The 3Delight Render Settings are accessible in Maya’s Render Settings window once ‘3Delight’ is set as the current renderer. This is done by selecting ‘3Delight’ in the Render Using option menu.
The 3Delight tab in Maya's Render Settings window
All the rendering options are stored as attributes and are grouped into the five categories; here is an overview of the purpose of each category:
Scene Elements - Specifies all the scene elements to render, including the camera. This is in the general sense the input to the renderer.
Render Engine - Controls for the rendering engine. Essentially about how to process the information from input to output.
Image Quality - Options specifically geared to affect the look of the image to be rendered.
Since all these options are encapsulated inside Render Pass nodes, the Render Settings first present a menu to select which Render Pass to view. The rendering options for the selected Render Pass are displayed right after, just like they are in the Attribute Editor. By default there is only one Render Pass.
The Current Render Pass option menu lists all render pass nodes currently in the scene. The selected one is used for all renderings launched using Render Current Frame or Batch Render options of Maya’s Render menu. The Create Render Pass button on the right of the option menu creates a new render pass node and set it as the one selected for the Current Render Pass attribute.
There are many Rendering Attributes that control the rendering process. They are encapsulated in a Render Pass and arranged in five categories :
- Scene Elements
- Output
- Render Engine
- Image Quality
- Advanced
Each category contains a few groups. Each group contains related attributes.
The 3Delight Render Settings dialog with all elements collapsed except the "Render Engine" and "Image Quality" categories and the "Indirect Illumination" group.
A category is shown as a blue button. Clicking this button will collapse or expand the category to hide or display the groups it contains. The groups are drawn in a collapsable layout that is expanded or collapsed by clicking on the arrow on the left side of the group's label. Clicking on a category will show or hide its groups, without changing their expanded or collapsed state.