Batch Render not working - Please Help

[helmut-1]

My batch render in the recently installed Maya 5.0 is not working. After about one minute it shows the following in the script editor:

Result : Rendering Completed. See mayaRenderLog.txt for Information. //

--- Nothing there or anywhere else---

'Render Current Frame' (Maya Software or mental ray) works without any problems. Render Diagnostic is also ok. My Operating System is Windows XP. Has anyone come across this problem. - Rendering frames one by one is not good - please help

Helmut

[failure]

did you check your images directory?
in what file format you're rendering?

[helmut-1]

Thanks a lot for your reply. There is nothing in the image directory of the current project under maya/projects/'current project'/images
or maya/projects/'current project'/mentalRay/images.

The formats I am rendering in are .jpg and .iff

[failure]

Eh, could be milion of things. Make sure that camera has 'rendereble' option turned on

[helmut-1]

This is a tricky one. Maya Software Batch Render is working now, mentalRay does not. To get to this result: I firstly uninstalled Maya5.0 with the Uninstall Program within Maya and installed from scratch again. Result: no changes - Batch Rendering still not working, neither Maya Software , nor mentalRay.
Secondly I uninstalled Maya 5.0 again this time with 'Remove Software' within Windows XP - Result: batch rendering with Maya Software works now OK on a simple test animation, as well as on the project animation,
mentalRay is not. Do have any suggestions, what else I could try to get mentalRay going?

Thanks

[helmut-1]

mentalRay Batch Rendering is working!!

There was nothing anymore to change anywhere, so I kept clicking Render> Batch Render for 8 times. 7 times it stopped after about 30 seconds showing Result: Render Completed. See mayaRenderLog.txt for information.
Knowing nothing could be there, I kept on clicking suddenly with Click #8 the Script Editor became alive showing the percentage being rendered. The test animation jpgs in mentalRay/images were all there. After this the project animation rendered ok also.

Can anyone explain this ?

[helmut-1]

Today , same problem again. After about 30 clicks mentalRay batch rendering started up - once - and that was it. Running out of ideas

[jtk77]

how much ram do you have? It might be hitting a limit somewhere and crashing the render. It happens. I would suggest doing sections or layers of your scene and then composting them together if thats the case...

[helmut-1]

thanks,
it is not only Not rendering the project, but the test animation (consisting of a polygon cube moving to one side) is also not working. Strangely enough I got it to work twice so far during two different Maya sessions. What was strange then, it would batchrender on the first click or required a double click or started up after a few clicks not rendering and got suddenly going, similar starting up an old lawnmower. In the meantime I uninstalled Maya and reinstalled again this has kind of worked before, but no success this time. Further I defragmented, scanned for viruses and tried every possible adjustment within mentalRay.
MayaSoftware batchRender works Ok. It seems to be conflicting some where within the operating system (XP)stating 'Rendering complete' without carrying out the batch render. Rendering current frame works Ok. The number of frames as well as every second or third in the batchrender has no influence. Batch rendering a single frame does not work, rendering current frame does.

[ballsout]

I have the exact same problem, although mine does get through one frame, then stops and says rendering completed. Software rendering worked fine, but I've textured for mental ray. If you fix the problem please post what you did to fix it. thx.

[helmut-1]

Good to know, that you have similar problems and this is not an isolated one. So far 70 had opened the messages and it seems mentalRay batchRender must be working ok for practically everyone else. Can anyone, who uses mentalRay, also confirm with a short message that mentalRay batchRender works without any problems.
Many thanks

[joojaa]

sure!

[helmut-1]

Some Success on the Horizon.
In tracking down the problem, I got a bit further but need assistance using MEL commands. In the previous posts I forgot to mention that batchRender with Maya Vector(plugIn) behaved exactlly like mentalRay(plugIn) in not-rendering-at-all.
Using MEL commands Maya Vector batch render works ok as long the command refers to the object (=ball) alone.
e.g.: batchRender ball;

Addressing the file by using the flag -f plus file name (=renderTest) has the same not-rendering-effect as clicking Render>Batch Render
e.g.: batchRender -f renderTest;

Using the same procedure with mentalRay addressing the object alone a very strange thing happens: batchRender is working, but it renders in Maya Software not in mentalRay
stating during rendering time- Result: rendering with mental ray ...

The rendered files are placed as Maya Software files under 'images' of current project with the current Render Global Settings for Maya Software. The folder currentProject/mentalRay/images stays empty.

Addressing the file instead of the object the render is finished after a few seconds without any result.

Using MEL commands for loading the plugIns makes no difference.

One solution I can think of to get around this problem is writing a MEL command to turn Render Current Frame, which works ok, into a command to render all the other frames as well. My MEL knowledge is too limited. Please help.

Many thanks

[ballsout]

Try "mayarender_with_mr" I wrote a batch script with this and it renders one frame for me then quits just like the batch render did, but maybe you will have luck with it. I'm using a render program called Muster, so I'm trying to use a packet size of 1 and rendering the sequence one frame at a time.

[helmut-1]

Thanks a lot, I tried but it cannot find this command. I tried a lot of variations without success.
A few days ago I was kind of successful to get mentalRay batchRender randomly going by modifying a file called - mentalrayRuntimeCommands - Path is: AliasWavefront>Maya5.0>scripts>others>mentalrayRuntimeCommands
I changed the sequence of the 6 runtime commands by placing the Start Batchrender from first position to last position. Then I added about a hundred empty lines in front of the runTime Command for Start Batch Render.

It batchrendered randomly sometimes at first click sometimes at 15th click sometimes not at all. After reopening the file. The same thing happened again.

I added more lines comments etc. but no more improvements. May be a loop of some kind would help. It seems to me, that the the timelaps created between the last runTimeCommand called "Preview Render Logfile" by adding lines until repositioned runTimeCommand Batch Render Logfile appears, definitely influences the process and batchRender mentalRay is at least carried out randomly. I looked at other scripts and found one with the comment: WAIT WAIT for a process waiting to be finished before the next command follows. Something like this may help. I tried a few things but got only error messages. Do you or anyone else have any idea how to write this?

Thanks