Because it takes about 8 to 12 minutes to render each frame, you probably don't want to render the entire animation: at 200 frames, that would take well over 24 hours on a standalone system! This lesson describes some ways to check your work and preview what the final result would be.
Render a preview animation:
A preview renders at low resolution, with shaded but no rendering effects. It is a good way to check the animation you've created.
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Autodesk VIZ renders the animation as an AVI movie file. As it creates the preview, Autodesk VIZ displays each frame in the viewport. When the preview is done, it launches the Windows Media Player and plays the preview animation.
You can replay the preview in the Media Player by clicking Play once more, or by choosing Animation > View Preview in Autodesk VIZ.
The preview gives you a precise idea of the speed and rhythm of the animation, and lets you see if there is anything you need to fix. At this point, you might want to make adjustments by changing the camera's target position or the shape of the path.
Render sample frames:
While the preview shows the animation's speed and rhythm, it doesn't show how frames look when fully rendered. To get a better idea of the look of the animation, you can render sample frames.
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Click the Render Scene Dialog Toggle (or press F10) to display the Render Scene dialog.
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On the Common panel, in the Common Parameters rollout, find the Time Output group. Change the output from Single to Active Time segment, and then change Every Nth Frame to 50.
This will render five frames that are sampled along the duration of the animation, from frame 0 to frame 200. (Rendering five frames will take about an hour: adjust the Every Nth Frame value to suit the time you want to spend on this lesson.)
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Scroll down to the Render Output group (also on the Common Parameters rollout). Click Save File to turn it on, and then click the Files button.
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In the file dialog, enter wt_samples as the File Name, and then choose “JPEG File (*.jpg,*.jpe,*.jpeg)” from the Save As Type drop-down list.
When you render an animation to a still-image file type such as JPEG, Autodesk VIZ creates a sequence of image files. Each has the file name you chose (wt_samples) followed by a sequence number (for example, wt_samples0000.jpg).
Tip: Leave the folder name set to \renderoutput. The \renderoutput folder is a sub-folder of the \walkthrough project folder that you created earlier in this tutorial.
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Autodesk VIZ displays a JPEG Image Control dialog.
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On the Render Scene dialog, click Render.
As each image is rendered, it is stored in the \renderoutput folder. When a frame is completed, view it to see if there is a problem with it. If something seems wrong, stop the rendering by clicking Cancel in the Rendering dialog or by pressing Esc. Correct the problem, and then render sample frames once more. This sampling process should help you spot problems before you take the time to render the full animation.
When you are ready to render a full animation, change the output file type to a movie format. AVI and MOV are both available options. Autodesk VIZ prompts you to choose a compressor/decompressor (codec) for the movie. Change Every Nth Frame back to 1, and then render the complete animation.
A final version of the scene is in the \designviz\vizwalkthrough folder, saved as wt_final.max.