maya 7 and batch rendering to PIC format

[alexx]

if someone is interested:

i found out that in our network environment maya has a bug in saving preferences for 7.0

correct prefs only seem to be written when the user is logged in to the local machine and not the domain.

additionally maya does not batch render to non IFF files, if the mayaTomr.mll plugin is not loaded.

cheers

alexx

[neofg]

mmmmh...Interesting...
Something succeded me....I render in .tga format....frame from 1 to 100....
It render frame from 1 to 12 and stop.... Then I give it render from 13 to 100.... It rendered from 13 to 22, then from 23 to 51...
WhY??? :eek:

[djx]

alexx: I am very interested in your findings. It sounds like a problem I am trying to explain to the Alias QA guys. I was testing a small renderfarm setup using a scene with a single sphere, light and default shader. If I software render to TIF or TGA I get exactly what you describe. If I render to IFF it works - but I noticed that a depth channel is also in the file, even though I have not requested this in render settings.

So after some experimenting I noticed that this only seems to happen on machines with hyperthreading enabled. The exact same scene renders correctly to TIF or TGA on non-hyperthreaded machines, and renders IFF with no depth.

I have also noticed renders that take longer are less likely to have this problem. I was rendering reasonably complex scenes all last week without a problem. But then today I was doing renders with 3d-fluids taking approx 10 mins per frame and I was forced to render to IFF. Frames rendered on a hyperthreaded machine got a depth channel, those on non-hyperthreaded did not.

Im not sure if I understand the how the mayaTomr.mll could be an issue in all this, but at least I know now that I am not the only one having this problem.

regards
david

[alexx]

david.. thank god i am not the only one with this problem.

are you under maintenace (platinum membership)? if you - can you PM me your case ID, because i want them to understand..
i sent about 6 mails to support already trying to explain but they dont have that problem.

about the hyperthreading i can not double that. my renderfarm machines (25) are all mixed processors some with, some without hyperthreading and all produces the same error..

the thing with loeading the mental ray mll file does not make any sense at all but fixes the problem for me at least (as it seems now).

i did the tests with the sphere as well.. and about the depth file: yes.. same here. a depth file is always written.
funny sidenote: render to e.g. PIC and in the renderglobals switch OFF paint fx rendering.. and then maya wont even delete the depth files but leave them on the hardrive :(

jesus.. what a bugged version again..

cheers

alexx

[neofg]

Hei, and no one know why my computer render what it(He?)want?

[alexx]

sorry.. i havent had that problem so far.. but after what djx wrote that could be the same. but no idea so far. maya has many riddles to solve :)

cheers

alexx

[djx]

alexx: about the hyperthreading i can not double that

In all of my simple tests, it was definately the hyperthreaded machines were the ones that failed - however I have just checked my last "real" render more carefully and noticed that one of my non-hyperthreading machines is also having this problem. I am rendering to IFF and evrything looked ok until I noticed that the filesize for some frames is much larger than others - you guessed it - those frames have a depth channel.

I have PM'd you the case ID. I would be great if you can add some weight to the case, since its hard to explain when they dont seem to be able to reproduce the problem at their end.

neofg: Your problem sounds more like a memory issue to me. Check the render logs, or watch the task manager and see if it is progressively using more and more ram until it crashes out. Maya has always had a problem with ram management. You may be able to get further by adding swap space. But it might be better to just render 5 frames at a time (or what ever you think it can do reliably).

[alexx]

i sent you an answer david.

yes.. cases tend to become solved faster the more ppl report them.. old habit :)

about the hyperthreading: about 20 machines in my renderfarm are very old dual computers without hyperthreading but they all do render the depth channel as well. so i think the bug is somewhere else..
as a sidenote i had to notice in the past that maya seems to have problems with hyperthreading especially with ray tracing as it seems. the harder the job gets, the slower the HT machines get.. that was best noticable when i was rendering using the ray diffuse plugin from highend. a single P4 2.8 HT computer took 11 minutes to render the frame where a dual xeon dual core 3.0 with HT took about 15 minutes. this is strange to me...

cheers

alexx

[neofg]

WOW! :)

Thanks DJX!

[perscitus3d]

I seem to be having very similar render issues with Maya 7. On my HT enabled machine I created a very simple scene with only one cube. When I try to batch render the scene of 100 frames using any format other than .iff, the render breaks around frame 11 leaving a .ng file along with 11 depth files. When I render .iff files, everything seems to work fine.

I opened up the task manager and watched my memory as I rendered and found that the first 10 frames the memory was level and not rising, but when it got to frame 11 the memory spiked up too high and that is probably why the render stopped. Any ideas on what I can do to get it to render without the memory spike using other formats besides .iff?

[djx]

Alias QA are still telling me they cant reproduce this problem. I am rendering to IFF for all my renders now. Actually its not that inconvenient, since I use AfterEffects to comp.

perscitus3d: Try your cube test with 2d-motion blur turned on. I found that got rid of the problem. (Obviously thats not a solution though).

[GregNeumayer]

Run Console (I'm on a Mac G5) or equivalent for more info on what's happening. My 'rendering completed' is actually a crash of the Batch Renderer according to the console. Possibly something about allocation of Virtual memory crashing it from what I can make out.
Unfortunately, I haven't the slightest how to approach that issue, though.
-greg

[djx]

Here's a quote from the Alias support rendering forum, by Michiel Duvekot (who is one of the moderators)...

In 7.0 there are problemms if you try to render something other than iff. Rendering to iff is the only solution I can offer at the moment.

[GregNeumayer]

I'm running ver 6, but I'd be happy rendering iffs if it provides a solution! I'll give it a whack.
Thanks,
-Greg

[alexx]

Here's a quote from the Alias support rendering forum, by Michiel Duvekot (who is one of the moderators)...

at least no more "we can not reproduce the problem" :/

naja.. here we go IFF..

cheers & thanks

alexx

(btw: funny i still dont have an update in my case and that i have to get that information via a free forum - maybe i should pay cggalk the platinum membership.....)

[djx]

naja.. here we go IFF..

Yeah, thats what I thought and then I discovered IFFs created by mentalray-for-maya7 will not import into aftereffects, photoshop or framecycler. So Im using IFF for maya-software and TIF for mentalray renders.

Hmmmm...

[alexx]

they still havent fixed that one ??

ohh maaaaan...

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