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Showing results for tags 'render depth'.
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So recently I've been wondering what render depth does. I'm just really curious, but hey, maybe it could help. :/
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Having just decided to spend some actual time on animations lately, I've run into brick walls more times than I can count with visual glitches that I thought were bugs in the program. Blocks not showing up through glass, water getting lit when it should be dark, etc. They're not bugs, though. They're simply a victim of the Render Depth setting. Render Depth is a simple numeric value that tells Mineimator which objects to render first. By default, Mineimator sets all imported objects to Depth 0, which is probably fine for basic animations, but I quickly got into projects that couldn't just have everything rendered in one path. Otherwise stuff like this happens: Render Depth acts like a sorted list, so an object with render depth 0 is going to render first. The next object with render depth 1 goes next, applying whatever scene changes the first render pass created. Then objects with depth 2, 3, 4 and so on. The result is a stacking render that can be used for some interesting effects (or brain-bending glitches!) The glitch above happened when a fully enclosed structure (with a canal through the center) and the water were imported as separate objects. The water (which defaulted to Depth 0) was rendering first, where it was open to the sky and thus illuminated. The overarching structure (which I somehow managed to fumble into Depth 5) was then rendering around it, causing the water to be illuminated within an otherwise dark scene. So before you go running off to the help forums (or the bug report page) to complain about situations like above, check your render depth settings. As a general rule, you want your scenery to render first, then blocks, then items/players, then particles. However, some situations (generally involving colored glass from my experience) may require that the scenery be rendered last. You'll just have to figure it out on a case-by-case basis. [I may come back and edit this later with some more details and image examples, but I haven't the time right now.]