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At the top of the frame buffer dialog box are several icon buttons. The first is the Save Bitmap button, which enables you to save the current frame buffer image.

The Clone Rendered Frame Window button creates another frame buffer dialog box. Any new rendering is rendered to this new dialog box, which is useful for comparing

two images.

The next four buttons enable the red, green, blue, and alpha channels. The alpha channel holds any transparency information for the image. The alpha channel is a grayscale map, with black showing the transparent areas and white showing the opaque areas. Next to the Display Alpha Channel button is the Monochrome button, which displays the image as a grayscale image.

The Clear button erases the image from the window.

The Channel Display drop-down list lets you select the channel to display. The color swatch at the right shows the color of the currently selected pixel. You can select new pixels by rightclicking and holding on the image. This temporarily displays a small dialog box with the image dimensions and the RGB value of the pixel directly under the cursor. The color in the color swatch can then be dragged and dropped in other dialog boxes such as the Material Editor.

Using the RAM Player

Just as you can use the Rendered Frame Window to view and compare rendered images, the RAM Player enables you to view rendered animations in memory. With animations loaded in memory, you can selectively change the frame rates. Figure 41-12 shows the RAM Player interface, which you open by choosing Rendering RAM Player.

Figure 41-12: The RAM Player interface lets you load two different images or animations for comparison.

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The buttons at the top of the RAM Player interface window, shown in Table 41-1, enable you to load an image to two different channels named A and B. The two Open Channel buttons open a file dialog box where you can select the file to load. Notice that the image on the right side of the RAM Player is a different frame than the left side.

	Table 41-1: RAM Player Interface Buttons
Button	Description
	Open Channel
	Open Last Rendered Image
	Close Channel
	Save Channel
	Horizontal/Vertical Screen Split
	Double Buffer

The Open Last Rendered Image button in the RAM Player interface window provides quick access to the last rendered image. The Close Channel button clears the channel. The Save Channel button opens a file dialog box for saving the current file.

Caution

All files that load into the RAM Player are converted to 24-bit images.

The Channel A and Channel B (toggle) buttons enable either channel or both. The Horizontal/ Vertical Screen Split button switches the dividing line between the two channels to a horizontal or vertical line. When the images are aligned one on top of the other, two small triangles mark where one channel leaves off and the other begins. You can drag these triangles to alter the space for each channel.

The frame controls let you move between the frames. You can move to the first, previous, next, or last frame and play the animation forward or in reverse. The drop-down list to the right of the frame controls displays the current frame rate setting.

You can capture the color of any pixel in the image by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking the image with the right mouse button. This puts the selected color in the color swatch. The RGB value for this pixel is displayed in the blue title bar.

The Double Buffer button synchronizes the frames of the two channels.

Tip	You can use the arrow keys and Page Up and Page Down keys to move through the frames
	of the animation. The A and B keys are used to enable the two channels.

996 Part X Rendering

Reviewing the Render Types

From the main toolbar, the Render Type drop-down list enables you to render subsections of the scene. The default setting is View. This renders the entire view as shown in the active viewport. After you pick a selection from the list, click the Quick Render button or the Render button in the Render Scene dialog box to begin the rendering.

The Selected setting renders only the selected objects in the active viewport. The Region setting puts a frame of dotted lines with handles in the active viewport. This frame lets you define a region to render. You can resize the frame by dragging the handles. When you have defined the region, click the OK button that appears in the lower-right corner of the active viewport.

The Crop setting is similar to Region in that it uses a frame to define a region, but the Crop setting doesn’t include the areas outside the defined frame. The Blowup setting takes the defined region and increases its size to fill the render window. The frame for Blowup is constrained to the aspect ratio of the final resolution.

The Box Selected setting renders the selected objects, but it presents a dialog box where you can specify the dimensions for rendering the bounding box of the selected objects. Constrain the Aspect Ratio is an additional option. The Region Selected option renders only the objects within the boundary box of the selected object. The rest of the scene is unchanged. The Crop Selected option also renders the objects within the boundary box of the selected object and crops the scene to this area.

Using Command-Line Rendering

Within the default installation directory is a file named 3dsmaxcmd.exe. This file lets you initiate the rendering of files using a command line interface. This feature enables you to create batch files that can be used to start Max, load several scenes, and render them automatically during the night while you sleep. You can find a command prompt interface in Windows XP using Start Program Files Accessories Command Prompt.

If you type 3dsmaxcmd -?, the command-line returns a list of available parameters that you can use. Typing 3dsmaxcmd –x returns several sample commands. The simplest command to render a scene called coolstuff.max would be 3dsmaxcmd coolstuff.max.

Using the various command line flags, you can specify an image size and format, use Render Preset files to control the renderer settings, and even submit a job for network rendering.

Creating Panoramic Images

The Panorama Exporter tool (found in the Rendering menu and in the Utilities panel) can be used to create a panoramic scene consisting of images rendering in all six directions from the current camera and stitched together.

New	The Panorama Exporter tool is new to 3ds max 6.
Feature

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A camera needs to be added to the scene at the center of the panoramic view and the camera needs to be selected. You can quickly create a camera using the Perspective view with the Views Create Camera From View (Ctrl+C) command. Then click the Render button in the Panorama Exporter rollout. This opens a Render Scene dialog box where you can specify

the size of the images and the rest of the Render parameters. Click the Render button to render the panoramic scene.

Once rendered, the panoramic scene will be opened within a Viewer, as shown in Figure 41-13, where you can move about the scene using the mouse. Dragging with the left mouse button spins the scene about its center point. Dragging with the middle mouse button zooms in and out of the scene. Dragging with the right mouse button pans the scene. The Viewer interface includes a File menu that can be used to open or export the scene file. Export options include a Cylinder, Sphere, and Quicktime VR.

Figure 41-13: The Panoramic Viewer lets you zoom, pan, and spin the scene about its center location.

Getting Printer Help

Printing still images from Max has always been a problem because you never knew quite knew what you would get. To solve this problem, Max now includes a Print Size Wizard that is located in the Rendering menu. This menu command opens the Print Size Wizard, as shown in Figure 41-14.