Mayaman - batch render tif

#1

Hello, this is my first post under this section.

I was wondering if someone could direct me towards a tutorial (if any) or anything more than the prman or mayaman documentation in learning how to render out a bunch of frames from Maya. (I have been reading and am still reading those docs for several monthes now).

My pipeline would be Maya > Mayaman > Prman

I can get a sequence of .rib files created. My problem is that in order to get these to a .tif file, i have to manually “right click” and “save as” for each file. I don’t mind this if its for 5 frames, but i know there must be an easier way of getting these tif files without having to do this manually for say, hundreds, if not thousands of frames.

I am guessing - and please correct me if i am wrong - that to do this, i’d have to use the prman.exe with options, or use some sort of programming script to batch render all the .rib files. But I am not sure, if someone could enlighten me, thank you.

Seantelwilliams

#2

When rendering on a local machine the render sequence command will take the frame ranges from your exiting maya ernder global and execute a batch render based on these.

Otherwise you can generate .rib’s for all your frames by going to the render globals and under Mayaman Globals => basic options truning on Generate rib only. I think you also may need to set the launch script mode to make.

To be honest we use a special render tool in house which takes care of this so I haven’t had to look at this for a while.

Just send an email to your support contact at AL about your query.

Just FYI here is an explination of the process form the manual :

Render Execution

Finally, when all the RIB files and shaders are written, MayaMan will execute the shadow/reflection map renders, then the main render. Depending on the parameters set in the MayaMan Globals dialog, an image file will be written out, or the image result displayed in a new window, or both. Options also exist for writing out the RIB files without executing the render, or passing the render onto an Alfred server.

MayaMan will write out a script file (.sh or .bat) with all the execution commands, and will execute this script file to actually perform the render. This also makes rendering these files easy through any rendering farm setup.

Rib Output Dir

This is where MayaMan will put all RIB files. Various sub directories will be created for shaders, alfred scripts, etc.
Image Output Dir

This is where MayaMan will put all rendered images. The radio buttons above the textfield allows you to either store the images in the “Rib Output Dir” (see above), or in the current Maya Project images directory, or any other user specified location.

hope this helps

#3

Hey thanks much for the reply Aneks:):

I still have to finish my animation first b4 render but this is just something i’ve been looking at ahead of time. Although I haven’t completely solved my problem, your post was still very helpful and thanks.

My only concern with all the .tif windows popping up and then right-click-saving, is that i’m not sure how many windows my system can hold open at a time b4 it crashes. I’ve decided to just finish the animation, and when render time comes, if i haven’t figured out how to just batch create all the .tif files, i’m just gonna render 10 to 20 frames at a time, then manually go in and right-save-click all of them. I guess it willl atleast, still get things done, although less efficiently.

cheers,
Sean

#4

it sounds as though you need to change the display driver from ‘animal’ to ‘tiff’. This can be found in the main mayaman globals. This should prevent you needing to manually save every image

#5

AL has added an additional seperate display driver dialog for the preview and render function in 1.2.12. so you don’t have to switch your display driver for preview and final render. You just have to check that the render display driver is ‘file’. Then make your sequence settings in the normal maya-dialogs and just hit MayaMan->Render Sequence. Then it automatically renders your sequence on your local machine saving the images in the folder specified in the Output Directories in the MayaManGlobals.

Thats the easy way. It’s a little harder if you want to render on more than 1 machine, cause MayaMan has no built in rendermanagement tool. If you only have 3-4 machines the easiest way is to do it like aneks said and just generate the ribs and then distribute them manually on your machines with some batch files.

#6

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