Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Note
Depth of field is some pretty complex stuff to
wrap your mind around if you're just starting
out. If you really want to delve into this, the
LightWave manual does a good job of explain-
ing the details of the settings and how to make
the most of them.
Also, be sure to check out the Digital Confu-
sion image filter in the LightWave manual. Just
as Vector Blur is a way of quickly approximat-
ing motion blur, the Digital Confusion plug-in
is a way of quickly approximating depth of
field.
Rendering
So you know how to “twist the dials” of
LightWave's camera. How do you snap a
picture? You can think of
<F9
> as the
shutter release.
Layout window) by entering information
into the Render First Frame and Render
Last Frame fields. (You can tell LightWave
to skip
n
frames as it renders by changing
the value for Render Frame Step.)
•
Range Type
allows you to specify
which frames LightWave will render. In ver-
sions prior to 8.0, LightWave only had one
range type: Single. Single allows you to
specify a single sequence of frames to ren-
der. This is the most commonly used range
type; however, 8.0 adds two new useful
options. Arbitrary allows you to choose
both ranges and individual frames (for
example, frames 1-10, 15, 20, and 25-30).
This is similar to the way ranges of pages
can be printed from products such as
Microsoft Word. Ranges are entered with a
number followed by a dash and then
another number. Individual frames can be
added by separating them with commas.
The Keyframe range allows you to render
only the frames that have keyframes set for
a particular object. This can be useful for
creating animated storyboards by depicting
only the key changes to a given object.
When you choose the Keyframe range type,
you are presented with the option to choose
which object's keyframes LightWave will
render, as well as the specific channel (such
as movement, rotation, or scale) to watch
for.
•
Auto Frame Advance
tells Light-
Wave not to stop and wait for your OK after
Hot Key Block
<F9>
Render current frame
<F10>
Render all frames
<F11>
Render selected objects
Figure 4-6: The Render Options window.
The Render Options window is accessed
using
Render | Render Options
. In this
window, you tell LightWave the frame range
you want to render (which doesn't have to
be the same as what you've set in the main
