Free Script: Animated Limited Region

**Kuzey** · 12-23-2010, 08:08 AM

Haha....I haven't used Limited Region before, so if it's possible...even better

Kuzey

**Philbert** · 12-23-2010, 08:24 AM

Really never? heh Yes, normally if you click the Limited region button in the Render tab it will have black borders like this:
http://screencast.com/t/j2l7TD3tar

If you click it twice or pick it in Render Globals you will get just the area you selected like this:
http://screencast.com/t/nd2eK1qZPIu

**Kuzey** · 12-23-2010, 08:48 AM

Oh...cool, I never got around to it...I just usually re-render the whole thing....silly me

Kuzey

**Philbert** · 12-23-2010, 08:50 AM

Yeah the alpha channel has the region in it so you can just drop it over your previous render. Saves a lot of rendering time.

http://screencast.com/t/FZ0V7qOufC5

**Fadlabi** · 12-23-2010, 09:17 AM

Thanks Matt!

**Matt** · 12-23-2010, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Kuzey

Matt that is brilliant......but it can be a little more awesome

Is there a way to render a Limited Region but have the rest of the camera frame in black or with a mask??

Each render is the same size of the original render....mostly blank, but with only the Limited Region areas rendered. Should make it easier to comp the updated renders back into the main image....just thinking, or is that beyond current LW(9.6/10)?

Kuzey

As mentioned, check the 'Use Borders' option for each key.

**Cageman** · 12-23-2010, 11:59 AM

That is a very handy script!

Thanks alot Matt, and merry Xmas to you to!

**kosmodave** · 12-23-2010, 12:09 PM

Many thanks for this one Matt, downloaded for future use. Are you still back here in the UK? if so I bet you're loving the temp outside

, not quite Texas BBQ weather eh!

Dave

Edit; Merry Christmas by the way.

**roger1972** · 12-23-2010, 02:56 PM

Thank you!!!

**zareh** · 12-23-2010, 03:17 PM

Thank you very much!

This can be very useful in cases where you've rendered an animation at a lower AA setting and some areas of your frame are aliasing due to high frequency geometry or texture maps. Rather than waste CPU cycles on the rest of the frame for antialiasing these few problem spots one can use your great script to concentrate the CPU cycles where they are needed and pour on the AA onto the areas that really need it. Afterwords you just comp in the re-rendered patches on top of the lower AA frames.

Again, thank you for this script. It will be very handy.

If I were to dream of future versions here is my list:

1. allow for multiple limited regions to be defined per frame (I know the LW SDK won't let you do that probably).

2. Make it such that you don't have to have an image filter to save the frames (I know also an LW limitation, nothing you can do). This way you can submit the scene to the render farm.

Thank you,
Zareh

**zareh** · 12-23-2010, 04:52 PM

Just tested it on our render farm and unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on a render farm.

Still great job on the script.

Best Regards,
Zareh

**adk** · 12-23-2010, 06:57 PM

Gold !!! Cheers a whole bunch Matt

**nickdigital** · 12-23-2010, 07:29 PM

Impressive script. Thanks!

**Matt** · 12-24-2010, 02:52 AM

Originally Posted by zareh

Just tested it on our render farm and unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on a render farm.

Still great job on the script.

Best Regards,
Zareh

No it won't work with ScreamerNet I'm afraid, sorry I should have pointed that out.

The reason being it needs to work with F9 renders as changing the camera frame size of an F10 causes a crash. Probably because LW isn't expecting the change, whereas an F9 starts each frame from scratch.