animation export
 

how do i export a scene?

do you mean render it out? or actually export the objects ect to use in another package?

exporting your models, you need to have them as polygon meshes and use the export as .obj under the export all tab in the file menu.
file>export all>option box

if you are render your scene you need to go to the render tab and batch render.
window>rendering editors>render settings, change all your settings. then batch render

um yea hope that points you in the right direction
sorry its not in depth as im bnot sure if this is what you mean

there is a format in maya its called FBX, it's in international autodesk format so it's gonna work in pretty much any autodesk softwares, its going to save everything in your scene.....objects, cameras, lights, animations, blendshapes, etc.
you need to activate it in the plugin window using the method shown above then you can export your scene as fbx.

i want to work the scene in adobe programmes. i'm adding the ext .avi but the rendered file is not recognized

What format are you rendering it out as? An avi? Or are you just adding that extension to the file? What adobe program? After Effects? Premier? AE will recognize .iffs, but Premier won't. You shouldn't render out a scene as a single movie file (e.g. avi), instead render out a series of images (e.g. iff for AE).

actually it's my first animation. i assigned the selected objects to an animation layer and also created a character(both selecting 'all')

i tried it in iffs but i get an error message in red saying 'problem with my socket' then i rebooted and tried again in iffs. it says that render is completed in only 2 secs. of course no file came up.
i'm lost.. any help?

You don't need to create either character sets or animation layers in order to render, unless of course you want to use those features specifically. Try creating a new scene, just add a couple cubes or something, and try a test render (just a still image) to make sure you get something on the screen. Then try rendering out 5 frames or something as .iffs. Make sure to check the folder path where they should end up, and post error messages you get.

i tried that. no render. it is actually imported in after effects as an iff but the whole sequence is the first frame...

wait it didnt render out anything? or it rendered out a single frame?

it either does more than one renders(isn't it just one iff?) or "renders" in 2 secs and says 'completed' without any movie or image sequence of course.

As in, in the command spot (sorry dont know proper name for it) it shows it rendering multiple times? if so open your output window and see if its rendering different frames or just 1 over and over...also did you check your render settings to make sure you are rendering out the correct frames?

To answer your question, no, each .iff will be a separate frame. One reason for this is so that you can troubleshoot individual segments without re-rendering the whole animation. So "more than one render" is what it should give you. You can use fcheck to view the frames either separately or together as an animation.

when importing an image sequenece into AE ( and im sure other programs). when you open the import file tab under the file menu, at the bottom you will see an "import as sequence" check box. did you check that?? should be why it only imported as one frame and not the whole sequence

i imported it in maya software as an avi and it works. is there a big difference in the render quality with mental ray? i chose 'best quality' and no compression.it looks ok. should i do it that way?

well im no expert on render settings, but each have there own advantages, i personally think mental ray is better quality, there are many more settings to choose and tweak, and mental ray materials and lights and shadows do look very nice, but if its a basic animation and you have the default textues and all, then a software render will look absolutly fine.

the thing is, rendering out as an .avi is fine, i not sure if there is any quality difference between that and an image based render, but if Maya crashes during the render with a movie file render you will lose it, but with an image based render you can just start it from the frame it crashed on.