Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Frame Aspect Ratio
is a readout that
tells you about the ratio of your frame's
width to its height. In Figure 4-1, Frame
Aspect Ratio reads “1.333” because, with a
Pixel Aspect Ratio of 1.0 (1 to 1) when you
divide width by height, you get 1.333. (The
industry officially calls this “1 to 1.333,” or
“1:1.333.”)
•
Segments
tells you how many seg-
ments LightWave will need to render an
image the size you've asked for with the
amount of memory allocated under Seg-
ment Memory Limit.
•
The
Zoom Factor
menu allows you to
choose how you want to change Light-
Wave's camera's zoom. Zoom Factor, Lens
Focal Length, Horizontal FOV (Field of
View), and Vertical FOV change the input
field to the right to reflect that particular
way of thinking about camera zoom.
information about the current settings
based on Zoom Factor and Aperture Height.
•
The
Antialiasing
pop-up menu gives
you a list of settings from Off to Enhanced
Extreme that specify how many passes
LightWave makes to take the “jaggies” out
of a picture. (See Figure 4-3.)
Figure 4-3: Here's the text we created in the last
chapter. The top version was rendered without
antialiasing. You can see the sharp edges,
especially where the light text meets the dark
background. The bottom version was rendered
with Enhanced Low antialiasing. Notice how much
smoother those areas are.
Note
Notice the little “E” button to the right of the
input field. You can access LightWave's
Graph Editor through this button to enve-
lope this setting to change over time.
Note
•
Aperture Height
changes the size of
the “gate” inside LightWave's virtual cam-
era. It is a measure, in inches, of just how
tall the exposed frame of film would be
were it a real-world camera. You use this
when you are matching your rendered
imagery to be composited onto film that has
been shot with a real camera. It affects how
LightWave's camera calculates Depth of
Field and Lens Focal Length. Aperture
Height defaults to the height of a frame of
35mm motion picture film. Many other pre-
sets are available through the pop-up menu
to the field's right.
•
Focal Length
and
FOV
(Field of
View) are readouts that give you
The difference between Low, Medium, High,
and Extreme antialiasing settings in Light-
Wave is the number of passes used to
“explore” the detail areas of a piece. Low
makes
five
passes, Medium makes
nine
passes, High makes
seventeen
passes, and
Extreme makes
thirty-three
passes. With
each pass, LightWave is able to figure out
more and more details that are smaller than
a pixel.
•
Adaptive Sampling
is normally used
when smoothing an image. This means that
after it renders a pass, it goes around and
finds all the pixels that differ a certain
amount from their neighbor. (This level of
acceptable difference is set in the
Thresh-
old
input box.) LightWave then re-renders
