If you want to render or edit only certain aspects or areas of your scene, the following steps provide an overview of how to use render passes:
To use render passes
1. Create and name a new render pass (you can also save and re-use your passes) as described in Creating Custom Render Passes.
2. Select the pass to be edited. Do one of the following:
- When working with several passes, use the explorer scope to display either the Current Pass or All Passes of a scene.
or
- Choose Pass > Edit > Current Pass from the Render toolbar. This opens the Pass property editor for the pass listed in the current pass text box.
or
- Use the Explore button in the main command panel to open an explorer for either the Current Pass or Passes. For information on how to use the explorer, see the Interface and Tools guide.
3. Define partitions and use them to organize and edit the objects and lights in your render passes. How you divide elements into partitions depends on what effect you want to achieve with the pass. This is described in more detail in Defining Partitions.
4. Specify the active camera for the pass (and apply a lens shader if desired) — see Controlling the Active Camera in the Render Pass.
5. Apply shaders (including special effects such as glows, environments, and volumic effects) to the pass and its partitions—see Applying Shaders to Passes and Partitions.
6. If necessary, define an override for a partition. An override lets you control an object’s parameters using shaders without replacing any of an object’s material properties. For more information, see Applying Shaders Using Overrides in this guide and Overriding Properties in the Scene Elements guide.
7. Set rendering options for the objects in each pass partition—see Setting Partition Properties.
8. Set rendering options for each pass—see Pass Rendering Options.
9. After you have set up render passes, you can render them—see Rendering Methods.
10. You can then composite and apply effects to the passes using XSI Illusion — see the Compositing and Effects guide.
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