Mode

VX supports two render modes that will affect both quality and speed. As the speed goes up, the quality of course goes down.

 

• A-Buffer - This mode is faster but produces a lower quality image. The transparency attribute is supported, but no refraction will take place.

• Ray Trace - This mode is slower but produces a higher quality image. All attributes are supported.

 

Ray Depth

This value tells how many reflections or refractions will be performed before the ray dies out. The recursion depth of the ray tracer can greatly affect calculation time. Enter a depth in the range of 1 to 8. The default value is 5.

 

Shading

Define the technique used to shade the image. Select Flat, Phong, or Gouraud from the list.

 

Reflectance

Refers to the reflectance model used during rendering. Select Phong or Cook (see below).

 

The total shading process is complicated and consists of several different and independent processes.

 

First, a global illumination model, such as ray tracing is used to determine how light from the environment illuminates a face. Various face attributes, such as color and reflectance are then applied.

 

These attributes determine how light will interact with the face. This interaction is expressed by means of a reflectance model describing how the face will reflect light. From a micro point of view, (i.e., on a pixel-by-pixel basis), the final output is simply a color. However, from a macro point of view, (i.e., considering an area of a face), the final output determines the overall texture of a face.
  

The Phong model is faster but produces a lower quality image. The Cook model is slower but yields a higher quality image. Faces shaded with the Phong model always have a white highlight, making it impossible to simulate metallic faces. The face specular color, which is not used in the Phong model, is used to give color to the highlight in the Cook reflectance model. When rendering metallic faces, the simplest thing to do is to set the face specular color to the same color as the face color.

 

Backdrop

Defines the background color. Select a color using the Color Browser.

 

Antialiasing

Aliasing refers to the jagged lines that appear at silhouette edges when attempting to represent smooth lines or edges with pixels. Antialiasing is performed by adaptive super-sampling. If the color difference between neighboring sample points is greater than a given threshold, more samples are taken. The number of samples taken (level) and the threshold value greatly affect calculation time. The greater the antialiasing level the longer it takes to generate the image. Select Low, Medium or High.

 

Width, Height

Enter the width and height of the resulting image measured in pixels.

 

View, Save, Both

• View - The rendered image will be displayed in a separate view window only. 

• Save - The rendered image will be saved to a file only. You must enter a file name below.

• Both - The rendered image will be displayed and saved to a file.

 

Format

If saving the image to a file, select one of the following file formats: TIFF, GIF, BMP, EPS, SGI, or JPEG.

 

Color

• 256 - less color depth and smaller file size.

• True color - more color depth and larger file size.

 

File Name

If saving the image to a file, enter the complete path and name of the file or pick the folder icon to use the File Browser.