Set up a scene- for this example we will use the same one as before- some simple blocks on a plane, with a single spotlight.
The spotlight is set to rectangular, and the animation will show the light growing wider, as if a door is opening off screen.
1: Set The spotlight parameters hotspot and falloff as low as the can go, to basically elliminate the light from the scene. Set the animation scroll bar to frame 0, click the Auto Key button, then right click on the scroll bar to insert a keyframe.
2: Slide the animation scrollbar to around frame 70, and adjust the spotlight shat it shines brighter on the scene. (Since Autokey is selected, when you make a change to the scene Max will automatically add a keyframe to the timeline- no need to rightclick the scroll bar manually.)
3:Press f10 to bring up the render window. Change the Time output from ‘Single’ to ‘Range’ (ie changing from a still image to an animation). It defaults to frames 1-100 so just leave it be for now.
Scroll down this menu to the area marked Render Output. Check the box marked ‘Save File’ and then click the button marked ‘Files…’ This will allow you to save the rendered animation to a location on your hard drive. Since its an animation, choose to save as an AVI file type from the drop down list.
4: Additionally- you can adjust the resolution of your output video file.Once these settings have been adjusted, click the ‘Render’ button at the bottom right of the window. This may take some time depending on the complexity of your scene. Once rendering is completed the avi file will be saved to the chosen location and can be viewed with any media software.