Animation Plugin Rendering Options

Rendering Options

Select Render|Options to modify the quality of rendering (e.g., use of reflections or shadowing), or to perform rendering job control (e.g., list running renders, abort a render job), or to set animation values such as start/end frames and video (AVI) compression options.

Rendering Options Dialog

The fields in the quality dialog are described in the following sections: rendering method, lighting model, shading flags,

Rendering Method:

This pulldown determines what method of rendering will be used. The options are described in table below.

Wireframe	Render only the edges of polygons	Internal
Hidden Line	Hidden line rendering	Internal
ZBuffer	Solid rendering using ZBuffer based polygon rendering	Internal
Scanline	Solid rendering using scanline rendering	Internal
Raytrace	Raytrace actual objects	Internal
POV-Ray	Use the POV-Ray raytracer to render the image. (This assumes that you have already installed POV-Ray.) If this is selected, the lighting model, shading chackboxes, and volumetric values will be ignored.	External
RIB	Use a RenderMan compliant renderer. This requires the RIB Exporter plugin (as well as a suitable renderer).	External

Lighting Model:

This pulldown allows you to select between the three most common ways of lighting polygons.

Flat: One corner of the triangle is lit and that color is used for the entire triangle.
Gouraud: Each corner is lit and the color at each pixel is interpolated between the corners.
Phong: Each pixel in the triangle is lit and shaded independently. This is the best quality (although often the slowest). Raytracing will always do per-pixel shading.

Shading Checkboxes:

These options are what determine how shading will be applied to surfaces. Note that these options are only valid for internal rendering methods - external renderers such as POV-Ray or a RIB renderer will not use these options. Typically for an interactive viewer like this one you will avoid shadows, reflection, and transparency until you are ready to wait for a final image. Since some models will come in with triangles in mixed orientations, you will find "Flip Normals" an easy way to correct the lighting. If all triangles are consistent and facing the proper way, using "Cull Backfacing" can significantly improve performance.

Shadows	Evaluate shadows using raytracing
Reflection	Evaluate reflections using raytracing
Transmission	Evaluate transparent surfaces using raytracing
Flip Normals	Modify normals that point the wrong way
Shade Backsides	Shade the back of polygons (away from light)
Cull Backfacing	Don't render polygons that face away from camera
Volumes	Only render volumetric objects if this is checked
Polygon CSG	Mesh based CSG is used (instead of pixel based)

When the quality mode is "scanline" and the transmission checkbox is NOT selected, you are given the option of entering a value for "transmission depth". This provides the capability for simple alpha composited transparency, up to the depth specified. A depth of 0 means that no transparency will be performed.