Creating, Restoring, Assigning Common Parameters, Previewing, Rendering

Creating passes in RPManager is easy enough and can be accomplished using the '+' button below the pass list with RPM, or by using the 'Add Pass' menu item from the Passes Menu within the RPM interface.

Quicktime Movie demonstrating adding passes. 608k (zip 113k)

Note the message in the quicktime about a camera being automatically created: RPM requires a camera is assigned for each pass. Camera assignment on creation is handled thus:

If no cameras exist in your scene a camera will be created and a message shown to this effect.

if only one camera exists in the scene RPM will automatically assign this camera to the pass.

If multiple cameras exist and a camera is the active viewport, the active camera will be assigned to the new pass.

If multiple cameras exist and no camera is an active viewport a camera picker will be shown so you can pick which camera you want to be assigned to the pass.

Restoring Passes:

Restoring a pass is as simple as left-clicking on the pass name in the Pass List (Red area indicates the Pass List).

Pass List Right-Click Menus:

Extensive use is made of Right-Clicking in the Pass List, and where you Right-Click is important - The pass-name, visibility set, atmospherics, render effects and renderer columns have different Right-Click menus.

Quicktime Movie demonstrating Different RC menus. 860k (zip 150k)

Assigning Cameras and other settings:

You can change the camera assigned to a pass at any time by using the 'Camera' dropdown menu to the bottom left of the Common Parameters rollout of RPM.

Quicktime Movie demonstrating changing assigned camera and output ranges. 668k (zip 227k)

In the same way to modify a passes other settings - output size, background, options - restore the pass and then modify the controls in RPManager. If you select multiple passes and edit the controls the changes are made for all of the selected passes.

Previewing:

Very often you want to quickly preview one or more passes without having the frame written to disk. To easily accomplish this in RPManager use the Preview buttons in the bottom left of the RPM interface - the choice is to preview selected passes or checked passes. You can also turn off some features of the renderer and render a reduced size image for quicker feedback - see the QuickStart tutorial on using the Preview Overrides for more information.

Rendering:

RPManager was designed foremost for submitting to a network rendering manager, but it also allows you to render your passes locally. The two buttons at the bottom of the RPM interface in the 'Local Render' group are for rendering locally, the ones in the 'Net Submission' group are for submitting to your network rendering manager. As with the preview buttons, 'Selected' renders/submits all selected passes, the 'Checked' buttons render/submit all checked passes.

When you use any of these buttons the first dialog you will see is the render alerts dialog - this shows critical alerts such as missing output paths, as well as the warnings that have been enabled in the Warnings rollout - such as incorrect output size, non-black background, non-black ambient light among others. The warning dialog will automatically timeout after 20 seconds if not halted and left unattended to avoid renders not being submitted due to user oversight.
TIP From this Render Alerts dialog you can also enable preview overrides for the actual renders themselves by toggling the 'Use Preview Overrides' checkbutton - which can make the task of producing quicker render tests easy and hassle free. Note the 'Use Preview Overrides' is not sticky - to avoid accidentally rendering lower quality sequences the user must always actively enable this rendering feature.

After OK'ing the Render Alerts dialog, if submitting a network render a progress dialog will be displayed with feedback on each passes submission progress, and if rendering locally the render will begin with a small progress dialog appearing in the upper right of the monitor. Cancelling either network submission or local renders can be accomplished by holding down the escape key until cancelled (TIP hold the escape key until the action is fully cancelled rather than just tapping it - it will often cancel more elegantly).

Quicktime Movie demonstrating submitting multiple passes to Backburner. 997k (zip 174k)