How to render your 3D animations?

This tutorial will describe how to take a snapshot of your scene and render a movie. (This tutorial assumes that a scene is already created with animated characters, props and camera transitions.)

1. Taking a snapshot of your scene

Open the generic radial menu, and left click on [take screenshot], to take a snapshot of your work. That's it! The resultant image can be found in the [snapshot] folder.

The screen resolution, or screen size, you are working on will determine the resolution and size of your snapshot, so make sure you know what resolution you are running at before taking the snapshot. Other than having a pretty picture to show off, we find snapshots good for storyboarding too.

2. Basic rendering controls

Open the generic radial menu and left click on [render scene], to open the [Render Settings] window.

Inside the [preset render settings] section, [render from:_to:_seconds] should be automatically filled in with the length of the timeline. You can mouse over the numbers and type in different durations if you want or left click [+] or [-] to increase or reduce by one second. 

Left click on any of the three rendering buttons to open a dialogue to save the final result.

The outputs of the three presets are all in wmv format, specifications are:

• low – 320x240 pixels, 25 frames per second. Suitable for emails and uploading to video sharing sites.

• mid – 640x480 pixels, 25 frames per second. Suitable for uploading to video sharing sites with higher resolution capabilities.

• high – 1024x768 pixels, 25 frames per second. Suitable for storage and bragging to friends.

Click on [show renders] on the right to open the default directory of rendered outputs.

3. Advanced rendering controls

Left click on the [advance settings] to see the [advanced render settings].

The settings are as follows, they can be edited by keyboard with mouse over:

• render from:_to:_seconds – should be automatically filled in with the start and end of the timeline. Increase and decrease by one second by left clicking the [+] and [-] buttons.

• fps – default setting is 25 frames per second, increase and decrease by one by left clicking the [+] and [-] buttons.

• output resolution – a few pre-sets of popular video resolutions.

• save to directory – location to save output. Left click [...] to browse directory.

• filename prefix: – the filename you want to add at the start of the output file.

• # – the number to follow the prefix of output file. Especially useful if output format is set to a series of pictures. Increase and decrease by one by left clicking the [+] and [-] buttons.

• . – the available output format, can be a video file or a series of pictures. Left click the [down arrow] to open a drop down menu of different file formats.

Tip: output image sequences at a low fps to make animated gif easily.

Once satisfied with the settings, left click on [Begin Render] to start rendering.

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