3Delight For Maya 4.0: 3.9 The RIB Archive Node

Short Contents

3.9 The RIB Archive Node

3.9.1 Overview

A RIB Archive is a group of objects exported to a RIB file that is intended to be read back into a scene later on. This approach offers various benefits: the scene can be made lighter as several objects are replaced by a single node used to read the archive; the RIB generation time and the disk space the files occupy can be decreased as common objects for all frames can be put in files shared by all frames instead of being duplicated in each frame file, etc.
In 3Delight for Maya, RIB archives can be read into a scene by the RIB archive node, while archive files can be written by setting the Output Mode of a render pass to `RIB Archive' (see section Output). Both nodes can be connected together to allow automatic archiving of selected scene elements. Refer to RIB Archives Guidelines for examples on all these options.

3.9.2 RIB Archive Node User Interface

The RIB archive node is used to read existing archives in a scene. It also offers a convenient interface to connect it to a render pass to allow RIB archive file creation and reading all at once.

**Figure 3.50**: The RIB Archive panel

To create an RIB archive node use the Add RIB Archive item of the 3Delight menu. The following RIB archive node attributes are available in the Attribute Editor:

` Archive Pass'

` Archive Pass Option Menu'

This option menu lists render passes whose Output Mode have been set to `RIB Archive' (see section Output). When a render pass is selected in this menu, the RIB archive node is connected to that render pass. The connected render pass will be used to create the RIB archive file; it will also provide a bounding box (as soon as it is rendered) and a value for the RIB Filename attribute of the RIB archive node. When a render pass is connected, the Archive Read Mode is automatically set to `Delayed'. By default, the option menu is set to `<none>'. There are two buttons to the right of this option menu:

Texture button: Used to create a new render pass node. This new node will be connected to the RIB archive node. It will also have its Render Mode attribute set to `RIB Archive'. Its RIB Filename will have a default filename based on the RIB archive node that it is connected to.
AE button: Used to show the connected render pass in the Attribute Editor.

` Archive Read Mode'

This attribute controls how the archive reading will happen when rendering. The following values are available:

` Delayed': This value will have the renderer read the archive only when the space included in its bounding box is visible to the camera. This is the most efficient option as the archive will only be read when necessary. To work properly, a decent bounding box needs to be defined, which is always the case when the archive has been created by a render pas. Refer to Reading a RIB Archive for more details about this.
` Immediate': This value will have the renderer read the archive file as soon as it encounters the directive, meaning that the file will be read regardless of whether the archive is visible to the camera or not. This option should be used when the bounding box attributes should be ignored.

` Bbox Min'

This attribute lists the minimum point in x, y and z for the archive bounding box.

` Bbox Max'

This attribute lists the maximum point in x, y and z for the archive bounding box.

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