Rendering

Ndunes provides several image rendering tools available in the Render menu.

Render menu

The first item opens the Rendering Setup window. It shows all the parameters related to the rendering actions. They are saved within the current scene document.

Opening the Rendering setup window

The Common options are:

The second group called Animation contains properties used when rendering a camera animation.

The rendering actions of the top menu can also be found in the view toolbar.

Safe frames

The Show Safe Frames option of the render menu displays the security lines on top of the viewport:

Safe frames

Taking a snapshot

The third item of the menu, Taking Snapshot saves the content of the viewport in the output folder. Nothing fancy here, just a simple screenshot. The size and quality of the image is the same as the viewport.

Rendering an image

Rendering an image is like taking a snapshot except that the Render settings preset can be selected in the setup as well as the final image size. The Render preset allows to define high quality parameters. Unlike taking a snapshot, the rendering operation is not immediate and may need additionnal calculations.

Exporting an environment map

By triggering this action, the current view is exported as an environment map. This is a full 360° view that can be reused in a indoor scene or in any external environment viewer.

This action saves 3 files:

As for rendering an image, the rendering presets are used when exporting the environment map. The image width specifies the size of the cube faces. The width of the lattitude/longitude image will then be ( 4 * width ). Its height will be ( 2 * width ).

Environment map generated with NDunes

Rendering a camera animation

It is possible to create a curve path for a camera. This can be seen here: Animating the camera along a curve path. The images generated from the camera animation along the curve can then be saved as a series of frames in .jpg format as well as a video in .mp4 format.

The camera animation export uses the settings preset defined in the render setup window as well as the image width and height and the specific video parameters (fps, time intervalle).

Note:

The camera must have a valid curve path to render a video. See Animating the camera along a curve path.

Multiple rendering in batch

The left part of the render window holds a list of render tasks. Render tasks can be added or removed with the first (+) and (x) buttons of the toolbar. Each render task has its own set of properties that can be edited on the right panel when selected.

The first group of properties selects which camera to render, which type of rendering to execute (render image, render environment map or render camera animation) and the desired sun direction (the sun directions are saved with the sun panel: The sun tool).

Batch rendering

Note:

when a render task is selected, the right panel parameters are applied to the task specifically. When no render task is selected, the right panel shows the default parameters applied when doing a single rendering of the viewport (using the single render buttons).

Once the rendering batch has been filled with various tasks, the process of rendering all the cameras can be started with the 'Play' button in the toolbar.