Working on a project and have a few questions as it's been a long time, and I don't have much time t

Pedrith

Hi. I'm working on a small video project that needs to be finished by monday and had a few questions.

1) Some of my scenes only have subtle animated effects. If I want to render the static parts (Daz's giant forest scene) as a background plate, how do I tell it to render out the masks so I can composite it back in after effects?

2) How do I access the key frame function? (It's been a long while since version 2) I know there is animate, but I'm on no budget and have keyframed animations before.

3) Is there a way to find out how long the image took to render once the box disappears. Just asking cause I'm going to bed soon and the current test image is only at 10 percent.

4) Can the program do one lighting pass and save it for everything that does not change to free up proccessor power for the stuff that changes?

Thanks,

David

mjc1016

Can't answer #1 or 2...but, for #3, it should be in the log file.

4...possibly with a scripted render, but I don't know of any existing scripts to do it. And by Monday, for completion is definitely not enough time to come up with one.

Jaderail

Answer to number one, you render the background once and then render the other parts as PNG files without the background, but with the same lighting. Then you will have to use a 2D art program to layer the background image behind every frame of your subtle changes.

I'm sorry to tell you, what you want to do is not built into DS 4.5 or any of the other plug-ins for animation that I know of. I did tell you how to do part one, but it is not simple and will eat up a lot of your time.

bromleysteve_eb9b8a7358

Well you can kind of do #4. If the camera doesn't move and nothing that is moving casts a shadow on the stuff in the background.... You can do a render of just those things and then use that image as the scene background. Kind of like a mat painting for stage or the background in cel animation.