Skip to main content
GameDev.net gamedev.net
🔒 Locked

[Solved] Rendering to a .avi with Mental Ray in Maya 8.5?

Started by Moe Dec 5, 2007 at 5:39 PM 6 replies 8.4k views
Original Post
Moe
Moe
Hey everyone, For a school project in my 3D modelling class, we have to render out a video clip of a scene that we built. I'm reasonably familiar with Maya, have my scene built and animated, but now I have to render it out. I can select to render it out as an .avi when using the Maya Software or Maya hardware renderers, but when I set the renderer to Mental Ray, it doesn't give me an .avi option. Is there a reasonably simple way to get it to render out to a .avi, or am I going to have to render out each frame separately and put them together in a 3rd party program? [Edited by - Moe on December 5, 2007 11:57:22 PM]
Moe
Moe
Okay, from the bit of reading that I have been able to do, it isn't recommended that you render directly to an .avi, as if there is a problem with a single frame it has to rerender the entire movie.

So, is there a simple way to create a .avi from a series of images? I have access to Adobe After Effects, but I have never used it before. I just tried messing around with and importing a sequence of images, but I really don't know what I am doing in After Effects.

Any thoughts/help?
zer0wolf
zer0wolf
Maya renders to avi like ass. Don't know why. Set your naming scheme to include a frame number, export out your animation as a series of frames (images), and then use After Effects or Premiere to import them. If you set your filename preferences correctly in Maya it'll be a snap to import them into After Effects or Premiere.
Moe
Moe
Awesome. That's what I was hoping to hear.

On anothet note, how does one change the batch render path? Right now it's set to a network drive, and will most likely explode when it tries to batch render to it. I've dug around under the renderer settings, but haven't found where to change it.

EDIT: Never mind - got it. It was under the project settings, not renderer settings.
Moe
Moe
Okay, I guess I have absolutely no experience working with After Effects. I did figure out how to import the images as a sequence of images, but then what? Do I just have to drag them onto the timeline or something?

(Please, forgive my ignorance of all these things - I'm a programmer, not an artist).
Sneftel
Sneftel
Quote:
Original post by Moe
Okay, I guess I have absolutely no experience working with After Effects. I did figure out how to import the images as a sequence of images, but then what? Do I just have to drag them onto the timeline or something?

Yep. It's basically the simplest possible thing you can do with AfterEffects. Drag the one and only clip to the timeline, set the work area (rounded blue bar on top of the timeline, right below the frames/seconds readout) to be the same length as the clip, and export.
Moe
Moe
Ah, I've got it. One of the other people here at the computer labs (at school, where I'm at right now) got me working using Adobe Premier. So far it is looking pretty good. Mind you, I'm now using two machines to render this thing out, and it is taking a pretty good amount of time, even on draft quality.

I am definitely going to have to post the end result, no matter how lame it is. (We had to do a particular scene, otherwise I would have done something involving robots, or some other form of military equipment).
Moe
Moe
Alrighty, so here is the final product:

clicky

(My apologies for using putfile - I don't have any web space that would let me upload a 20mb video. That, and it isn't well compressed at all, so it's a really big file for the length).

EIDT: Yeah, I know, it's pretty lame, and yes, I did notice the guys arm clipping through the car. Given the amount of time that I put into it though, I think it turned out well. That, and the dog has no eyes. Kinda freaky considering he's driving a car.

EDIT: Okay, putfile is crap. It knocked off the last two seconds of the animation. Anyone got any webspace and some spare bandwidth?

Topic Locked

This topic has been locked by a moderator. New replies are not allowed.

Sign in to reply to this topic.