External Rendering Toolbar

The External Rendering Toolbar contains three actions to allow you to communicate between your source 3D scene and Harmony in real time. These External Rendering actions will allow you to render using an external 3D software, bake the 3D information into your Harmony scene or bake it into an external 3D project file.

NOTE You need to have Autodesk Maya or Blender installed on your computer to use any of these actions.

The three external rendering actions are as follows:

For information on how to add the External Rendering Toolbar to your Workspace, see: Adding and Removing Toolbars.

Render Nodes

The Render Nodes action will render your 3D scene through an external 3D software. All the renders made will appear in the cache of the elements folder of your scene. This means that after the initial render, the 3D software will no longer need to re-render materials as you scrub through the frames while in the Render view.

NOTE The cache is based on the current state of the scene at the time of render. If any changes are made to the model or camera in Harmony, a new render will be needed from the external application.

When you click the Render Nodes icon, the External Render dialog box will launch.

The properties window will display the 3D Model Element nodes available to be rendered. With 3D Model Element nodes selected in the list, a custom frame range can be defined and the selected nodes will be rendered and cached within the defined range of frames.

NOTE If no nodes are selected, a warning box will appear.

Bake Nodes

The Bake Nodes action will allow you to render out a 3D sequence through Autodesk Maya or Blender and save it as a sequence of EXR files. By baking the rendered 3D information into an EXR element node, Harmony will be able to load the rendered images without relaunching the 3D software or re-rendering. The rendered frames will be available as bitmap images and will be available in the camera view and in the soft render preview.

The big advantage to baking the 3D information into your Harmony scene is that it allows you to preview or render the Harmony scene without the need for Autodesk Maya or Blender to be installed on your computer. Once the models have been rendered in the external application and baked to an element node, the rendered images will be available without needing any external applications or subsequent rendering. This makes the Harmony project more shareable in an animation pipeline.

When you click the Bake Nodes icon, the External Render dialog box will launch.

The properties window will display the 3D Model Element nodes available to be rendered. With 3D Model Element nodes selected in the list, a custom frame range can be defined and the selected nodes will be rendered and cached within the defined range of frames.

NOTE If no nodes are selected, a warning box will appear.

Bake to External Project

The Bake to External Project action allows you to create a new project file in the external 3D software containing all the animation and transformations on the 3D model from Harmony. This action allows you to send the keyframe animations, transformations, subnode transformations and camera manipulations made in Harmony back to the original 3D software and saved to a new project file. These changes will be made in the new file, preserving your original 3D project file. This allows the 3D project file to be updated, shared and rendered externally.

When you click the Bake to External Project icon, the Bake to External Render dialog box will launch.

The External Render dialog box will display the 3D Model Element node that will be rendered as well as give you the ability to define the range of frames that will be rendered. Additionally, the Project destination field allows you to define the path to save the new baked file.

IMPORTANT Make sure that you are entering the correct extension for the intended software to open.
NOTE If no nodes are selected, a warning box will appear.

Defining the Path to Save Your Duplicate File

You are also able to define the path to save your duplicate file with the attributes box of the Render Maya Batch Node or Render Blender Batch Node.

  1. In the Node view, locate the Render Maya Batch Node or Render Blender Batch Node, and click on the yellow square to open the Layer Properties.

    The Layer Properties dialog for the Render Maya Batch Node or Render Blender Batch Node appears.

  2. In the Attributes tab, in the Output Project field, enter the path you want your project file to follow.

    IMPORTANT Make sure that you are entering the correct extension for the intended software to open.
    NOTE If no value is set, the 3D project file will only be modified temporarily in order to produce the output frame.