Clicking the Apply button allows you to continue making modifications, clicking Discard returns the values to either their previous state when the Pass was entered or when Apply was last pressed.įor successfully using Modo's Render Passes you don't need to be aware of what is going on in the background. They can be pushed into the pass by either exiting the pass, or clicking the Apply button. When a modification is made to a scene with a pass active, the values don't go directly into the pass. This is where the 'Apply' and 'Discard' buttons come in to play. However, when you select a pass and begin to make changes, a new layer is inserted between the current Pass and Setup layers, called the Edit layer. For any channel values stored in the pass, when that pass is enabled, simply by selecting it, the stored values replace those of the Setup layer values as long as the pass is active. Each named pass exists as a layer above the Setup layer. The next layer is the most important, it is the Setup layer, all attributes from any item in the scene as they are modified are stored at this level. Modo's pass system conceptually works in layers, you have the bottom base layer called the Scene layer, this is the initial default state of any item as it is added to the scene, including Mesh Items, cameras, lights, and so on. Tip:To quickly identify which render pass you are currently working on, the 3D Information Overlays, at the bottom right corner of the 3D Viewport, displays the name of the selected Pass Groups item and the selected Passes item.Ĭlick on the image below to view an animation. Note:With the addition of passes to a scene, complexity can increase exponentially, therefore it is important to maintain a well-organized scene, especially in relation to the Shader Tree. Disabling the pass, by returning the pass selection to (none) returns all the values to the underlying scene state. This means that you can simply edit the scene and any modifications are automatically stored/saved in the pass. With Auto Add enabled (the default state), any changes made to any attribute automatically adds that attribute channel to the currently selected pass. Once a name is entered, click OK to define the pass. Click the New button to the right of Passes to open the Group Layer dialog, where you can name the pass. The next step is to create the pass itself. When you create the pass group, it is automatically selected and any passes created are automatically added to that group. To create a group, click the New button and define a name in the pop-up dialog. You cannot create individual passes until a pass group is defined and selected. Pass groups are collections of different passes, meant strictly as an organizational device. Next are the Auto Add, Apply and Discard buttons that further control pass creation.īefore creating any passes, you need to first create a pass group. Next, the Passes field, also with a selector and a New button. The workflow for passes moves top to bottom, first with the Pass Groups field with a button to select the group, and a button to create a new group. It is controlled mainly by the buttons above the default Properties viewport. The Render Passes UI is found in the Render interface tab. The layering of the channel values is an important aspect to understand, because there is also a layer in-between a pass and a scene, called the Edit layer, explained further on. If the passes were rendered, there would be two resulting images, one with a red cylinder and another with an orange one. Disabling the pass would return the color to red. For example, a cylinder could be colored red at the Setup level, and a pass could be created that changes the color to orange. When a pass is selected, any values held in the pass replace the ones of the Setup layer below it. Once these channel values are created, they sit in their pass container as a layer above the scene itself, called the Setup layer. For more information about channels, see the Channels Viewport topic of the documentation. A channel is simply any attribute of an item that can be animated. Passes conceptually work as containers that only hold channel values. This way of working is simple, yet incredibly powerful, providing you a means to create rendered variations that were previously very difficult, if not impossible to do within a single scene. When the Render Passes command is invoked, each particular pass of the pass group is rendered in succession and saved as specified. Once you add a pass, subsequent edits to the scene are stored within the current pass or passes. In their most basic sense, Render Passes are simply containers for channel values. Each rendered image reflects all the settings of an individual pass. Render passes offer you a way to control any aspect of a scene that is, in-turn used to automatically produce multiple rendered images.