Raytrace Settings

[quizzy]

well you're right... don't worry.... BUT: sometimes you just want the rendering to video, whithout needing to render it again in after effect. could take a very long time from after effects to re-render it.

[STRAT]

i must admit, i hardly ever (if ever atall) rendered to fields when out putting to video.

[Ken Walton]

I didn't seem to gain anything from field rendering my max scenes except a few anxiety attacks while waiting for the doubled render time to complete. I've never really had any horrible render times in post when doing my fields - I usually nest>nest>nest my comps and sometimes even render sequences with heavy effects alone then bring them back in to my final comp. Only then have I been rendering to fields - this way I'm only doubling render time on a straight sequence as opposed to all the things max would have to compute per frame.

[John Dollus]

Field rendering is based on the rate of change/frame. In After Effects, all pixels are treated the same regardless of the rate of change so field rendering will not be the same as when rendered through Max. That said, there are things you can do in After Effects to fix the problems caused by rendering frames in Max. Did that make sense?

[Ken Walton]

Are you saying that it's beneficial to field render from max? I'm not sure what you mean.

[John Dollus]

You only field render once and doing so in Max will give you the best results. If, however, you will be doing much in the way of adding effects in after effects, then it would be best to stick with frames only and not render to fields at all.

Of course, if you are delivering for CD or web the point is moot.