is on the left; it lists all the events to be included in the post-processing sequence in the order in which they are processed. You can rearrange the order of the events by dragging an event in the queue to its new location.
You can select multiple events by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the event names, or you can select one event, hold down the Shift key, and click another event to select all events between the two.
Each event has a corresponding range that appears in the Range pane to the right. Each range is shown as a line with a square on each end. The left square marks the first frame of the event, and the right square marks the last frame of the event. You can expand or contract these ranges by dragging the square on either end of the range line.
If you click the line between two squares, you can drag the entire range. If you drag a range beyond the given number of frames, then additional frames are added.
The time bar is at the top of the Range pane. This bar shows the number of total frames included in the animation. You can also slide the time bar up or down to move it closer to a specific track by dragging it.
The status bar includes a prompt line, several value fields, and some navigation buttons. The fields to the right of the prompt line include Start, End, Current Frames, and the Width and Height of the image. The navigation buttons include (in order from left to right) Pan, Zoom Extents, Zoom Time, and Zoom Region.
All the events that are added to the Queue pane make up a sequence. You can save these sequences and open them at a later time. The Execute Sequence button (Ctrl+R), found on the toolbar, starts the compositing process.
Note
The keyboard shortcuts for the Video Post interface work only if the Keyboard Shortcut Override Toggle on the main toolbar is enabled.
To save a sequence, click the Save button on the toolbar to open the Save Sequence dialog box, where you can save the queue sequence. Sequences are saved along with the Max file when the scene is saved, but they can also be saved independently of the scene. By default, these files are saved with the .vpx extension in the vpost directory.
Note
Saving a sequence as a VPX file maintains the elements of the queue, but it resets all parameter settings. Saving the file as a Max file maintains the queue order along with the parameter settings.
You can open saved sequences using the Open Sequence button on the toolbar. When a saved sequence is opened, all the current events are deleted. Clicking the New Sequence button also deletes any current events.
The Execute Sequence toolbar button opens the Execute Video Post interface, shown in Figure 48.11. The controls in this dialog box work exactly the way those in the Render Scene dialog box work.
Note
The time and resolution settings in the Execute Video Post dialog box are unique from those in the Render Scene dialog box.
Figure 48.11. The Execute Video Post interface includes the controls for producing the queue output.
The Time Output section enables you to specify which frames to render, and the Output Size section lets you specify the size of the output. The Custom selection lets you enter Width and Height values, or you can use one of the presets in the drop-down list or one of the preset resolution buttons. This dialog box also includes controls for entering the Image Aspect and Pixel Aspect ratios.
The Output options let you select to keep the Progress dialog box open, to render to the Rendered Frame Window, and/or to use network rendering. When you're ready to render the queue, click the Render button.
The seven event types that you can add to the queue are Image Input, Scene, Image Filter, Image Layer, Loop, External, and Image Output. If no events are selected, then adding an event positions the event at the bottom of the list. If an event is selected, the added event becomes a sub-event under the selected event.
Every event dialog box, such as the Add Image Input Event dialog box shown in Figure 48.12, includes a Label field where you can name the event. This name shows up in the queue window and is used to identify the event.
Each event dialog box includes a Video Post Parameters section. This section contains VP Start Time and VP End Time values for defining precisely the length of the Video Post range. It also includes an Enabled option for enabling or disabling an event. Disabled events are grayed out in the queue.
To edit an event, you simply need to double-click its name in the Queue pane (or press Ctrl+E) to open an Edit Event dialog box.
The Add Image Input Event dialog box lets you add a simple image to the queue. For example, you can add a background image using this dialog box rather than the Environment dialog box. To open the Add Image Input Event dialog box, click the Add Image Input Event button (Ctrl+I) on the toolbar.
Tip
If you don't name the image event, then the filename appears in the Queue pane as the name for the event.
The Files button in this dialog box opens the Select Image File for Video Post Input dialog box, where you can locate an image file to load from the hard disk or network. Supported image types include AVI, BMP, MPEG, Kodak Cineon, Combustion, FLC, GIF, IFL, JPEG, PIC, PNG, PSD, MOV, SGI Image, RLA, RPF, TGA, TIF, and YUV. The Devices button lets you access an external device such as a video recorder. The Options button becomes enabled when you load an image. The Cache option causes the image to be loaded into memory, which can speed up the Video Post process by not requiring the image to be loaded for every frame.
The Image Driver section of the Add Image Input Event dialog box lets you specify the settings for the image driver, such as the compression settings for an AVI file. Clicking the Setup button opens a dialog box of options available for the selected format, but note that the Setup button is not active for all formats.
The Image Input Options dialog box, shown in Figure 48.13, lets you set the alignment, size, and frames where the image appears. The Alignment section of the Image Input Options dialog box includes nine presets for aligning the image. Preset options include top-left corner, top centered, top-right corner, left centered, centered, right centered, bottom-left corner, bottom centered, and bottom-right corner. You can also use the Coordinates option to specify in pixels the image's upper-left corner.
In the Size section of this dialog box, you can control the size of the image, using the Do Not Resize, Resize to Fit, or Custom Size options. The Custom Size option lets you enter Width and Height values.
The Frames section applies only to animation files. The From and To values define which frames of the animation to play. The Step value lets you play every nth frame as specified. The Loop at the End value causes the animation to loop back to the beginning when finished.
A scene event is the rendered scene that you've built in Max. When you click the Add Scene Event button on the toolbar, the Add Scene Event dialog box shown in Figure 48.14 opens. This dialog box lets you specify the scene ranges and define the render options.
Figure 48.14. The Add Scene Event dialog box lets you specify which viewport to use to render your scene.
Below the Label field where you can name the event is a drop-down list that lets you select which viewport to use to render your scene. The active viewport is selected by default. The Render Options button opens the Render Scene panel, where the Render button has been replaced with OK and Cancel buttons because the rendering is initiated with the Execute Sequence button.
Note
For more information about the Render Scene panel, see Chapter 22, "Learning to Render a Scene."
The Scene Options section of the Add Scene Event dialog box also includes an option for enabling Scene Motion Blur. This motion blur type is different from the object motion blur that is set in the Object Properties dialog box. Scene motion blur is applied to the entire image and is useful for blurring objects that are moving fast. The Duration (frames) value sets how long the blur effect is computed per frame. The Duration Subdivisions value is how many computations are done for each duration. The Dither % value sets the amount of dithering to use for blurred sections.
Note
You can find more information on object motion blur in Chapter 6, "Selecting Objects, Setting Object Properties, and Using Layers and Scene Explorer."
In the Scene Range section, the Scene Start and Scene End values let you define the range for the rendered scene. The Lock Range Bar to Scene Range option maintains the range length as defined in the Time Slider, though you can still reposition the start of the rendered scene. The Lock to Video Post Range option sets the range equal to the Video Post range.
The Add Image Filter Event button (Ctrl+F) on the toolbar opens the Add Image Filter Event dialog box, shown in Figure 48.15, where you can select from many filter types. The available filters are included in a drop-down list under the Label field.
Below the filter drop-down list are two buttons: About and Setup. The About button gives some details about the creator of the filter. The Setup button opens a separate dialog box that controls the filter. The dialog box that appears depends on the type of filter that you selected in the drop-down list.
Several filters require a mask such as the Image Alpha filter. To open a bitmap image to use as the mask, click the Files button in the Mask section and select the file in the Select Mask Image dialog box that opens. A drop-down list lets you select the channel to use. Possible channels include Red, Green, Blue, Alpha, Luminance, Z Buffer, Material Effects, and Object. The mask can be Enabled or Inverted. The Options button opens the Image Input Options dialog box for aligning and sizing the mask.
Note
Several Lens Effects filters are also included in the drop-down list. These filters use an advanced dialog box with many options, which is covered in the "Working with Lens Effects Filters" section later in the chapter.
You use the Contrast filter to adjust the brightness and contrast. Selecting this filter and clicking the Setup button opens the Image Contrast Control dialog box. This simple dialog box includes values for Contrast and Brightness. Both values can be set from 0 to 1. The Absolute option computes the center gray value based on the highest color value. The Derived option uses an average value of the components of all three colors (red, green, and blue).
You can use the Fade filter to fade out the image over time. You can select it from the drop-down list. Clicking the Setup button opens the Fade Image Control dialog box where you select to fade either In or Out. The fade takes place over the length of the range set in the Range pane.
The Image Alpha filter sets the alpha channel as specified by the mask. This filter doesn't have a setup dialog box.
The Negative filter inverts all the colors, as in the negative of a photograph. The Negative Filter dialog box includes a simple Blend value.
The Pseudo Alpha filter sets the alpha channel based on the pixel located in the upper-left corner of the image. This filter can make an unrendered background transparent. When this filter is selected, the Setup button is disabled because it doesn't have a setup dialog box.
The Simple Wipe filter removes the image by replacing it with a black background. The length of the wipe is determined by the event's time range. The Simple Wipe Control dialog box, shown in Figure 48.16, lets you wipe from the left to the right or from the right to the left. You can also set the mode to Push, which displays the image, or to Pop, which erases it.
The Starfield filter creates a starfield image. By using a camera, you can motion blur the stars. The Stars Control dialog box, shown in Figure 48.17, includes a Source Camera drop-down list that you can use to select a camera.
The General section sets the brightness and size of the stars. You can specify brightness values for the Dimmest Star and the Brightest Star. The Linear and Logarithmic options use two different algorithms to compute the brightness values of the stars as a function of distance. The Star Size value sets the size of the stars in pixels. Size values can range from 0.001 to 100.
The Motion Blur settings let you enable motion blurring, set the blur Amount, and specify a Dimming value.
The Star Database section includes settings for defining how the stars are to appear. The Random option displays stars based on the Count value, and the random Seed determines the randomness of the star's positions. The Custom option reads a star database specified in the Database field.
Note
Max includes a starfield database named earth.stb that includes the stars as seen from Earth.
You can also specify whether the stars are composited in the background or foreground.
Space backgrounds are popular backdrops, and Max includes a special Video Post filter for creating starfield backgrounds. You would typically want to use the Video Post interface to render the starfield along with any animation that you've created, but in this tutorial, you render a starfield for a single planet that you've created and outfitted with a planet material.
To create a starfield background, follow these steps:
Open the Planet with starfield background.max file from the Chap 48 directory on the DVD.
This file includes a simple space scene with a camera because the Starfield filter requires a camera.
Choose Rendering
This adds the event to the Queue pane.
Click the Add Image Filter Event button (or press Ctrl+F) to open the Add Image Filter Event dialog box, and in the Label field type the name starfield bg. Select Starfield from the drop-down list, and click the Setup button to open the Stars Control dialog box. Select Camera01 as the Source Camera, set the Star Size to 3.0 and the Count to 150,000, and click OK. Click OK again to exit the Add Image Filter Event dialog box and add this event to the Queue pane.
Click the Execute Sequence button (or press Ctrl+R), select the Single output time option and an Output Size, and click the Render button.
Figure 48.18 shows the resulting space scene.
In addition to the standard filters that can be applied to a single image, several more filters, called layer events, can be applied to two or more images or rendered scenes. The Add Layer Event button (Ctrl+L) is available on the toolbar only when two image events are selected in the Queue pane. The first image (which is the selected image highest in the queue) becomes the source image, and the second image is the compositor. Both image events become sub-events under the layer event.
Note
If the layer event is deleted, the two sub-event images remain.
The dialog box for the Add Image Layer Event is the same as the Add Image Filter Event dialog box shown earlier except that the drop-down list includes filters that work with two images.
When it comes to transitions, Adobe Premiere already has created so many cool transitions that it makes sense to just use theirs. In Max, you can access these filters through the Adobe Premiere Transition Filter Setup dialog box.
This dialog box includes an Add path button to tell Max where to look for filters. All available filters are displayed in the Filter Selection list. You can access the filter interface with the Custom Parameters button. The two preview windows to the right display the filter effects. You also have options to Swap Input (which switches the source image) and Use Stand-In (which lets you specify a sample image to preview the effect).
The Simple Wipe compositor is similar to the Simple Wipe filter, except that it slides the image in or out instead of erasing it. Its setup dialog box looks just like that of the Simple Wipe Control dialog box.
The remaining layer filters include simple methods for compositing images and some simple transitions. None of these other filters has a Setup dialog box.
You can use the Alpha compositor to composite two images, using the alpha channel of the foreground image. The Cross Fade Transition compositor fades one image out as it fades another image in. You can use the Pseudo Alpha compositor to combine two images if one doesn't have an alpha channel. This compositor uses the upper-left pixel to designate the transparent color for the image. The Simple Additive Compositor combines two images based on the intensity of the second image.
The Add External Event button on the toolbar lets you use an external image-processing program to edit the image. This button is available only when an image event is selected and the image event becomes a sub-event under the external event. The Add External Event dialog box, shown in Figure 48.19, includes a Browse button for locating the external program. It also includes a Command Line Options field for entering text commands for the external program. Many external programs use the clipboard to do their processing, so the Write image to clipboard and Read image from clipboard options make this possible.
The Add Loop Event button is enabled on the Video Post toolbar when any single event is selected. This button enables an event to be repeated a specified number of times or throughout the Video Post range. The Add Loop Event dialog box, shown in Figure 48.20, includes a value field for the Number of Times to repeat the event, along with Loop and Ping Pong options. The Loop option repeats from beginning to end until the Number of Times value is reached. The Ping Pong option alternates playing the event forward and in reverse. You can name Loop events using the Label field.
If you've added all the events you need and configured them correctly, and you click the Execute Sequence button and nothing happens, then chances are good that you've forgotten to add an Image Output event. This event adds the surface that all the events use to output to and should appear last in the queue.
The Add Image Output Event dialog box (Ctrl+O) looks the same as the Add Image Input Event dialog box shown earlier. The output can be saved to a file or to a device using any of the standard file types.
Note
If you don't give the output event a name, the filename automatically becomes the event name.
The Range pane in the Video Post interface is found to the right of the Queue pane. It displays the ranges for each event. These turn red when selected. The beginning and end points of the range are marked with squares. You can move these points by dragging the squares. This moves the beginning and end points for all selected events.
Note
Before you can move the ranges or drag the end points of a range, you need to select the Edit Range Bar button from the toolbar. The button is highlighted yellow when active.
When two or more events are selected, several additional buttons on the toolbar become enabled, including Swap Events, Align Selected Left, Align Selected Right, Make Selected Same Size, and Abut Selected. (These buttons were shown earlier in Table 48.1.)
The Swap Events button is enabled only if two events are selected. When clicked, it changes the position of the two events. Because the order of the events is important, this can alter the final output.
The Align Selected Left and Align Selected Right buttons move the beginning or end points of every selected track until they line up with the first or last points of the top selected event.
The Make Selected Same Size button resizes any bottom events to be the same size as the top selected event. The Abut Selected button moves each selected event under the top event until its first point lines up with the last point of the selected event above it.
Figure 48.21 shows four image events that have been placed end-to-end using the Abut Selected button. Notice that the queue range spans the entire distance.
The Add Image Filter Event dialog box's drop-down list has several Lens Effects filters. These filters include Lens Effects Flare, Focus, Glow, and Highlight. Each of these filters is displayed and discussed in the sections that follow, but several parameters are common to all of them.
Many lens effects parameters in the various Lens Effects setup dialog boxes can be animated, such as Size, Hue, Angle, and Intensity. These are identified in the dialog boxes by green arrow buttons to the right of the parameter fields. These buttons work the way the Animate button in the main interface works. To animate a parameter, just click the corresponding arrow button, move the Time Slider to a new frame, and change the parameter. Figure 48.22 shows how these buttons look in the Lens Effects Flare dialog box.
Each Lens Effects dialog box also includes a preview pane in the upper-left corner with three buttons underneath. Clicking the Preview button renders all enabled lens effects in the preview pane. The VP Queue button renders the current Video Post queue. Using the preview pane, you can get an idea of how the final output should look. With the Preview button enabled, any parameter changes in the dialog box are automatically updated in the preview pane. The Update button enables you to manually update the preview. You can right-click the Preview pane to change its resolution for faster updates at lower resolutions.
Figure 48.22. Green arrow buttons in the Lens Effects Flare dialog box identify the parameters that can be animated for this effect.
Tip
If the VP Queue button is enabled, then a default Lens Effects image is displayed. Using this image, you can play around with the various settings while the Preview mode is enabled to gain an idea of what the various settings do.
You can save the settings in each Lens Effect dialog box as a separate file that can be recalled at any time. These saved files have an .lzf extension and can be saved and loaded with the Save and Load buttons at the bottom left of the dialog box.
The Lens Effects Flare dialog box includes controls for adding flares of various types to an image. This dialog box includes a main preview pane and several smaller preview panes for each individual effect. The check boxes below these smaller preview panes let you enable or disable these smaller panes.
Under the main preview pane are several global commands, and to their right is a series of tabbed panels that contain the settings for each individual effect type. The first panel is labeled Prefs and sets which effects are rendered (on and off scene), which are squeezed, which have the Inferno noise filter applied, and which have an Occlusion setting.
The settings for the individual flare types are included in the subsequent tabbed panels. They include Glow, Ring, A Sec, M Sec, Rays, Star, Streak, and Inferno. These tabbed panels include gradient color bars for defining the Radial Color, Radial Transparency, Circular Color, Circular Transparency, and Radial Size. Each of these tabbed panels has different settings, but Figure 48.23 shows the tabbed panels for the Glow and Ring effects.
The gradient colors found in these tabbed panels are controlled by flags that appear under the gradient band. Double-clicking a flag opens a Color Selector dialog box where you can select a new color. Dragging these flags moves the gradient color. You can add a new flag to the band by clicking under the gradient away from the existing flags. The active flag is colored green. To delete flags, select them and press the Delete key. By right-clicking the gradient band, you can access a pop-up menu of options that let you access several options for the selected gradient color. You can even load and save gradients. Gradients are saved as files with the .dgr extension.
Figure 48.23. The Glow and Ring tabbed panels are representative of all the different lens effect settings.
The rightmost tabbed panel, shown in Figure 48.24, is labeled Inferno and provides a way to add noise to any of the effects. The Prefs tabbed panel includes a check box for enabling the Inferno settings for each effect. Inferno noise can be set to three different states: Gaseous, Fiery, and Electric. If your effect is looking too perfect, you can add some randomness to it with the Inferno option.
The Lens Effects Focus dialog box, shown in Figure 48.25, includes options for adding Scene Blur, Radial Blur, and Focal Node effects. If you click the Select button, the Select Focal Object dialog box opens and lets you choose an object to act as the focal point for the scene.
You can also set values for the Horizontal Focal Loss and Vertical Focal Loss or enable the Lock button to lock these two parameters together. The Focal Range and Focal Limit values determine the distance from the focal point where the blurring begins or reaches full strength. You can also set the blurring to affect the Alpha channel.
The Lens Effects Glow dialog box, shown in Figure 48.26, enables you to apply glows to the entire scene or to specific objects based on the Object ID or Effects ID. Other Source options include Unclamped, Surf Norm (Surface Normals), Mask, Alpha, Z High, and Z Lo. This dialog box also enables you to filter the glow using options such as All, Edge, Perimeter Alpha, Perimeter, Bright, and Hue.
Additional tabbed panels under the preview pane let you control the Preferences, Gradients, and Inferno settings. In the Preferences tabbed panel, you can set the color of the glow to be based on the Gradient tabbed panel–defined gradients, based on Pixel or a User-defined color. You can also set the Intensity in the Preference tabbed panel.
The Lens Effects Highlight dialog box, shown in Figure 48.27, includes the same Properties, Preferences, and Gradient tabbed panels as the Glow dialog box, except that the effects it produces are highlights instead of glows. The Geometry tabbed panel includes options for setting the Size and Angle of the highlights and how they rotate away from the highlighted object.
When it comes to glowing objects, I think of radioactive materials, celestial objects like comets and meteors, and heavenly objects like angels. In this tutorial, I'm leaning toward heaven in an attempt to create some glory. But because I couldn't locate an angel, you'll use a simple halo.
To add highlights to a halo using the Video Post interface, follow these steps:
Open the Glowing halo.max file from the Chap 48 directory on the DVD.
This file contains a head model and a halo. The halo object has been set to the G-Buffer Object Channel of 1 in its Object Properties dialog box.
Choose Rendering
The Add Scene Event dialog box appears.
Type a name for the event in the Label text field, and click OK.
The event is added to the Queue pane.
Select the halo object in the viewport and click the Add Image Filter Event button on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+F) to open the associated dialog box. Select Lens Effects Highlight from the drop-down list, and click the Setup button.
The Lens Effects Highlight dialog box appears.
Click the VP Queue button followed by the Preview button to see the rendered scene. In the Properties tabbed panel, select the Object ID option and set the Object ID to 1 to match the G-Buffer channel for the halo object. In the Filter section, enable the All option. In the Preferences tabbed panel, set the Size to 3.0, Points to 4, the Color option to Pixel, and Intensity to 100. Then click OK.
Click the Execute Sequence button on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+R), and then click Render in the Execute Video Post dialog box.
Figure 48.28 shows the completed halo in all its shining glory.
As an example of the Video Post interface in action, you'll composite a background image of a waterfall with a rendered scene of an airplane model created by Viewpoint Datalabs. You'll then add some filter effects.
To composite an image with the Video Post interface, follow these steps:
Open the Airplane over waterfall.max file from the Chap 48 directory on the DVD.
This file includes an airplane model. The directory also includes an image called waterfall.tif that is used later.
Open the Video Post interface by choosing Rendering
Add a background image to the queue by clicking the Add Image Input Event button (or press Ctrl+I). Click the Files button. Locate the waterfall.tif image from the Chap 48 directory on the DVD, and click Open. Then click OK again to exit the Add Image Input Event dialog box.
Next add the rendered image by clicking the Add Scene Event button and selecting the Perspective view. Name the event rendered airplane. Click the Render Options button to open the Render Setup panel and select the Renderer panel. Disable the Anti-Aliasing option in the MAX Default Scanline Renderer rollout in the Renderer panel, and click OK. Click OK again to exit the Edit Scene Event dialog box.
Select both the background (waterfall.tif) and rendered airplane (Perspective) events, and click the Add Image Layer Event button (or press Ctrl+L). Select the Alpha Compositor option, and click OK.
This composites the background image and the rendered image together by removing all the green background from the rendered scene.
To run the processing, click the Execute Sequence button on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+R) to open the Execute Video Post interface, select the Single output range option, click the 640 × 480 size button, and click Render.
Figure 48.29 shows the final composited image.
Post-production is an important, often overlooked, part of the production pipeline. Using compositing packages, as simple as Photoshop and Premiere or as advanced as Combustion and After Effects, enables you to make necessary edits after rendering.
Max's render elements enable you to pick apart the rendering details of your scene. Rendering using render elements allows you to have more control over individual scene elements in the compositing tool.
Using the Video Post interface, you can composite several images, filters, and effects together. All these compositing elements are listed as events in a queue. The Video Post interface provides, along with the Render Scene dialog box, another way to create output. In this chapter, you learned about the following:
The post-production process
How Photoshop can be used to composite images
How Premiere and After Effects can be used to composite animations
The Combustion interface
How to use render elements
The Video Post interface
How to work with sequences
The various filter types
How to add and edit events and manipulate their ranges
The Lens Effects filters
This concludes the Advanced Lighting and Rendering part of the book. The next part, "MAXScript and Plug-Ins," presents ways to extend the functionality of Max using MAXScript and plug-ins. You'll have the means to extend the software even further so the party never ends.