MAYA User Manual V2.4 Radeon Pro Render

Radeon ProRender plug-in

for Maya

User Guide v2.4

This document is a user and setup guide with tips and tricks on how to

render photorealistic images in real-time, set materials and lighting.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

DISCLAIMER

The information contained herein is for informational purposes only and is subject to change without

notice. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, it may contain

technical inaccuracies, omissions, and typographical errors, and AMD is under no obligation to update

or otherwise correct this information. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. makes no representations or

warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this document, and

assumes no liability of any kind, including the implied warranties of non- infringement, merchantability

or fitness for particular purposes, with respect to the operation or use of AMD hardware, software or

other products described herein. No license, including implied or arising by estoppel, to any intellectual

property rights is granted by this document. Terms and limitations applicable to the purchase or use of

AMD’s products are as set forth in a signed agreement between the parties or in AMD's Standard

Terms and Conditions of Sale.

Radeon ProRender and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. in the

United States and/or other jurisdictions. Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, and Maya are registered

trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or

other countries. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their

respective owners. OpenCL and the OpenCL logo are trademarks of Apple Inc. used by permission by

Khronos. macOS and Metal are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Linux is the registered trademark of

Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide 
©2018 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. 
 
 
Table of Contents 
What’s New in Radeon ProRender for Maya v2.3 ............................................................ 2 
Supported Platforms for v2.3 ......................................................................................... 3 
Software ............................................................................................................................................. 3 
Operating System .............................................................................................................................. 3 
Join the Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 3 
Supported Platforms for v2.1.20.14 ............................................................................... 3 
Software ............................................................................................................................................. 3 
Operating System .............................................................................................................................. 3 
Install the Radeon ProRender plug-in ............................................................................. 4 
Radeon ProRender for Microsoft Windows ....................................................................................... 4 
Radeon ProRender for macOS .......................................................................................................... 7 
Switching to Radeon ProRender ................................................................................... 10 
Render Viewports ........................................................................................................ 13 
Animation cache ..................................................................................................................... 14 
Clear Cache ............................................................................................................................. 14 
Viewport Mode ....................................................................................................................... 14 
Radeon ProRender Settings ......................................................................................... 15 
Radeon ProRender Tab ................................................................................................. 15 
Render Resources ............................................................................................................................ 16 
Completion Criteria ......................................................................................................................... 16 
Quality ......................................................................................................................... 16 
Quality Presets ................................................................................................................................. 16 
Render Sampling .............................................................................................................................. 17 
Advanced Settings ........................................................................................................................... 18 
Globals ......................................................................................................................... 19 
Global Illumination ........................................................................................................................... 19 
Motion Blur ....................................................................................................................................... 20 
Denoiser ........................................................................................................................................... 20 
Camera ............................................................................................................................................. 20 
Default ..................................................................................................................................... 21 
Spherical Panorama ................................................................................................................ 22 
Spherical Panorama Stereo .................................................................................................... 23 

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide 
©2018 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. 
 
 
Cube Map ................................................................................................................................ 24 
Cube Map Stereo .................................................................................................................... 24 
Render Stamp .................................................................................................................................. 24 
Environment .................................................................................................................................... 25 
Image Based Lighting ............................................................................................................. 25 
Sky ........................................................................................................................................... 26 
Ground ............................................................................................................................................. 32 
Tone Mapping .................................................................................................................................. 33 
Linear ...................................................................................................................................... 33 
Photolinear .............................................................................................................................. 34 
Reinhard02 .............................................................................................................................. 34 
White-balance ......................................................................................................................... 35 
Render Passes (AOV) ....................................................................................................................... 35 
Working with Lights ..................................................................................................... 37 
Initial Lighting of a Scene ................................................................................................................. 37 
Emissive Material Lights .................................................................................................................. 37 
Portals .............................................................................................................................................. 41 
Working with Cameras ................................................................................................. 43 
Depth of Field ................................................................................................................................... 43 
VR Cameras ...................................................................................................................................... 45 
Working with Materials ................................................................................................ 46 
Display the Material Library ............................................................................................................. 46 
Radeon ProRender Material Library ................................................................................................ 48 
Radeon ProRender Material Browser .............................................................................................. 49 
Assigning Basic Materials................................................................................................................. 51 
Using Maya Materials ....................................................................................................................... 56 
Saving .......................................................................................................................... 57 
Diagnostics and Trace Files ............................................................................................................. 58 

OVERVIEW

1

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

OVERVIEW

Radeon™ ProRender is a free un-biased rendering plug-in for your visualization

needs in Autodesk® Maya®. Using physically accurate path-tracing technology,

Radeon ProRender can produce stunning photorealistic images of your scene and

provides real-time interactive rendering and continuous effects adjustments to help

create the perfect rendered image. The Radeon ProRender plug-in is fully integrated

into Maya – it supports the Maya lights, materials, and textures and renders your

geometry accurately. Radeon ProRender also comes with a library of materials to get

you started.

This user guide will describe how to use and set up the Radeon ProRender plug-in for

Maya.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

WHAT’S NEW

2

What’s New in Radeon ProRender for Maya v2.3

• Support for macOS® High Sierra 10.13.3+ using Metal® 2. eGPU devices requires macOS® High Sierra

10.13.4.

• PBR Shader and Denoiser added in the render settings.

• An additional control for setting camera exposure to allow adding more motion blur is added.

• Texture gamma settings are now handled correctly.

• Physically based lighting controls greatly improve lighting setups:

o Additional area light shapes include: Rectangle, Disk, Cylinder, and Spheres.

o Light color can be set by temperature, color, texture, or all three.

o Intensity can be set additionally with physical units.

• Maya Remap HSV and Gamma Correct nodes are supported.

• More AOV's have been added for compositing.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS

3

Supported Platforms for v2.3

Radeon ProRender for Maya v2.3 runs on both GPUs and CPUS. OpenCL™ 1.2 is required for GPUs.

Software

• Autodesk® Maya® 2016 with Service Pack 2

• Autodesk® Maya® 2016.5

• Autodesk® Maya® 2017

• Autodesk® Maya® 2018

Operating System

• Microsoft Windows® 7 (64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows® 10 (64-bit)

• macOS® High Sierra 10.13.3+

Join the Discussion

Provide feedback here for all Radeon ProRender plug-ins.

Supported Platforms for v2.1.20.14

Radeon ProRender for Maya v2.1.20.14 runs on both GPUs and CPUS. OpenCL™ 1.2 is required for GPUs.

Software

• Autodesk® Maya® 2016 with Service Pack 2

• Autodesk® Maya® 2016.5

• Autodesk® Maya® 2017

Operating System

• CentOS 6.5 (Maya® 2016/2017)

• CentOS 7.2 (Maya® 2017)

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

INSTALL RADEON PRORENDER

4

Install the Radeon ProRender plug-in

Radeon ProRender for Microsoft Windows

Download the Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya for Microsoft Windows®, launch the installer and agree

to the license.

Radeon ProRender will check your hardware and software to ensure requirements, before letting you

select your installer settings.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

INSTALL RADEON PRORENDER

5

Click the Register button – it will take you to an AMD website to obtain an activation key by registering.

Register using your information. You will receive your activation key after clicking Request Download.

Enter it into the installer and continue the installation.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

INSTALL RADEON PRORENDER

6

Click Finish and launch the Maya application to start rendering your images.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

INSTALL RADEON PRORENDER

7

Radeon ProRender for macOS

Download ProRenderForBlender-XX.dmg. Click to open.

Open the RadeonProRenderBlenderInstaller.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

INSTALL RADEON PRORENDER

8

Copy and paste the website into browser to obtain the registration key.

Enter the registration key that will be emailed to you.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

INSTALL RADEON PRORENDER

9

Continue through the installation

The Maya modules and shelves will also be installed.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

RADEON PRORENDER SET UP

10

Switching to Radeon ProRender

Launch Maya. You should see menu item for Radeon ProRender, as well as a custom shelf with icons for

key functions and settings.

Go to Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager to set Radeon ProRender as the renderer.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

RADEON PRORENDER SET UP

11

Under the Plug-in Manager, make sure the Loaded and Auto Load check boxes are ticked next to the

RadeonProRender.mll. Press Close.

You will also be able to set the 3D viewport to the rendered view using Radeon ProRender.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

RADEON PRORENDER SET UP

12

Bring up the Render Settings by clicking on the settings icon on the custom shelf in the Radeon_

ProRender tab or, click the button in the Maya tool bar to bring up the Render Settings.

In the Render Settings, change to the Radeon ProRender as the Renderer.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

13

Render Viewports

After setting Radeon ProRender as our renderer, locate the Renderer dropdown on the viewport menu

and select Radeon ProRender. You should see your viewport switch to Radeon ProRender viewport.

Open the Radeon ProRender drop-down from the viewport menu.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Animation cache

This is used where you can view quick previews of animated object(s) in the scene before rendering the

scene. It stores the first render iteration for each frame of the animation when the frame is first

displayed, so the next time that frame is displayed, it can show the cached version, rather than having to

render it again. This will allow you to scrub through the time-line without having to re-render the cached

frames.

Clear Cache

This is used to clear the animation cache so the render can start over or re-render.

Viewport Mode

This is like render modes which are found in the Render Settings. The render mode can be selected

without opening the Render Settings window.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Radeon ProRender Settings

Open the Render Settings window.

Radeon ProRender Tab

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USER INTERFACE

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Render Resources

In the Render Resources section select your hardware to render. There are hardware options like GPU

only, CPU only, or CPU and GPU together.

Completion Criteria

In the Completion Criteria set the amount of time you want your render to complete or set the

Iterations to the desired number of passes you would like Radeon ProRender to renderer to complete to

do before finishing.

If there are no limits set for time or iterations the render will keep rendering until the user cancels the

render or closes the render window.

Quality

Quality Presets

With Radeon ProRender we have 2 sets of settings, one for the Production rendering and one for the

Viewport rendering. We can use the quality presets, these range from low to medium to high.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Render Sampling

Tip: A high number of samples gives you a better render at the cost of render time.

Filter is used to add a filter on a sub pixel level. Several post render image filters are also supported

including:

FILTERS

DESCRIPTION

BOX

the lowest quality Anti-Aliasing filter

TRIANGLE

for sharp results

GAUSSIAN

provides blurry Anti-Aliasing

MITCHELL

default filter, good for all-round rendering on images with no major high

contrasts

LANCZOS

a second good all-round filter

BLACKMAN HARRIS

complements the Box and Gaussian filters, and is especially effective for

Wireframe renders, as it makes edges look smoother

May ray depth allows a user to set the number of rays that will be cast and bounced around in the scene

and is especially necessary for refractive surfaces. This is done by increasing the value of the Max Ray

Depth input.

Tip: When using glass or other translucent appearances, use a high number of Ray Bounces to

fully capture all reflections (generally, a good number is 6 unless there are complex, translucent

parts).

The transparency and colour of the object is improved with more ray bounces. Improved image quality

comes at a cost to other factors.

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USER INTERFACE

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Advanced Settings

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USER INTERFACE

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Globals

Global Illumination

Globals provide you with the option of rendering in different modes. This changes the look of the 3D

model in the viewport.You can also set the clamp irradiance value.

MODE

DESCRIPTION

GLOBAL ILLUMINATION

the full scene with full GI lighting and shadows

DIRECT ILLUMINATION

renders the scene with shadows, but no GI – gives “harsher” renders

DIRECT ILLUMINATION

NO SHADOW

direct light, no GI, gives sharper renders without any shadows or semi-

shadows

WIREFRAME

shows the wireframe of the mesh

MATERIAL ID

renders the whole scene in non-bordering colors to ease

postwork/processing

NORMAL

renders the normals of the scene

TEXCOORD

shows the current texture coordinates – UV’d or not

AMBIENT OCCLUSION

standard pass to do anything from showing off your models without

textures to using it as an overlay for contact shadows, which GI doesn’t

always catch

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Motion Blur

Radeon ProRender’s Motion Blur will make object appear as if it’s in motion, in stills as well as animations.

Denoiser

Camera

When working with cameras We have a couple options to choose from. The options can be found in

Render Settings under the Camera section.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Default

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Spherical Panorama

Spherical Panorama will render a 360-degree image that wraps around your scene. This can be used to

create a 360 video of your scene that can be uploaded to YouTube and viewed. Sphere mapping (or

spherical environment mapping) is a type of reflection mapping that approximates reflective surfaces

by considering the environment to be an infinitely far-away spherical wall. This environment is stored as

a texture depicting what a mirrored sphere would look like if it were placed into the environment [1] .

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Spherical Panorama Stereo

Spherical Panorama Stereo will be used to create 360 degree images to be used for VR. As you can see

the Image is split in two and the reason for this is that it is rendering an image for both the Left and Right

eye. Keep the aspect ratio to 1:1 for square pixels.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Cube Map

For cube mapping you will need to times your resolution width by 6 to get square pixels e.g: 1k res = 6144

x 1024

Cube Mapping is a method of environment mapping that uses the six faces of a cube as the map shape.

The environment is projected onto the sides of a cube and stored as six square textures, or unfolded into

six regions of a single texture.

In most cases, cube mapping is preferred over the older method of sphere mapping because it eliminates

many of the problems that are inherent in sphere mapping such as image distortion, viewpoint

dependency, and computational inefficiency. Also, cube mapping provides a much larger capacity to

support real-time rendering of reflections relative to sphere mapping because the combination of

inefficiency and viewpoint dependency severely limit the ability of sphere mapping to be applied when

there is a consistently changing viewpoint.

Cube Map Stereo

This is pretty much the same as cube mapping except that it splits the render into 12 blocks, 6 for the

Left eye and 6 for the Right. This is for VR. You will need to times your resolution width by 12 to get

square pixels. 1k res = 12288 x 1024.

Render Stamp

This will create stamp on final rendered image showing details of hardware and Maya scene information.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

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Environment

There are 2 options for Environments: Image Based Lighting and Sky.

Image Based Lighting

IBL is essential for creating real world lighting. It is basically a spherical image (HDR) that is projected onto

a spherical object as your environment to simulate real world lighting.

Enable the IBL by clicking on the create button in the Environment section in Render Settings.

On the right-hand side, click on the Attribute Editor. Click on the file path and locate your HDRI file go

ahead and load it into your scene.

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USER INTERFACE

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Sky

Sky is designed to enable physically plausible daylight simulations and accurate renderings of daylight

scenarios. Under the Environment section in the Render Settings, create the Sky by clicking on the

Create button (same as IBL).

With the RPRSky selected, look in the attribute editor, you will see all the sky properties.

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Turbidity

Increasing this value will simulate how much dust is in the air by changing the color of the sky to orange.

Intensity

This will raise or lower the intensity of the Sky.

Filter Color

This is used to add a tint of color to you Sky. By clicking on the color box, you can select a color you wish

to tint the Sky with.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Ground Color

This is used to select the color for the ground by also clicking on the color box and picking a color.

Sun Glow

Changing this attribute will increase the size of the Glowing halo around the sun disk.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Sun Disk Size

This attribute is used to increase the size of the sun.

Sun Position

In this drop down, there are 2 options to control the Sky model:

So far, the settings are on the Altitude/Azimuth setting. By switching to Time/Location, that the

Time/Location section is available and the Altitude/Azimuth section is now greyed out and is no longer

available.

Altitude and Azimuth

These two attributes determine where the Sun is in the Sky. You will notice that if you lower or raise the

altitude value you will be able to simulate a sunset or sunrise.

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Azimuth

This attribute will change the placement of the sun by rotating the sun on the Y axis in the scene.

Time/Location

This used to create lighting for any place in the world at any given time. To control the Sun position, the

user has a set of options like Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Month, day, year, latitude and longitude, that

allow the user to simulate a precise sun position.

Tick the checkbox if you would like to enable Daylight savings. We are also able to automatically Set

Time To Now simply by click on the button. It will use the Time from your System Clock and set it to that.

Latitude and Longitude work very like Altitude and Azimuth in that they determine where the sun is in

the sky at any location.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Get Location

Clicking on the Get Location button will display a map to pick any location on the planet.

1. You can use the mouse to pick a place anywhere on the map. You will create a red dot.

2. You can use the search option to more precisely find a certain city in any country.

Note: Most of the attributes for Sky are keyable for an artist to animate a full day cycle.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Ground

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USER INTERFACE

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Tone Mapping

Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map one set of colors

to another to approximate the appearance of high-dynamic-range images in a medium that has a more

limited dynamic range.

With Radeon ProRender we can use the Tone Mapping section in the Render Settings to select between

five different tone mapping types: Linear, Photolinear, Autolinear, Max White and Reinhard02. You can

also adjust display and texture gamma.

Linear

Raise or lower the brightness of the scene by increasing or decreasing the Scale value.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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Photolinear

This is based on real-life camera settings. ISO is film speed – the higher the value, the more light is let

into the image. F-Stop is aperture width, and follows regular camera settings – the smaller the number,

the wider the aperture, and the more light will be transmitted to the film. Shutter Speed is how long the

shutter stays open to let in light, also known as exposure.

Reinhard02

This is aimed at adapting the high dynamic range of real world lighting to your screen.

Note: It does this by letting you set values for Burn, Post Scale and Pre Scale Pre Scale and Post

Scale work together, this means that if you tweak one, you’ll probably have to tweak the others.

Pre Scale controls the brightness of darker areas (i.e. shadows). Post Scale controls the final brightness

of the image and Burn is used to tweak the brightness of highlights in your image based on its darker

areas.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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White-balance

White Balance follows the basic settings of a digital camera – lets you set the color temperature of the

light in the image.

Render Passes (AOV)

We are also able to create render passes that can be saved into a single EXR file. This can be done by

firstly checking all the render passes you would like to render in the Render passes tab in your render

settings.

To render a pass through your render viewer or Radeon ProRender viewport you will need to select the

render pass in the Displayed in Render View dropdown menu.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

USER INTERFACE

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For you to render the output file as an EXR file You will need to follow these steps.

1. Make sure your Project is set correctly.

2. In the render settings, common section locate the file output tab. Give your output file a name by typing it

into the File name prefix box.

3. In the Image format dropdown menu select EXR as the file type.

Initiate a render and once it finishes open it in any image editing software. You will notice that the EXR file

when opened contains multiple layers for all the render passes you have selected.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

LIGHTS

37

Working with Lights

Initial Lighting of a Scene

Go to your Render Settings window, select the Radeon ProRender tab and navigate to the Environment

dropdown section. In the Environment dropdown click on the Create button next to Image Based

Lighting. This will provide lighting of the scene reflective of the surrounding environment.

Emissive Material Lights

With Radeon ProRender, we can also use objects as lights by applying an Emissive material to any 3d

object in the scene. We will be adding an emissive material to a lantern shape in the scene.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

LIGHTS

38

Go to your Hypershade Editor and from the Radeon ProRender materials create an RPRMaterial. You

can rename and change it from Diffuse to Emissive from the Type dropdown.

In the emissive materials properties, under the emission section,you can change the color and the watts

per sqm (brightness) of the light. Set your Emission to 5 and your color to a slightly yellow white color.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

LIGHTS

39

Select your geometry to apply the material. We will be applying the material to certain faces on the

lantern.

Then right click and hold over your light Emissive material in the Hypershade and select Assign Material

to Viewport Selection.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

LIGHTS

40

The rendered image will not have emissive lights

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

LIGHTS

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Portals

Portals are used to limit the amount of light being cast in scene. Using portals allows a user to allocate an

exact point from where the light should come from when using a IBL or Sky instead of casting light over

the entire scene. This is only useful when lighting interior scenes.

Here we have an interior scene that is being lit by using the Sky. You can see that the light is being cast

through all the windows.

To activate the portals, create a Plane and place it in front of your windows.

Select the sky widget from the viewport or from the outliner. Navigate to the Sky attributes panel on the

right hand side and locate the Portals dropdown. We can then select the Object As Portal dropdown and

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

LIGHTS

42

find the pPlane1 object we created. Make this your portal. If it is not in your list hit the Refresh Objects

List button.

Hit render and you will notice that the light is now only being cast from the plane instead of the entire

scene.

This feature will increase rendering performance.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

CAMERAS

43

Working with Cameras

When working with cameras We have a couple options to choose from. The options can be found in

Render Settings under the Camera section.

When the camera type is set to default, it will render out the usual flat image to the resolution you set in

your render settings. This is what you will probably use the most when rendering.

Depth of Field

With your camera selected, go to the Attribute Editor by clicking Windows > General Editors > Attribute

Editor or by clicking the Camera attribute button.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

CAMERAS

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Locate Depth of Field. Check the box to enable DOF.

Set in your focus distance to determine how far you want your camera to focus from the lens to the

object. F-stop will determine how much blur will be added to the render. The higher the value the less

amount of blur you will see.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

CAMERAS

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VR Cameras

When working with cameras, there are a couple options to choose from. The options can be found in

Render Settings under the Camera section.

When the camera type is set to default, it will render out the usual flat image to the resolution you set in

your render settings. This is what you will probably use the most when rendering. The Spherical

Panorama Stereo camera type provides you with a 360-degree split (over and under) stereoscopic image

(one part for each eye) output suitable for viewing through VR devices.

Spherical Panorama Stereo will be used to create 360-degree images to be used for VR. As you can see

the Image is split in two and the reason for this is that it is rendering an image for both the Left and Right

eye. Keep the aspect ratio to 1:1 for square pixels.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

MATERIALS

46

Working with Materials

Included within the Radeon ProRender install is the addition of Radeon ProRender materials to the Maya

material library for you to use.

Display the Material Library

Click on the Hypershade Button in the Radeon ProRender shelf or use the Hypershade Button next to

the Render Settings button.

Radeon ProRender plug-in for Maya User Guide

MATERIALS

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Once the Hypershade Editor window is open, navigate to the Radeon ProRender materials and select an

RPR Material. And middle click and drag it onto your object in the viewport.

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MATERIALS

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Radeon ProRender Material Library

Radeon ProRender Materials Breakdown:

MATERIALS

DESCRIPTION

RPR BLEND

used to blend 2 or more materials together

RPR LAYERED

RPR MATERIAL

RPR SUBSURFACE

used for surfaces that does not reflect light off the surface like a mirror or

water, but penetrates it a little, like candles, milk, skin or fruit, like grapes

RPR TRANSPARENT

used to generate only transparency. Will be used with Blend material to

make more advanced materials such as meshes and layered shaders

RPR UBER

combines several inputs to generate one big shader, alleviating the need to

combine and group many shader-nodes together

RPR VOLUME

used for streetlights at night, fog or mist

The installer also adds the following Maps:

MAPS

DESCRIPTION

RPR TEXTURE

RPR ARITHMETIC

RPR BLEND VALUE

RPR BUMP

RPR CHECKER

RPR DOT

RPR FRESNEL

RPR FESNEL-SCHLICK

RPR GRADIENT

RPR INPUT LOOKUP

RPR NOISE

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MATERIALS

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RPR NORMAL

RPR PASSTHROUGH

RPR DISPLACEMENT

Radeon ProRender Material Browser

The installer package adds complex materials that uses the materials above in conjunction with maps

and node connections to create a large library of pre-configured materials for you to use.

In the viewport, open the Radeon ProRender Material Library.

Double click the material to import into the Hypershade.

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MATERIALS

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In the Hypershade, you will see the material, and various nodes used to create that particular material.

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MATERIALS

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Assigning Basic Materials

Click on the object in the viewport. Right click the material node in the Hypershade Editor and select

Assign Material to Viewport Selection.

Assign a IBL to your render settings and do a test render. You will notice that the RPRMaterial is set by

default to Diffuse which will give you a matte shaded finish.

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MATERIALS

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In the material attributes under Swatch Properties > Type you are able to switch between a range of

different material types.

Change your material Type to Microfacet.

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MATERIALS

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You will notice that in you Radeon ProRender material attributes there are a couple more options that

become available when changing the material type. We can change the roughness to make the material

more shiny or we can change the index of refraction. Set your roughness to 0.1 to see the material with

some reflectivity.

Material type set to Reflect, this will only give you the raw reflection of the scene and will most likely be

used in a blend material:

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Material type set to Refract, this will give you the raw refraction of the scene and will also most likely be

used in a Blend material:

Material type set to Microfacet Refraction, this material will simulate an opaque material like the paper

on a Chinese lantern. It allows light to pass through it. You can change the amount of light that passes

through the material by lowering the IOR(index of refraction) intensity.

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Material type set to Emissive, this material will emit light from geometry which has the emissive material

applied to it:

Material type set to Ward, this material will give you more of a metal texture, it has a anisotropic quality

by means of roughness X and Y. Setting the X and Y values differently will give you different reflections

(stretched).

Default

Roughness Y set to 0.1, X set to 0.5

Roughness X set to 0.1 Y set to 0.5

Rotation set to 45

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Using Maya Materials

Like the Standard Lights many of the Standard Materials are not supported by Radeon ProRender. Many

of these materials simulate a physical effect on the surface of an object which is not required when using

a physically based material and ray-tracing renderer.

Although Radeon ProRender will attempt to render the Maya Standard Materials, the result may be

unpredictable as the renderer will only process the materials attributes that have a counterpart in the

real world.

The specific models supported by Radeon ProRender include:

• Blinn

• Metallic

• MultiLayer

• Oren-Nayar-Blinn

• Phong

• Strauss

• Translucent

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Saving

To save your rendered images you have 2 options. You can save the image directly from your render view

window under File > Save Image. Remember to consider that in the save image options you must set

what color management you would like to save your image in.

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Then we can also save the rendered image by using the File Output section in the Render Settings (this

is dependent on having your project set correctly). This is what you would use to render out batch

animations and store the files in your project directory.

Diagnostics and Trace Files

To allow developers to track down issues with the plug-in it is often necessary to provide trace files that

log what happened to the plug-in and where the plug-in may have had problems.

On the top-level menu select Radeon ProRender > Debug > Enable Tracing to activate the diagnostic

tracing feature.

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By default, the tracing is not set. This is to save space and assist performance. If you encounter a

problem, it is advisable to:

• Enable tracing.

• Reproduce the problem.

• Locate the trace files.

• Zip the trace files into a single .zip file.

• Complete a bug report via this link http://maya.radeonprorender.com/support/tickets.

• If you don't have an account you will need to set one up.

• Describe the procedure or steps you used to reproduce the problem.

• Attach a sample scene of where the error occurred.

• Attach the trace files .zip to the bug report.

Once you have captured the trace file, repeat the selection above to disable the tracing feature. This will

stop the plug-in from recording all events and using up your valuable disk space in the future.

You will see in the top-level menu and option to Open Trace Folder. Select Radeon ProRender > Debug >

Open Trace Folder.

The directory location of the trace files is:

<%user%>/AppData/Local/RadeonProRender/Maya/Trace/YY.MM.DD-HH.MM

You will see there are a number of files generated by the plug-in's diagnostics system. Inside this

directory are the following files:

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It is advisable to zip the top level directory YY.MM.DD-HH.MM by right clicking the directory and sending

it to compressed zip file.

You can then attach this .zip file to any bug report you lodge.

Radeon ProRender plug-in

for Maya

User Guide v2.4

Written by: Annie Yu

05/09/2018

MAYA User Manual V2.4 Radeon Pro Render

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