Rendering a Turntable for Character Model Display
by Brian Immel
In this tutorial, we will cover the basics of setting up Maya's Render Globals for outputing an image sequence, creating a camera for pivoting around a character model, Batch Rendering within the Maya environment, and putting together the image sequence in a non-linear software package. This tutorial assumes that the user has prior knowledge of After Effects and/or Premiere, how to set up a 3 point lighting system and has built a character model.
Setting Up the Render Globals
1. The first thing we should do is set up the renderer with the proper settings. Go to Window > Rendering Editors > Render Globals. This will open the Render Globals window.
2. In the Image File Output section, we want to change several items so that we can render an image sequence, use a good naming convention, pick our image format, and set the length of the render (how many frames). Lets look at these from the top down. The first item is File Name Prefix. This is where we name the image sequence. I would suggest giving the File Name Prefix the same name as your character. In this example, I am going to name my character Oscar. Near the top of the Render Globals window, you will see changes being made as you make changes in several sections.
In the section labeled Frame/Animation Ext, you want to set the option for name.#.ext. This option allows the renderer to name each frame according to the File Name Prefix, place a number behind it and finish off the image file with a chosen format. Now, the File Name should read: Oscar.1.iff and To: should read Oscar.10.iff. So far so good.
3. Under Image Format, you can pick which format you like to render to. If you are planning on using alpha channels, then pick either Maya IFF (iff) or Targa (tga) format. Depending on which compositing software you are using, I normally default to Maya IFF format because it has the same qualities of a Targa format but smaller in size. Affect Effects will read Maya IFF format with no problem but Premiere cannot. So chose wisely! Speaking of choosing wisely, never-ever render to a movie format (AVI)! Why? Because if you are rendering a long sequence and the computer crashes, locks up, render errors appear or whatever else that disrupts the rendering process, you will have to start all over again. If you are rendering an image sequence and the render dies, simply look for the last rendered frame and start from there.
4. Under Start Frame, set this number to 1. This tells the renderer to start rendering at frame 1.
In End Frame, set this number to 90. 90 frames should be long enough to get a good turn around your character.
5. In Frame Padding, set this number to 2. I chose 2 because our End Frame is a two digit number (90). If I were to end on frame 1000, I would set the Frame Padding to 4. Frame Padding changes how many digits are written to the file name. Some computer applications have issues reading image sequences without proper numbering conventions. Plus this is just good file management.
The next thing we want to change is Camera but right now we should leave this alone. Eventually, you will want to set Camera to say turn_cam.
6. Make sure that RGB Channel (Color) is enabled. Without this turned on, your render will be empty.
If you are planning on using an alpha channel, check on Alpha Channel (Mask). By default, it is turned on.
7. The next section is resolution. Click on the tab called Resolution. This will expand the Render Globals window to show the setting for our rendering resolution. Rendering to television settings from a PC, you want to select CCIR 601/Quantel NTSC from the Presets section. This will set you Width to 720, Height to 486, Device Aspect Ratio to 1.333, and Pixel Aspect Ratio to 0.900.
8. The next (or last depending) section to adjust of the Render Globals is the Anti-aliasing Quality. By default, Maya sets this to Preview Quality. We don’t want this. We want to set Quality to the present labeled Production Quality. Using this preset takes all the guess work out of all the values that is handled by the Anti-aliasing Quality section (such as Number of Samples, Multi-pixel Filtering, and Contrast Threshold).
9. If you are rendering with raytracing, you will need to enable the renderer to do so. Click on the arrow next to Raytracing Quality. Enable the checkbox next to Raytracing. Maya’s default value of 10 for Reflections, Refractions and Shadows works just fine. And now its on to the camera.
10. Now would be a good time to save your Maya file.
Creating and Setting Up a Camera for the Turntable
1. Create a new camera (Create > Cameras > Camera). This will create a new camera and name it turn_cam.
2. Now would be a good time to go back to the Render Globals and tell the renderer to select turn_cam to render from. In the Render Globals window, go to the section labeled Camera and set it to turn_cam.
3. In the persp viewport, go to Panels > Perspective > turn_cam. This switches the persp camera to look through turn_cam’s view.
4. Next we want to set up the camera’s position and make sure that what we see will get rendered. In the turn_cam’s viewport, go to View > Camera Settings > Resolution Gate. This will make a box appear within turn_cam’s view. This tells us that anything that falls within this box, it will get rendered.
5. Switch views to the four view window.
6. From the top view, select turn_cam and pull it away from the character on the Z axis. Continue to pull turn_cam away until the entire character is visible within the Resolution Gate of the tun_cam viewport and has some foot and head room. You may how to adjust the Translate Y a bit to better fit your character in turn_cam’s viewport. At any point during this step, you should not move the camera by Alt-clicking within turn_cam’s viewport. We want to keep the camera straight on with the front of our character.
7. Next we need to change turn_cam’s pivot location. Select turn_cam and hit the Insert key on your keyboard. Move the pivot to the center of the grid by holding down the x key while you move the pivot . You want to move the pivot to the center of your character (in which case if you followed a good modeling standard should be the center of the grid). Once you are done moving the pivot point, hit the insert key again to turn off the pivot editing option.
- Test this location by rotating turn_cam on the Y axis. If you character stays center and does not fall in or out of the center of turn_cam’s viewport, then everything is ready for keyframing. Be sure to reset turn_cam’s RotateY attribute back to 0 when you are done testing.
8. Next we should parent our lighting system to turn_cam. Select all the lights in the scene (we should be using a 3-point lighting system at the very least). Shift-select turn_cam last. Hit the p key to parent all the lights to turn_cam. The reason you want to do this is because when we rotate around to the backside of the character, you won't be in darkness. Creating a hierarchy like this will never allow the front side of the viewport to ever be in darkness of the character. By keeping the lights with turn_cam as it rotates, this will maximum the view and thus show off your modeling and texturing skills.
9. Now its time to set the camera to keyframes. Move the TimeSlider to frame 1. With turn_cam still selected, hit the s key. The s key sets a keyframe on all keyable attributes of the selected object. We have now set the start location of turn_cam’s path.
10. Next, move the TimeSlide to frame 90.
11. In the Channel Box under turn_cam, type in 356 for RotateY. Why not 360? Doesn’t that give us a full circle? It does but your animation won’t be seemless. If you play this on a loop, you will see a short motion ‘hiccup’. The camera started out at 0 and is ending on zero again (360 degrees of rotation will put you right back at the start location). By using the value 356, we leave a little room to jump to the start frame again. When looped, this will appear to be seamless in motion.
12. Hit the s key again.
13. Hit the play button to test your motion. You should see everything move smoothly. The character, if placed dead center of turn_cam's pivot, will stay centered and never wobble. Figure 16 shows various stages of turn_cam's motion. Now its render time!
14. Now would be a good time to save your Maya file.
Batch Rendering in Maya
1. First thing we need to tell Maya to do is utilize the processor(s) efficiently. Go to the Rendering Menu Set and select Render > Batch Render > option box. This will open up the Batch Render window.
Check on the checkbox for Use all Available Processors. We want to do this for two reasons:
- If you have a system that uses multiple processors, this will use all of them to their fullest capacity.
- If you do not enable this function, Maya will try to utilize the processor until it reaches its maximum and may cause Windows to crash
2. Now would be a good time to save your Maya file.
3. With Use all Available Processors enabled, its now time to hit the Batch Render button.
4. By default, Maya will render your files to the following location: C:\Documents and Settings\[Username]\My Documents\maya\projects\default\images. Replace the name [Username] with the login name you used to log into your computer.
5. Sit back and watch the render! If you like you can watch the progress of the render by opening up the Script Editor (Window > General Editors > Script Editor).
Note: If you are not the "sit back and relax" type, you can save a little time by rendering your files outside of Maya. Check out the tutorial entitled Batch Rendering Multiple Maya Files for all the details.
Putting Together the Final File
1. Once the render is finished, open up After Effects (if you rendered to IFF or Targa format) or Premiere (if you rendered to Targa format only).
2. In either program, there will be an option when importing that allows you to select the entire image sequence and import them as one file. It is important that you check on image sequence option. Otherwise, you will only import one frame.
3. Drag the image sequence to the time line and save your footage as either a Microsoft DV format (AVI) or QuickTime Sorensen 3 (MOV). Either one of these format types does a great job of compressing the footage and perserving the image quality.