89. As far as we know, we're done with this project. We're going to create two Render Jobs; a final, full size, 30 frame per second version and a smaller, faster rendering, 6 frame per second version to check for mistakes we might have missed. Go to the Render Task Mode and collapse the Camera list to simplify your view. Right-click the Render Jobs category and Add Component of this type.

90. Name the job MainFinal. It's going to create frames for our final full size and full frame rate animation. This Render Job will use the Main camera and Render Options we have yet to create, so select New Render Options. Click Edit to open the Render Options Editor.

91. Name it MainFinal to match the Render Job. The Image Size defaults are what we want except for Pixel Aspect. 0.9 is for NTSC M-JPEG tape output; we want an image aspect appropriate for computer viewing, so change the Pixel Aspect to 1. We'd like to render the entire animation so change the End Time to 20 seconds.

92. Go to the File Output page and Add Output Event. If you'd like to use your own video application to assemble the animation and it can read IFFs, choose that format to minimize frame file size. We'll use QuickTimePro and it doesn't import IFFs, so change the Format to Targa this time. AVI and QuickTime output does not require frame assembly after rendering, but these formats have several limitations. AVIs and MOVs cannot be rendered on a render farm and may lose all rendered output if the computer crashes before the Render Job is finished. These formats are best used for tests, as we will set up shortly. Enter MainFinal as the Image File name and this job is ready for rendering.

93. Select the MainFinal Render Job in the Scene-At-A-Glance and clone it.

94. Name it MainTest. As the name implies, this will be the initial test animation we render to check the project.

95. Expand the Render Options and clone MainFinal.

96. Name the clone MainTest, click the Scale button, and enter H for half size. Reduce the Frame Rate to 6 frames per second.

97. On the File Output page, change the Format to QuickTimeMOV and name the Image File MainTest.

98. Go to the Scene-At-A-Glance and click and drag the MainTest Render Options to the MainTest Render Job. Confirm the operation.

99. We're all ready to render our test animation, so open Render Control. Our Island Render Job is still hanging around and not part of this project, so delete it from the Scene-At-A-Glance.

100. We only need to render the MainTest Render Job first time around, so select MainFinal and disable it. Double-check the settings on the right half of the control window and Go to start rendering.

101. WCS warns us that our Terrain Parameters are currently set up to render using Variable Fractal Depth, which is the default method and appropriate for rendering single images. It is not appropriate for animations, which will become clear in the next section when we talk more about terrain. Take my word for it and select Depth Maps.

102. Answer Yes to Depth Maps generation.

103. Start with frame 0.

104. End with frame 600.

105. Generate maps every 5 frames. In a nutshell, the Fractal Depth Map generation process goes through the animation and keeps track of which terrain polygons pass near the camera and which ones stay distant. The rendering engine uses the resulting map to subdivide terrain polygons, which optimizes rendering time and terrain detail.

106. We're rendering to a movie format, so QuickTime wants to know what codec to use. This is a test, so let's go with Animation, Thousands of Colors, and a key frame every 6 frames.

107. The MainTest.mov animation can be found in the animation folder on the Tutorial 1 CD.

108. Everything looks good, so it's back to Render Control for MainFinal rendering. Disable the MainTest Render Job, enable MainFinal, make a last check of the render settings, and start rendering. This will take many hours, so take the rest of the day off and we'll check back tomorrow.

109. It took more than 10 hours to render the 600 frames on this computer. The MainFinal.mov animation can be found in the animation folder on the Tutorial 1 CD.

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