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View Full Version : Batch Render only renders 3 frames (mental ray)

polarthebear
08-01-2011, 04:33 PM
Hi guys,

I'm at my wits end. I'm trying to batch render a scene with mental ray but it will only render to 3 frames and then stop. (This only happens on Production settings)

Ok, there's lots of threads out there about batch render ending early. Well, I've done everything suggested and I don't understand why this is happening.

I've changed my memory settings
I've looked at my mental ray render log and nothing seems off. (I am new to Maya so maybe I'm missing something subtle?)
Ran render diagnostics and nothing is off
I've created a preset render setting in another blank file and used it within my scene
Frame padding is sufficient (3 and above- I'm only trying to render out 28 frames)
My scene is optimized
The only thing I can think of is that the hair is doing something funny. I am using Shave and a Haircut and Hair Primitives.
Within Shave and a Haircut, I could render the hair in a separate file, within the Shave Globals, but it won't save out the hair images separately. I followed a Digital Tutors tutorial on this and still no luck.

Please, if anyone can help me understand what is going on, I would be really appreciative!
Being new to Maya, I want to understand where I made an error so I can avoid this in the future.

Thank you!

P.S. I can post the specs from my render txt. but it's really long... if you all ask, I will post it.
TheNeverman
02-21-2012, 01:35 PM
Way late on replying, but were you able to work out what was going on?
polarthebear
02-21-2012, 02:34 PM
Way late on replying, but were you able to work out what was going on?

Hey! I did. Thanks for reminding me to update.
I ended up doing a batch render command and it worked fine. The render must have required too much with the program open (?) or my file is buggy.

I did some things with this project that I regret/wouldn't do in the future and I think those things caused my file to corrupt.
The 2 big problems were Shave & a Haircut and "Enable Color Management" working together.
Shave & a Haircut automatically changes the primary renderer to 'Rasterizer (Rapid Motion)', but with "Enable Color Management" checked, that tints the scene green.
I'll use Shave & a Haircut with future projects, but I'll probably hold off on "Enable Color Management" unless necessary.
TheNeverman
02-21-2012, 08:38 PM
Sorry to hear of the troubles...

Command-line rendering is definitely a powerful option at our disposal - glad it didn't fail you here :)

The majority of the MR failures I see in my own experience typically comes down to excessive memory usage, or broken shaders/geometry (and once in a long while because I had a plug-in active at some point during the project and deactivated it).

Turning the verbosity mode up to 5 can be pretty helpful on diagnosing at what stage the render is 'breaking'...

I keep a short-cut on my menu bar to execute:
select mentalrayGlobals;openAEWindow;

Where you can set the Render Verbosity, as well as access the BSP tweaking parameters...
TheNeverman
02-21-2012, 08:43 PM
P.S. That worm critter in your demoreel burrowing into the fleshy bits made my stomach turn a bit...

lol

What the heck was that?
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