Autodesk 12812-051462-9011 User Guide 3 - Page 79

Material Editor menu > Material menu > Make Preview, View Preview, or Save Preview You can use animated maps to add movement to a scene. For example, to simulate a sky view, you could map an animation of moving clouds to a clerestory window. The Make Preview options let you experiment with the effect in the Material Editor before you apply it to your scene. The buttons on the Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview flyout let you preview the effect of an animated map on the object in a sample slot (see Sample Type on page 5328 for alternatives to the default sphere.) You can use an AVI file on page 7326, or IFL file on page 7339 as a source for the animation. The finished preview is saved as a new AVI file and automatically played back. You can also view the preview in a sample slot by dragging the time slider. This flyout has three options: ■ Make Preview Displays a Create Material Preview dialog on page 5366 to create an AVI file of the animated material. When the preview is complete, it is saved as _medit.avi in the \previews subdirectory. The file is then opened in the Windows Media Player and played back. Without this option, the only other way to preview a complex animated material in real time is to use the renderer on page 6121 to render an animated sequence and save it to an AVI file, a digital disk recorder, or a video tape recorder. ■ Play Preview Uses the Windows Media Player to play the current _medit.avi preview file in the \previews subdirectory. ■ Save Preview Saves the _medit.avi preview to an AVI file of a different name in the \previews subdirectory. Procedures To create a preview of an animated material: 1 Choose Make Preview from the flyout. 2 In the Create Material Preview dialog, set the preview conditions you want, and then click OK. 5334 | Chapter 19 Material Editor, Materials, and Maps