• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

3. Add a background image to the queue by clicking the Add Image Input Event button (or press Ctrl+I). Click the Files button. Locate the waterfall.tif image from the Chap 49 directory on the CD, and click Open. Then click OK again to exit the Add Image Input Event dialog box.

4. Next add the rendered image by clicking the Add Scene Event button and selecting the Perspective view. Name the event rendered airplane. Click the Render Setup button to open the Render Setup dialog box and select the Renderer panel. Disable the Anti-Aliasing option in the MAX Default Scanline Renderer rollout in the Renderer panel, and click OK. Click OK again to exit the Edit Scene Event dialog box.

5. Select both the background (waterfall.tif) and rendered airplane (Perspective) events, and click the Add Image Layer Event button (or press Ctrl+L). Select the Alpha Compositor option, and click OK.

This composites the background image and the rendered image together by removing all the green background from the rendered scene.

6. To run the processing, click the Execute Sequence button on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+R) to open the Execute Video Post interface, select the Single output range option, click the 640 × 480 size button, and click Render.

Figure 49.27 shows the final composited image.

FIGURE 49.27

The airplane in this image is rendered, and the background is composited.

Summary

Post-production is an important, often overlooked, part of the production pipeline. Using compositing packages, as simple as Photoshop and Premiere or as advanced as Composite and After Effects, enables you to make necessary edits after rendering.

Max's render elements enable you to pick apart the rendering details of your scene. Rendering using render elements allows you to have more control over individual scene elements in the compositing tool.

Using the Video Post interface, you can composite several images, filters, and effects together. All these compositing elements are listed as events in a queue. The Video Post interface provides, along with the Render Scene dialog box, another way to create output. In this chapter, you learned about the following:

• The post-production process

• How Photoshop can be used to composite images

• How Premiere and After Effects can be used to composite animations

• The Composite interface

• How to use render elements

• The Video Post interface

• How to work with sequences

• The various filter types

• How to add and edit events and manipulate their ranges

• The Lens Effects filters

This concludes the Advanced Lighting and Rendering part of the book. The next part, “Extending Max,” presents ways to extend the functionality of Max using plug-ins and by customizing the interface. You'll have the means to extend the software even further so the party never ends.

Appendix A: What's New with 3ds Max 2012

In This Appendix

Finding the new features in Max

Enjoying the minor enhancements that Max has to offer

With each revision of Max, I'm always amazed at the new features that are included. Max is a large and complex piece of software, and just when I think it can't hold anything more, a new revision with a host of new features appears. Max 2012 is no different.

You can find in-depth coverage of the new features in the various chapters, but this appendix provides a quick overview of these new features, along with references on where to learn more about them. Throughout the book, the New Feature icon identifies the features that are new to 3ds Max 2012.

Note

If Max needs some improvements that haven't made it into the latest release, you can join Autodesk's Customer Involvement Program using the Help⇒Customer Involvement Program menu command. This program lets you provide feedback and suggestions to the Max team. •

Major Improvements

3ds Max 2012 includes lots of new improvements. Some are considered major because they likely will affect every user's workflow, and others are minor because they are smaller in scale.