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So, creating a project is just one part of the process.
In order to actually create any files, like a JPEG or a QuickTime or Windows
Media, you actually have to go throw a process called Rendering.
So, as you can see, I have a scene here containing some of the things we will be
creating, as we move throughout this course. Now, if you look in the center of your toolbar,
at the top of your screen, you will notice there are three buttons that have
clapboards. Let's start by clicking the leftmost button.
This is called Render Active View, and this will give us an idea as to what our
scene will look like when we actually go render it.
This is perfectly fine about 90% of the time when you are trying to preview your
project, as you are manipulating different settings.
Sometimes, you actually have to go in and create an actual Render.
But before you do that, you need to set up your Project settings, and you do
that by going to the Render Settings. Click the button on the right with the clapboard,
and it opens up a Render Settings window.
First thing you will notice is Render Engine. We will just leave this at Full Render, but
it's important to note that CINEMA 4D does support external Render engines like
CineMan and 3Delight. So let's go to the Output Settings.
This is where we actually set the resolution of our project.
If you click on the Arrow button, right next to the word Preset, under
Output, and you notice we get a dropdown menu, with options from Screen, to
Web, to Film/Video. Notice CINEMA 4D even supports Print.
If we choose Letter, notice it will even render a 300 DPI image.
This is kind of nice, because you can not only set the Size, but the
specific Resolution. Let's go back up to the arrow and go to Film/Video,
and let's set our Project Settings for the rest of this course.
I want to choose DVCPRO HD 720 23.976. This is commonly referred to as DVCPRO HD
720p24. 00:01:47.38] Now, if you don't know anything that I said, don't sweat it.
This is just an HD setting that we are going to use that I think is a great
balance between being HD, but not necessarily being so large that it's going to
bog everybody's systems down. Now, there's one little issue we have to correct,
and that's called the Pixel Aspect Ratio.
If we want to render this scene on our computer monitors, everything would look
kind of squished, and since we are not going back to HDV Tape, let's just go
ahead and change the Pixel Aspect Ratio to 1.
This way, when we render things, they will be in proper proportion.
The next setting, down here, is called Frame Range.
This is where you can tell CINEMA 4D to render the Current Frame, All Frames, or
just the Preview Range. Let's leave this set to Current Frame right
now, just because we are not going to get into animation very much until the
animation chapter. For you video folks, this is where you can
set your Field setting. Again, we will just leave that at None.
If we go to Save, this is where we can specify where we would like to save our file.
If you want to choose a folder, click the button with the three dots on
the right-hand side. This will open up a window, asking us to type
a name for our file. So I will just call this Class, and click
Save. Now we can jump to Format.
This is where we can specify everything from Photoshop, to JPEG, to QuickTime
Movie, or Windows Media, if you are on a Windows machine.
You can even change the Depth settings. But let's leave all this set to the default
settings, because, again, we are not going to get much into this until we get into
the animation chapter. The next setting I want you to look at is
Anti-Aliasing. By default, Anti-Aliasing is set to Geometry,
which is a low setting. It's usually perfectly fine, but I like to
work with Best. This way, when we render our images, we are
seeing everything at the best possible resolution.
Now, there is a Filter setting that I do change when I go into animation, I
change it to Animation. This just changes the Filter to kind of optimize
the image, to take into account the motion that happens when you are playing
back frame after frame. Let's go ahead and leave this to Still Image
for now. Now, just so we don't have to go back through
all these settings again, we should save these settings as a Preset, and
you do that under the Render Setting button. If you go ahead and click the Render Setting
button on the lower left-hand corner, we can go ahead and choose Save Preset.
When you choose Save Preset, go ahead and type the name.
We can call it C4D Class. Now, I have already saved this as a Preset,
so I am just going to click Cancel and show you.
But go ahead and press OK to save your Preset. Now, when we go to the Render Settings button,
if you go to Load Preset, there is where our Preset is.
Now, when we choose that, we are halfway there. To actually render out of these settings,
you need to click this little target button, to the left.
Once that button is highlighted white, now you know when you go to render your
project, it will be set to these settings. So, anytime, from now on, when you create
new projects, automatically open your Render Settings, go to Render Setting, and
load the Class Preset. Then, just make sure to click that one button,
and we are good to go. When you are in your project and you have
made different adjustments, you don't have to worry about going up to File and saving
your render settings. They are automatically embedded within each
individual project. So we can go ahead and just close the Render
Settings window, and I know that setting is embedded within this 01_07_Render_Settings
project. Now, there is one last thing I need to show
you, and that's how to create preview renders as you are working through
your scene. This center button here, if you click and
hold, this is where we can turn on an option called Interactive Render Region.
What this does, it draws a box around the scene, so if there is a specific
area that we are tweaking, we can go ahead and just choose that specific area to render.
We can change the Resolution by clicking on this arrow.
Yours might be down here in the middle. If you click and drag to the bottom, notice
it's going to preview at a low Resolution. As you click and drag to the top, it will
preview at a high Resolution. What's nice about this window, as I continue
to rotate around the scene, or move, or make any adjustments in my Object
Manager, those adjustments will be reflected in the Interactive Preview Render.
Let's go ahead and turn that off by clicking on the same button, in the top of
the screen, and turn off Interactive Render Region.
Now, to actually create the file of your project, you don't click this
button here on the left. This is just giving us a preview as to what
it would look like. To render your project, you have to click
and hold on the center button and render it to the Picture Viewer.
When you let that go, you will see the Picture Viewer pop-up.
Now, we will be getting more into detail about the Picture Viewer later in
this title.