Rendering setup

Rendering setup
Sprites will come in many different forms and the rendering setup should take all of these into account and be universally useful for all of them:
 * Objects, animated and non-animated (trees, cliffs, items on ground, bushes, scenery)
 * Agents (Humans, animals), an average human sprite will be 80px tall.
 * Walls, Doors
 * Ground tiles (simple, transitional)

Blender
Blender rendering setup

3ds Max

 * 3ds Max rendering setup

Notes on the Blender setup

 * Use Camera 1x1
 * Object size vs camera&render size with Mitch sampling filter:
 * 1.414 camera 72x72 pixels
 * 2.828 camera 144x144 pixels
 * 5.657 camera 288x288 pixels
 * 11.314 camera 572x572 pixels
 * etc.
 * Object size vs camera&render size with CatRom sampling filter:
 * 1.414 camera 72x72 pixels
 * 2.828 camera 144x144 pixels
 * etc.

Notes on the 3ds Max setup
The 3ds Max rendering setup was created in 3ds Max 2010. It should work with earlier releases nevertheless.

Workflow

 * 1) Press Render Object and select the object to render. Ideally the Object should be Centered
 * 2) Press 4 sect square
 * 3) Make sure your animation range is set to 4 frame
 * 4) Press Create Camera: tadamm

Plane
Start by adding a plane at X=0, Y=0, Z=0 with 1Unit x 1Unit in size. We use this plane later on to verify that all is setup correctly and the rendered graphics have the correct dimensions.

Camera

 * Location: X=5.970, Y=-5.970, Z=4.875
 * Rotation: RotX: 60°, RotY: 0°, RotZ: 45°
 * Lens scale=1.45, ortographic projection

Light:Sun

 * Location: X=4.417, Y=-1.444, Z=9.946
 * Rotation: RotX: -25.049°, RotY: -4.874°, RotZ: 244.351°
 * Type: Sun
 * Energy: 1.3 (You might need to experiment with this depending what program you use. In blender the energy ranges from 0.0 to 10.0)
 * Color: R0.998, G:1.0, B:0.957

Light:Shadow

 * Location: X=4.417, Y=-1.444, Z=9.9544
 * Rotation: RotX: -25.049°, RotY: -4.874°, RotZ: 244.351°
 * Type: Spot
 * Energy: 1.5 (You might need to experiment with this depending what program you use. In blender the energy ranges from 0.0 to 10.0)
 * Color: R0.998, G:1.0, B:0.957
 * Angle of spotlight beam: 70.25
 * Softness of spotlight edge: 0.15 ( Maybe blender specific. Ranges from 0.0-1.0)
 * Raycasting shadow with 1 sample

Light:Ambient

 * Location: X=9.963, Y=-4.109, Z=-3.652
 * Rotation: RotX: -146.103°, RotY: -64.931°, RotZ: 180.728°
 * Type: Hemi
 * Energy: 0.15 (You might need to experiment with this depending what program you use. In blender the energy ranges from 0.0 to 10.0)
 * Color: R1.0, G:1.0, B:1.0
 * no specular shading

Ambient occlusion

 * 10 samples
 * energy 0.6

Render test

 * 1) Turn on ambient occlusion
 * 2) Set your render size to something like 72x72 pixel
 * 3) What we want is a diamond shaped tile which meassures 72x36px and has 2px at the top and bottom row and 2x2px to the left and right: