Add Scene Event

Rendering menu > Video Post > Video Post window > Make sure no events are selected in the queue. > Video Post toolbar > Add Scene

The Add Scene Event button adds the scene in the selected camera viewport to the queue.

The scene is rendered exactly as it would be by the scanline renderer, with the additional options listed below. The resulting scene image has an alpha channel.

Procedures

To add a Scene event:

Make sure no events are selected in the queue.
Click Add Scene.
An Add Scene Event dialog appears.
Choose a view to use from the View list.
Click Render Options to change rendering settings from the way you have set them in the Render Scene dialog.
Note: Unlike settings in the Execute Video Post dialog, changes you make to the Scene event rendering options change the settings in the Render Scene dialog, and vice versa.
Set the Scene Range options and click OK.
The Scene event appears at the end of the queue.

To match the scene's frames with Video Post frames:

Make sure Lock to Video Post Range is selected.
Lock to Video Post Range is the default. Frames in the scene match Video Post frames and have the same frame number. That is, frame 0 in the scene is frame 0 in the Video Post dialog, frame 15 in the scene is frame 15 in Video Post, and so on. The range bar for the Scene event represents which portion of the scene is selected. If the range bar covers Video Post frames 25 to 35, executing the queue renders scene frames 25 to 35. Moving the range bar for the scene is like moving a time window within the scene.
Other Scene Range options are disabled when Lock to Video Post Range is selected.

To offset the scene in time:

Select Lock Range Bar to Scene Range.
The Scene Start control is enabled but the Scene End control remains disabled - synchronization is controlled by the Scene Start value and the length of the range bar.
The Scene Start value is the scene frame number where playback begins. If Scene Start is 0, frame 0 of the scene is the first frame played back; if Scene Start is 12, frame 12 is the first frame to play, and so on.
The range bar length determines how many frames of the scene to play. Dragging the end point of the range bar changes the length of the playback range. Although Scene End is grayed out, its value updates to show the frame number of the last scene frame that will be played.
Dragging the range bar changes where the scene is played within the final video. For example, if you set Scene Start to 5 and move the range bar to begin at Video Post frame 20, frame 5 is played at frame 20 of the final video, and so on.

To offset the scene and change scene playback rate:

Clear Lock Range Bar to Scene Range.
With Lock Range Bar to Scene Range clear, both Scene Start and Scene End are enabled. As before, Scene Start specifies the first scene frame to play. Scene End specifies the last scene frame to play, and the length of the range bar determines playback speed.
If the range bar specifies the same number of Video Post frames as there are corresponding scene frames, then playback is at the scene's playback rate. If the range bar specifies fewer frames, the scene is sped up. If the range bar specifies more frames, the scene is slowed down. When it executes, Video Post automatically skips frames or adds frames to control the speed of scene playback.
For example, if Scene Start is frame 5 and Scene End is frame 35, the range bar represents 30 frames overall. If the range bar covers only 10 Video Post frames, scene playback is sped up to fit 30 frames into 10 of the final video. If on the other hand, the range bar covers 120 frames, scene playback is stretched to slow it down.

To add scene motion blur:

Select Scene Motion Blur in the Scene Event dialog.
Set the scene motion blur parameters.
The Scene event generates motion blur by simulating a camera with an open shutter. It interpolates and then renders movement within a frame, to generate a series of images of the moving object, instead of the default single image.

Interface

The Add Scene Event dialog provides the following controls:

View group

Select the viewport you want to render and give it a unique name in the Label field.

Scene Options group

Enables various rendering effects.

Render Options—Displays a subset of the parameters in the Render Scene dialog. For information on these controls, see the Common Parameters and MAX Default Scanline A-Buffer help topics. Changes you make to the Scene Event Render Options affect the Render Scene dialog, as well.

Scene Motion Blur—Turns on the scene motion-blur effect for the whole scene. This is different from object motion blur, which creates motion blur for individual objects in the scene.

Scenes created with previous versions of 3ds max that use both Object Motion Blur and Scene Motion Blur may not render correctly, due to changes to Object Motion Blur. Execute some test frames and adjust your blur settings if needed.

When you render with Scene Motion Blur activated, the Render Progress dialog tells you which subsample is being rendered. The information appears in parentheses to the right of the "Rendering Image" text. For example:

Duration—Sets the virtual shutter speed for motion blur. When it's set to 1.0, the virtual shutter is open for the entire duration between one frame and the next. When it's set to a smaller number (for example, 0.25), the number of subdivisions specified in the Duration Subdivision field will be rendered within the specified portion of the frame (in this example, in the first .25 of the duration between one frame and the next).

Duration Subdivision—Determines how many sub-frame slices are rendered within the Duration. The default is 2 slices, but you'll want at least 5 or 6 to get a decent effect.

Dither %—Sets the amount of dithering between blurred pixels of overlapping frame slices. If Dither % is set to 0, no dithering occurs.

Scene Range group

Sets the range of scene frames to be rendered.

Lock Range Bar to Scene Range—Becomes available when you deselect Lock to Video Post Range. When it's available, the End spinner is disabled and locked to the Video Post range. When you change the Start spinner it automatically updates the End spinner based on the Video Post range set for this event.

If you clear the box, you can change either Start or End spinners to whatever you want. This allows you to keep your scene range locked to its native length, and still provides flexibility for mapping an arbitrary scene range to an arbitrary Video Post range.

Lock to Video Post Range—Renders the same range of scene frames as Video Post frames. You can set the Video Post range in the Execute Video Post dialog.

Video Post Parameters group

VP Start Time/End Time—Sets the starting and ending frames for the selected event within the overall Video Post queue. Video Post renders the event over the number of frames specified here.

Enabled—Enables or disables the event. When this box is clear, the event is disabled and Video Post ignores it when rendering the queue. Each event must be disabled individually. For example, disabling a composite layer event does not disable the composited image events. The range bars of disabled events are grayed out in the event track area.