Rendering

Leia's Lightfield display projects different images in different spatial directions to create a realistic and natural 3D experience.

To correctly render a scene on such a platform, several views of the scene must be rendered from different viewpoints. This is done by defining a set of 4 virtual cameras located at different positions in space. The alignment and output composition of this camera array is handled by our Maya Plugin.

To render directly into the quad format with the Arnold Renderer, use the Leia Render Manager window found under Leia Plugin > Render Manager.

To render directly into the quad format with the Arnold Renderer, use the Leia Render Manager window found under Leia Plugin > Render Manager.

Here are a few steps to help get started:

1. Set up the Arnold Renderer as normal, with the Render Settings and the Render View windows.

2. Make sure the Render View window is open: Window > Rendering Editors > Render View

3. Open the Leia Render Manager window (as shown below) from the menu bar, under Leia Plugin > Render Manager.

4. Enter the frame range to render. Start with a single frame by setting the start and end frame number to the same number.

5. Select MP4 or JPG as the output format.

6. Optionally, enable any of the following:

   • "Copy to Android device" to copy your render to a connected android device's downloads folder (requires ADB).

   • "Open in finder" to show the render in your default file browser when completed.

7. Click start and wait for completion.

   • This will stall Maya. To cancel, press the Escape key - this will cancel after the current camera rendering process.

   • The rendered output is placed in your project's movies/ or images/ directory. By default this path is ~/Documents/maya/projects/default/

Rendering directly to the Quad format is currently only supported with the Arnold Renderer. Some important notes to keep in mind when rendering:

• AOVs and Render Layers are not supported. They will be disabled if any are enabled.

• Render settings are saved to the global render settings.

• FFMPEG is required for MP4 output.

• ADB (and enabling USB Debugging) is required for copying renders to your device.

To use another renderer, compose your cameras into a quad image with another tool such as FFMPEG or AfterEffects with the following format:

To use another renderer, compose your cameras into a quad image with another tool such as FFMPEG or AfterEffects. The image below describes where to place each camera in the quad format. For the Hydrogen One, the final resolution should be 2560x1440 or 1440x2560. For Lume Pad it should be 2560x1600 or 1600x2560.

Here is an example ffmpeg command which creates a quad jpg (make sure to add _2x2 to your output file name):

ffmpeg -y -i LeiaCameraView00.png -i LeiaCameraView01.png  -i LeiaCameraView02.png -i LeiaCameraView03.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]hstack[t];[2:v][3:v]hstack[b];[t][b]vstack[v]" -map "[v]" -pix_fmt yuvj420p -q:v 1 output_quad_2x2.jpg