Previous Topic (Presets and History) Up (Contents) Next Topic (Save Particles Rollout)

Main Controls


Particle Color Controls

  • Settings in Particle Color Controls tell Krakatoa how to determine color and lighting for particles when rendering or saving particles to disk.

Override Particle Colors

This option tells Krakatoa to use a single color for all particles in the scene. This option is off by default. When off, each particle will render according to the material assigned to the particle source, or the particle source's object color (wireframe color). When on, the options from the drop-down list described below will be used:

Color dropdown list

This list contains options for defining the Override Color for particles.

Options:

  • Custom Particle Color: Uses the Custom Color swatch to assign a common color to all particles in the scene.
  • Material Editor Slot #1: All particle colors are overridden by the color in the Diffuse channel of the material assigned to the first sample slot of the Material Editor. This includes both solid color and texture maps in the Diffuse Map slot.
  • Blended Z Depth: The particle color reflects the distance from the image plane in generic units.
  • Blended Camera Distance: The particle color reflects the distance from the camera. 
 NOTE: Both Blended Z Depth and Blended Camera Distance can be used to generate a kind if Z-Depth pass 
 similar to the Z-Depth generated by Gelato where the UNCLAMPED color value represents the real unnormalized 
 distance to the camera. The pixels will appear white in the Max Virtual Frame Buffer but right-clicking them 
 shows the raw values to be actual distances. These can be tweaked in any 2D compositing application if necessary.
  • When switching to and from Blended Z Depth and Blended Camera Distance color modes, a prompt will inform the user of the defaults for Use Lighting and Post-Divide by Alpha and let him accept or reject the changes. If the settings are already correct, no prompt will be issued. This respects the Volumetric Density vs. Additve Density settings, so Lighting will be suggested as ON only when Volumetric is used. This behavior can be turned off in the Preferences rollout.

Color swatches

  • Click in the Custom Particle Color swatch to assign a new particle color. The Custom Color swatch is only active when >Override Particle Colors is checked and Custom Particle Color is selected in the dropdown list.
  • Click the Background Color swatch to assign a new background color. This control is only available when the >Custom Background Color option is checked. By default, it is unchecked and the 3ds Max Environment Background color will be used instead.
  • NOTE that the Krakatoa Background Color provides RGBA color where the background Alpha can be greater than 0, while the default 3ds Max Background color has only RGB values and the Alpha will be assumed to be 0 (transparent). Also note that background maps are not supported by Krakatoa, as it is assumed that the particles will be composed over other imagery later.

Use Lighting

  • When turned on, this option will tell Krakatoa to use supported lights to illuminate the particles.
  • When off, particles are be assumed to be self-illuminated.
  • Default scene lighting will NOT be taken into account.

Post-Divide by Alpha

  • When turned on, this option will tell Krakatoa to divide RGB values by the alpha value.
  • This option must be turned on when rendering in "Blended Z Depth" or "Blended Camera Distance" color source mode.
  • NOTE: By default, Krakatoa will automatically suggest this setting when switching the color source to a "Blended..." mode. This behavior can be tweaked using the options in the Preferences rollout.

Env.Background Color

  • When turned on, this option will tell Krakatoa to use the Background RGB color from the 3ds Max Environment dialog (default).
  • When turned off, the custom Krakatoa Background Color will be used instead.
  • NOTE AGAIN that the Krakatoa Background color uses the advanced Color Swatch providing an Alpha value. When using the 3ds Max Background color, Alpha will be assumed 0.

Use Normals

  • When turned off (default), each particle will be illuminated equally regardless of its orientation.
  • When turned on, and if a normal vector is available for the particle, it will be shaded corresponding to its orientation. Particles "facing away" from the light will be shaded darker than particles whose normal vector is pointing at the light. 
 Note that since the normals shading is view-dependent, the lighting has to be calculated again 
 on each frame and the Lighting Cache option cannot be used. 
 When >Use Normals is checked, the LCache button will be grayed out to signify this.
  • Possible sources of normal data are:
    • Particles from Geometry Vertices will use the vertex normal.
    • Particles from Particle Flow will use the X axis of the particle transformation matrix as the normal direction.
    • New in v1.1.0: Particles loaded from a particle file using a PRT Loader and culled using a geometry object can optionally acquire the normal of the closest point on the culling surface.

Specular Level and Glossiness

  • These values function like their counterparts in the 3ds Max Standard Material, but are floating point numbers and allow for much higher values.
  • A highlight graph "widget" will display the effect of the values on the specular shading.
  • The value spinners and the highlight graph are only enabled when the >Use Lighting option is checked.

Density Controls

The Density Controls specify how Krakatoa computes the density of particles.

  • There are two sets of density controls - Lighting Pass Density and Final Pass Density:
    • The Lighting Pass performs the calculation of attenuation maps used for particle shadowing.
    • The Final Pass draws the particles into the frame buffer.
  • By default, both the Lighting and the Final Pass will use the Final Pass' Density settings.
  • When the >Use Lighting Pass Density Settings option is checked, the Lighting Pass Density controls will become available for separate adjustment.

Additive/Volumetric/Constant Density dropdown list

Select the type of density computation to be used.

  • Volumetric Density: In this mode, the values specify the Volumetric Density which will adapt to the number of particles, resulting in a consistent density with varying particle counts. An alpha channel describing the density of the particle cloud will be generated.
  • Additive Density: In this mode, only the RGB colors will be accumulated. No alpha channel will be generated.
  • Constant Alpha Density: In this mode, each particle will use the unscaled density specified by the Density Per Particle controls, without taking the number of particles into account. Other than Volumetric Density, adding more particles will actually increase the resulting accumulated density. An alpha channel will be generated.

Density Per Particle

One of two settings required to define the rendered density of each particle. This value is the coefficient of the density as expressed in scientific notation. Smaller values make the particles appear less dense, while larger values increase the rendered density.

Density Exponent

The second of two settings required to define the rendered density of each particle. This value is the exponent of the power of 10, where the density is expressed in scientific notation. This provides a quick way to make large density adjustments. 

 To easily define very large or very small densities, the Particle Density value in Krakatoa is expressed 
 in scientific notation which uses a numeric coefficient multiplied by an exponential power of 10.  
 For example: 
 The value 0.000005 can be expressed as 5.0 x 10^-6, 
 or in Krakatoa terms, Density Per Particle: 5.0, Density Exponent: -6
 The value 27500000 can be expressed as 2.75 x 10^7 
 or in Krakatoa terms, Density Per Particle: 2.75, Density Exponent: 7

Density Presets

New in v1.1.0: Two [>>] preset buttons are located to the right of the two density spinner pairs. You can either click or right-click the buttons to get an existing preset Density and Exponent into the spinners, add the current values to the Presets list or, if the current values are already on the list, remove them from the Presets.

Scale Density using Material Opacity

  • When checked, the particle density will take into account the material opacity channel (if available).
  • When unchecked, the Material Opacity will be ignored.

Motion Blur and Depth of Field

Adjust settings in this section to set up Motion Blur and Depth of Field in Krakatoa renderings.

>Enable Motion Blur

  • This option enables the native Krakatoa Motion Blur calculation.
  • NOTE that 3ds Max MultiPass Motion Blur is also supported but not recommended.
    • It will be much slower than the Krakatoa version since it has to load the particles N times - once for each pass.
    • If you want to match the Max look exactly though, you can use it.
    • Make sure Krakatoa's >Use Motion Blur option is turned off when using it to avoid double-blurring the particles.

Motion Blur Segments

This value determines the number of samples taken to produce the motion blur for the frame. For example, a value of 10 will cause Krakatoa to render 10 samples that are in turn combined to produce a single motion-blurred frame.

  • Increasing the number of samples creates a smoother motion blur at the expense of rendering time.
  • The render time increase is linear, so if a frame takes 10 seconds to draw particles (pure drawing time excluding the time spent processing/loading/lighting them), then 5 passes motion blur will take approx. 50 seconds, 12 passes approx. 2 minutes etc.
  • The value's range is from 1 to 1000. The value of 1 was introduced in v1.1.0 since it can provide a single dot/random position rendering in conjunction with Jittered Motion Blur which might be desirable in special cases. When the >Enable Motion Blur checkbutton is unchecked, Krakatoa renders internally with a Segment count of 0.
  • Typical values are provided by default in the [>>] presets list.

>Jittered Motion Blur

When enabled, the Jittered Motion Blur option makes motion blur samples less uniform.

  • By default, when this option is disabled, the particle samples are placed at equal distances along the motion vector.
  • When Jittered Motion Blur is enabled, the particle samples will be shifted randomly along the motion vector to create a less uniform pattern.

Motion Blur Shutter

Using motion-picture camera terminology, this is a measurement in degrees representing the length of time the camera shutter is open.

  • Larger values cause more blur as the camera's shutter remains open longer and captures a longer time interval.
  • Default is 180 degrees which corresponds to 0.5 in 3ds Max Multi-Pass Motion Blur terminology.
  • 360 degrees corresponds to the default (but incorrect) 3ds Max Multi-Pass Motion Blur duration of 1.0 frame.
  • 0 degrees practically disables Motion Blur.
  • Using the [>>] button next to the Motion Blur Shutter value, you can access predefined Shutter values as well as add new presets or remove existing presets.

Matte Objects Motion Blur Bias

By default, Motion blur of Matte Objects is rendered with equal blur before and after the object's position in the current frame.

  • Values less than 0.0 will cause more samples to be taken prior to the current frame
  • Values greater than 0.0 will cause more samples to be taken after the current frame.
  • Value Range is from -1.0 to 1.0. Default is 0.0 (centered).
  • This option is used to match the Motion Blur behavior of other renderers to allow composing Krakatoa Particles with matte geometry into scenes using Motion Blurred Geometry with non-zero Bias.
  • Currently, particles use Motion Blur with a bias of 0.0 (centered) regardless of this value. Particle Motion Blur Bias might be implemented in future versions of Krakatoa.
  • Using the [>>] button next to the Matte Objects Motion Blur Bias value, you can access predefined Shutter values as well as add new presets or remove existing presets.

>Enable Depth Of Field

  • This checkbutton enables the native Krakatoa Depth Of Field effect.
  • NOTE that the 3ds Max MultiPass Depth Of Field effect is currently NOT supported.

Depth of Field Sample Rate

Krakatoa renders particle Depth Of Field by calculating the disk area a particle would occupy in the image plane based on the current Depth of Field settings and then filling this area by drawing multiple samples of the same particle with random positions within the disk.

  • This value controls the number of samples to be drawn for each particle.
  • Lower values will cause less samples to be drawn thus speeding up the final pass but reducing quality.
  • High values will increase the number of samples and improve quality at costs of render time.
  • Using the [>>] button next to the value spinner, you can access predefined Sample Rate values as well as add new presets or remove existing presets.

Global Percentage

The Render Percentage Of All Particles spinner introduced in Krakatoa 1.1.0 controls the percentage of all particles scheduled for rendering to be loaded into memory. The percentage is calculated using the total concatenated particle stream after all particles have been pre-processed (loaded and shaded) but before sorting, lighting and rendering. Thus, it does not shorten loading times, but speeds up the lighting and rendering passes.

  • The value can be a floating point value between 0.0 and 100.0 %.
  • It affects all particles from all sources, including Particle Flow, Thinking Particles, Max Legacy Particles, Geometry Vertices and Particle Loaders.
  • Using the [>>] button next to the value spinner, you can access predefined Percentage values as well as add new presets or remove existing presets. 
 NOTE: If you are using only Particle Loaders, it is a better idea to use their Render Percentage values 
 because they are applied at loading time. 
 As already mentioned above, the global percentage is applied AFTER the loading.

Filtering

Options are provided to change the way that points and self-shadowing are interpolated.

Draw Point Filter

The Draw Point Filter determines how particles are rendered when they fall partially into more than one integral pixel in the image plane.

  • Nearest Neighbor: The full value of the particle is placed into the nearest pixel of the output image.
  • Bilinear: Uses a simple linear equation to split the value of the particle into the affected pixels of the output image.
  • Bicubic: Uses a cubic filtering function to average the value of the particle into surrounding pixels of the output image.

Self-Shadow Filter

The Self-Shadow Filter determines how particle self-shadowing attenuation is evaluated from the attenuation buffer.

  • Nearest Neighbor: The value of the nearest neighboring pixel is used.
  • Bilinear: Uses a simple linear equation to reconstruct the value from the nearest four pixels
  • Bicubic: Uses a cubic filtering function to average the value of the nearby pixels.

Particle Sorting

  • New in v1.1.0 The three sorting methods available in Krakatoa 1.0.x have been replaced by a single universal sorting method. The sorting algorithm is used to order the particles from back to front relatively to light sources and cameras before drawing the particles in the attenuation buffer and the render buffer.
  • The sorting algorithm supports multi-threading and can thus employ all available CPUs and cores to deliver maximum performance. The drop-down list provides the following options:
    • Use All CPUs (N) - when selected, Krakatoa will query the number of CPUs installed on the system and use as many threads as there are CPUs. The number (N) will show the actual number of CPUs visible to Krakatoa.
    • Sort using 1 Thread - this option disables multi-threading and performs sorting using only one CPU. It can be useful when running Krakatoa on multi-CPU machine with multiple copies of 3ds Max rendering in parallel and you want to limit your current Krakatoa instance to just one CPU.
    • Sort using 2 Threads - this option spawns two threads sort sorting - it can be useful when running Krakatoa on a machine with 4 or more CPUs/cores and you want to limit the current instance of the renderer to only two of them.
    • The other options incl. 4,8 and 16 threads are there for future compatibility with massive multi-processor / multi-core machines, but can also be used to force multiple threads to run on machines with less cores for testing purposes. It is recommended that you leave the settings at "Use All CPUs" to ensure optimal performance of your scene on any machine. The overhead of running more threads than the number of CPUs usually causes the sorting to be slightly slower, so it is not a good practice.

Particle Render Mode

This drop-down list can be used to switch between rendering to the frame buffer and saving to disk file:

  • Render Scene Particles: In this mode, Krakatoa will render (shade) the particles according to the current settings.
  • Save Particles To File Sequence: In this mode, Krakatoa will save the positions and optionally other data like Particle Colors and Normals to a PRT file. PRT files can be used to cache particle systems to disk for faster per-frame access and with the inclusion of Particle Loaders, they can be also used as means to load the same particles multiple times in the same scene with Position/Rotation/Scale/Count animation possibilities.
  • Light Scene Particles: This is a special version of the Render Scene Particles mode which performs the loading and lighting calculations of all particles without actually drawing the particles into a final image. It is meant to be used mainly for generating attenuation maps for shadow casting on geometry objects and could be also used to precache particles for later rendering using LCache and PCache.

Use Particles From

This group of checkbuttons controls which particle systems in the scene will be rendered (or saved). These controls replace the previous "Render Particles dropdown list" control which provided an exclusive mode for only one type.

  • PFlow Geometry: Particle Flow particles whose Render Operator is set to Geometry type. ON by default.
  • PFlow Phantom: Particle Flow particles whose Render Operator is set to Phantom type. ON by default.
  • PFlow BBox: Particle Flow particles whose Render Operator is set to Bounding Box type. OFF by default.
  • Geometry Vertices: Vertices of geometry objects that are not included in a Matte Objects Named Selection Set. OFF by defalt.
    • When rendering Geometry Vertices, Shapes will be considered geometry only if the Enable in Renderer option is checked.
    • If Enable in Renderer is checked but Enable in Viewport is not, the Knots of the spline will be rendered.
  • Legacy Particles: All pre-PFlow 3ds Max particle systems incl. Snow, Spray, SuperSpray, PCloud and PArray. ON by default.
  • ThinkingParticles: Particles contained in all Thinking Particle systems. ON by default.
  • Particle Loaders: Particles loaded from PRT of BIN files via Particle Loaders. ON by default.
  • Other Particles: Any Particle systems supporting the IParticleObjectExt interface. OFF by default.

Any combination of these options can be toggled on and off at the same time for flexible inclusion and exclusion of particle types. To exclude specific objects of any included category, hide the object. 

 Why use different PFlow Render Types?     
    The various PFlow Render Types allow for an additional level of flexibility when deciding 
    which particles to render within a PFlow system. 
    Say you have an event giving birth to 100 particles which, when triggered by a Collision Spawn, 
    create 1000 particles each and send them out to another Event. If you want to render the resulting 
    100000 particles in the second event but not render the original 100 particles, you can set a 
    local Render Operator with Phantom Type in the first Event and a local Render Operator of 
    Geometry Type in the second event, uncheck "PFlow Phantom" in the Krakatoa GUI and you will 
    render only the PFlow Geometry particles born by the Spawn.

Particle Cache and Lighting Cache

Two checkbuttons next to the RENDER button provide access to the Manual Particle Cache feature of Krakatoa. Due to core changes in Krakatoa v1.1.0, the behavior of the caching system has changed somewhat - in previous releases, all channels were always loaded into memory. In v1.1.0, only necessary channels will be loaded into memory. Thus, if a channel has not been cached yet but is requested, the cache will be rebuilt automatically.

Krakatoa supports two Cache modes - Explicit mode (enable Cache first, then render) and Implicit mode (render, then enable Cache to reuse data from memory). The latter is the default mode since it provides a better overall workflow.

The two modes are being controlled by the option Keep Last Frame In Memory accessible via the Right-Click menu of the PCache/LCache checkbuttons and via the Preferences rollout > System group of controls.

Implicit Mode (Render First, Enable Cache Later)

  • If the PCache button is not checked, Krakatoa will cache all particles into memory every time a frame is rendered. After rendering finishes, the cache indicator will turn green and the Particle Cache Size item in the Right-click Context Menu will show a non-zero cache size. In Windows Task Manager, you will notice that the memory is not released after the rendering finishes.
  • At any point after rendering a frame, you can check the PCache button to tell Krakatoa to use the already loaded data for consecutive renders. This will speed up test renderings significantly because it removes the acquiring particles portion of the process. While using the PCache, changing particle systems will have no effect on the rendering.
  • If the cache is empty (the cache indicator is gray and not green), you can also check the PCache button first, then render a frame. Since the cache is enabled but empty, Krakatoa will load the particles and render them as usual. Consecutive renders will use the cached data.
  • If >USE LIGHTING is enabled, the LCache checkbutton will become available. By default, the PCache stores all requested channels, but when LCache is disabled, the lighting is recalculated dynamically and overwrite the content of the Lighting channel. This mode is useful when testing the lighting of the scene by moving light sources around, changing their settings etc.
  • If the LCache button is checked, the content of the Lighting channel will be reused in consecutive renders and the Lighting calculation phase will also be skipped. Moving or changing lights will have no effect on the final rendering, but you can still manipulate the Density of the particles and change the camera to render the particles from various angles.
  • If the last cache data was stored while the >USE LIGHTING was disabled, there will be no valid Lighting channel stored in memory. Enabling LCache in this case will still cause a reloading of all particles and recalculating of the lighting the first time you render the scene, consecutive renders will use the newly built Lighting channel.
  • If the last cache data was stored while the >USE LIGHTING option was enabled, you can enable LCache to reuse the last lighting. To update the content of the LCache only, uncheck it, render to calculate the new lighting, then check it again to use the new data.
  • If the >USE LIGHTING option was enabled during the cache creation, unchecking the >USE LIGHTING will cause the Lighting channel to be simply ignored but not removed from memory. The LCache button will be unchecked if it was checked to show you that the lighting cache, while available, is not in use. You can check >USE LIGHTING at any time while the PCache button is still checked and engage the LCache to start using the existing lighting data from the cache again without rebuilding.
  • To release the memory used up by the PCache (and the LCache, if active), use the Clear Both Caches option in the Right-click Context Menu.
  • If you introduce new memory channels into the rendering process by enabling features that were not active when the cache data was generated (i.e. Motion Blur which requires a Velocity channel, Use Normals which requires a Normals channel etc.), Krakatoa will have to rebuild the cache first to include the requested channels. Consecutive renders will use the new data.
  • Like with the Lighting channel, if any channel that has already been cached is not required anymore, the cache will NOT be rebuilt - the data will remain in memory and will simply be ignored. For example, caching with Motion Blur on will create a Velocity channel, disabling Motion Blur will NOT remove the Velocity channel from memory causing a rebuild, it will simply skip the data. Thus, you can enable Motion Blur anytime and start using the cached Velocity data again without the need to rebuild the cache.

Explicit Mode (Enable Cache First, Render Later)

  • If PCache is not checked, rendering the scene will NOT populate the cache. Once the frame is finished, the memory will be released - you can monitor this in Windows Task Manager.
  • To cache data in memory, you have to press the PCache button first, then render. Once the rendering is finished, the last frame data will be kept in memory until the PCache button is released.
  • To release the cache, simply uncheck the PCache button.

Why Two Modes?

  • As you can see, the Implicit mode has huge advantages. In production, 90% of the time the artist starts rendering a frame only to realize that he forgot to enable the cache. If he were using the Explicit mode, this would mean stress and wasting a lot of time.
  • The drawback of the Implicit mode is that, unlike other renderers, once the rendering is finished, the used memory is not reclaimed EVEN IF PCACHE IS NOT CHECKED! This is because the option Keep Last Frame In Cache tells Krakatoa not to release memory, assuming that the artist might want to reuse the last frame as cache data at any time by checking the PCache button.
  • If you feel that Krakatoa is using up too much memory (potentially preventing other programs or even Windows from running well in the background) and you want to have full control over when memory is kept and when it is released, you can turn off the Keep Last Frame In Cache and thus switch to Explicit Caching mode.
  • Both caches are available when rendering a single frame or a range of frames, but in the latter case the SAME particles from the frame that has been cached will be rendered throughout the whole animation. In other words, once a frame is cached, changing the scene time will NOT render a different frame unless the PCache is rebuilt again using one of the methods described above.
  • Right-clicking any of the Cache buttons will show a context menu with these entries:
    • Particle Cache size in Megabytes - selecting the item will copy the value to the Log Window.
    • Clear Lighting Cache Only - clears the data of the Lighting Cache, while keeping all other particle channels in memory.
    • Clear Both Caches - releases the memory used by PCache and LCache.
    • Keep Last Frame In Cache option - controls the memory management behavior of the PCache as described above. When checked, memory will not be flushed after each frame thus allowing you to enable PCache AFTER a frame was rendered. When unchecked, the memory will be flushed after each frame so enabling PCache will require reloading of particles into memory.

Cache Indicator

 Available in Krakatoa v1.1.0 and higher
  • The cache indicator found between the two Cache buttons shows the state of the cache at a glance:
    • When gray, the cache is empty.
    • When green, the cache is full and all channels required by the current settings are available in it
    • When yellow, the cache is full but at least one setting requires a channel that is NOT in the cache yet. If you press render at this point, the cache will be rebuilt to include the missing channel. If you turn off the option requiring the additional channel, the indicator will turn back green. 
 For example, let's say you rendered particles with Motion Blur turned off and enabled PCache.
 The cache indicator is green and you can render the particles again and again from memory.
 If you check the >Enable Motion Blur option, the Velocity channel will be required to blur the particles,
 but that channel has not been cached previously to save memory.
 At this point, the cache indicator will turn yellow because the Velocity channel is needed but not cached.
 You can also see the Channels Rollout - Velocity will be listed with a minus sign.
 If you uncheck the >Enable Motion Blur option, the cache indicator will turn back green because
 all required channels are already in memory - the Velocity channel will be removed from the list
 of needed channels.

RENDER / SAVE PARTICLES

  • The RENDER button is a conveniently located large button in the heart of the Krakatoa GUI. Depending on other settings, it can be used to:
    • Fire off the Krakatoa rendering with the current configuration settings.
    • Render a preview frame while ignoring image output saving and time settings
    • Save particles to disk

RENDER

  • If the Particle Render Mode drop-down list is set to Render Scene Particles and the >Iterative checkbutton is unchecked, the button will read RENDER.
  • Pressing it will be analogous to clicking the Render button in the Render Scene dialog, or clicking the Quick Render icon in the 3ds Max toolbar.

RENDER FRAME - ITERATIVE MODE

 Available in Krakatoa v1.1.0 and higher
  • If the Particle Render Mode drop-down list is set to Render Scene Particles and the >Iterative checkbutton above the RENDER button is engaged, the button will read RENDER FRAME
  • Pressing it will cause only the current frame to be rendered without saving the image to disk even if requested otherwise in the Render Scene Dialog.
  • If the time settings are set to Active Time Segment, Range or Frames, these will be ignored.
  • This mode is useful for doing quick iterative renders while tweaking parameters without having to turn off saving and switch the time mode to single frame.
  • The >Iterative mode affects ONLY the functionality of the RENDER button in the Krakatoa GUI, NOT the functionality of the Render / Quick Render commands in the 3ds Max UI. Pressing those will perform regular rendering as if >Iterative were not checked.
  • It will also NOT affect network rendering because it does not modify internal settings of Krakatoa, only GUI-level ones.
  • Closing and reopening the Krakatoa GUI will disengage the >Iterative option.

SAVE PARTICLES

  • When the Particle Render Mode is set to Save Particles To File Sequence, the button's caption will read "SAVE PARTICLES".
  • You can still use the Render / Quick Render commands in the 3ds Max UI in this mode to save particles to disk.
  • The >Iterative option will be grayed out when in this mode. Even if it is checked, it will be ignored.
  • No Rendered Frame Window (Virutal Frame Buffer, VFB) will be shown when saving. The VFB will close when saving and open when rendering.

RENDER CONTEXT MENU

  • Krakatoa provides a right-click context menu for the RENDER button to simplify and speed up the access to typical features of the Render Scene Dialog:
    • Open Render Scene Dialog toggle - this option toggles the Render Scene Dialog on and off. When the dialog is on, a checkmark will appear in front of the option.
    • Keep Render Scene Dialog Open - this option was introduced in Krakatoa 1.1.0. Due to a design peculiarity of 3ds Max, making any changes to the time and output settings in the Render Scene Dialog requires the closing and reopening of the dialog. This leads to an annoying flashing each time a setting is changed via the right-click menu.
      • When unchecked, the Render Scene Dialog will be closed if open and NOT opened again after the changes have been made. Most of the time, the right-click menu provides enough controls to select the desired timing and output file name. If the dialog is needed again, for example to change the Time Range, it can be opened using the previous menu item.
      • When checked, the Render Scene Dialog will be closed if open and opened again after the changes have been made. This is the same as in Krakatoa v1.0.0. The setting is sticky via INI file settings and will persist until changed again.
    • Save Render Output - this option toggles the Save File checkbox in the Render Scene Dialog on and off. When the Saving is enabled in the Render Scene Dialog, a checkmark will appear in front of the menu option. Disabled if there is no output filename defined or if Krakatoa is in SAVE PARTICLES mode.
    • Set Render Output Filename - this option allows you to browse for saving output and specify the output bitmap filename and type. When a valid path and name are entered in the Render Scene Dialog, a checkmark will appear in front of this menu option.
    • Explore Render Path - Opens the Windows Explorer at the output path specified in the Render Scene Dialog. Disabled if there is no output filename defined or if Krakatoa is in SAVE PARTICLES mode.
    • Single Frame - this option can be used to set the Output Time Mode to single frame using the current scene time.
    • Active Segment - this option can be used to set the Output Time Mode to a frame range using the current scene segment.
    • Custom Range - this option can be used to set the Output Time Mode to a frame range using the custom range in the Render Scene Dialog
    • Custom Frames - this option can be used to set the Output Time Mode to a frame list specified in the Render Scene Dialog.
    • Save Attenuation Maps - this option doubles the functionality of the checkbutton in the Shadows On Geometry rollout. When enabled, Attenuation maps will be saved from all scene lights to a Shadows sub-folder of the output path.