Batch rendering animations to sprites from cardinal directions

#1

I’m working on a sprite-based project and have a few hundred Maya files, each containing a short character animation.

What I need is an easy way to render each file from all eight cardinal directions (North, Northeast, East, and so forth) to a PNG sequence. I also need to keep the lighting consistent between all renders (i.e. rotate the model, and not reposition the camera). Ideally, I’d use the exact same scene setup (or mel script?) for every file, for the sake of consistency.

Rather than go through hundreds of files and manually rotate the model eight times and re-render for every angle, there’s got to be something more elegant! If there is an off-the-shelf solution (or mel script?) free or paid, I would love to hear about it. Even something that sets up the scene with eight cameras, and then I can batch or manually render to PNG sequence (or sprite sheet?) from each of the eight cameras… that would be fantastic.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I’m using Maya 2015, but some of the files I have were done in older versions, I think 2008.

#2

Hi there

I’d implement something using file referencing.

In a rough scetch:

1 - create a new scene and reference one of your animation scenes into it
2 - setup lighting and cameras
3 - setup any constant bg props or canvas if needed
4 - batch render the needed cameras
5 - un-reference the animation scene & reference next animation scene
6 - goto step 4

Steps 4 to 6 can be fully automated using mel- and system batch scripting

/risto

#3

Thanks so much for the input! Is there an easy way (with your setup) to rotate the entire animation/model itself so that the lighting is consistent across all renders? I can’t setup multiple cameras because the lighting would be different from each angle. Maybe parent the entire thing to a dummy and rotate it? I would need to include that using mel as well, since needing to rotate it 8 times per animation would take a while…

#4

Well there’s several possibilities how to workaround this then.
Since I don’t know how your animation scenes ( and the stuff inside them ) is named so…
I think it might be best to handle this in the camera & lighting- scene so that you group your lights under your camera, turn the camera as you need and then batch from there.

I have to say that you will require atleast med level knowledge about MEL & batch scripting to pull this of without loosing your hair.

/risto

#5

Ah yes, just parent the camera and lights and rotate as needed.

I am sure this is beyond my Mel knowledge level. Where would be a good place to find someone I could potentially find (or contract?) to write the needed script for me?

#6

Send me a pm and we’ll talk.