I feel like I’m really missing something.  I’ve decided that I MUST start rendering to sequential images as opposed to rendering straight to a video.  If I have a rendering batch that consumes my computer’s resources for more than ten hours, I need to be able to pause it, or stop it so that I can put in some work for the day then let the rendering continue.  Mental ray can not be paused, so I’m rendering to images.  In a couple of days, I’ll have about 500 images to compress into a movie.

The big question is, can 3ds Max do this?  or do I need third party software?  or even if it can SHOULD I use third party software?  If so what do you guys use?

I feel like this should be in a tutrial somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.  Any help would be appreciated.

C.

I render as a targa sequence for best quality and import into after affects. unfortunately you will need a third party software to combine your images into a video

3ds Max 2010 32-bit
Windows XP Pro 32-bit SP3
Nvidia Quadro FX 3450
Intel Xeon 4x 2,33GHz, 4Gb Ram

You don’t actually need another program to make a movie file. I don’t have a thread that talks about it handy, but you can use the RAM player or video post in Max to load the image sequence and export to a movie file.

3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC

Hmmm. I’ve heard good things about that program but it’s $1k.  Will something like quicktime pro do what I need it to do?  Really, Max can’t do this itself?  That would explain the lack of tutorials on it.  Is there freeware tha can do this?  (or wil this be a “get what you pay for” scenario?)

Thanks.

C.

Thanks MK-3d.  You’ve given me something to search the help menu for.  ‘RAM player’

Cheers.

C.

Max certainly can do this. The simplest way is to load the sequence into the RAM Player then save from there, or you can use the Video Post facility which also gives you (limited) compositing capability. Beyond that you would need 3rd party s/ware. There are many available, from free ones like VirtualDub through to full blown compositors like Combustion, Toxik, After Effects or Sony Vegas - take your pick.

[edit] Video Post and RAM Player are both on the Rendering menu [/edit]

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Awesome!  Thanks, Steve.

C.

also have a look at pdplayer, it has some nice features for preparing a sequence with multiple renderelements directly for postproduction and it’s not that expensive.

klick

cheers

used to work on Dell workstation in a 3dsmax2010/64t - based workflow - win vista. 64; converted ; don’t miss a thing !