Imf_disp And Interactive Display

[samg]

With Maya 7, Mental Ray's imf_disp does not connect to a rendering image, so we can't watch it fill in.

From the 3.4.0.299 release notes:

On Windows platforms, a new option has been added to improve simultaneous usage with certain monitoring software like firewalls. Note that this change requires to link library versions of mental ray on Windows platforms against the ws2_32.lib library, even if the new option is not used.

If enabled using the new API call mi_msg_pipe_mode_enabled(miTRUE), then the following changes apply: Windows pipes are used instead of so-called loopback sockets for local internal communication of mental ray; interactive display with imf_disp during rendering is disabled; and, talk'' connections to mental ray for additional interactive display during rendering is also disabled. This avoids certain false alarms of monitoring software about potential security risks. Note, however, that this change does not alter the behavior when using network rendering (where socket communication is still required) and batch mode rendering using stand-alone versions of mental ray.

I assume that it is enabled since we can't do the "interactive display".
Does anyone know how to disable this 'feature'?
API call?

I've tried searching for mi_msg_pipe_mode_enabled, but have found precious little by way of info.

Sam

[chrisk]

if you have mentalray standalone you can use imf_disp.exe to dislplay your images as they are rendering. However in order to do this you need to export your .ma/.mb scene to a .mi file and then render the .mi file, using "ray" and a command to use imf_disp as your display program. I can't remember the syntax off hand but I'll find it and post is soon.

Just a heads up though, there are differences between rendering the "same" data with standalone as opposed to rendering with mayatomr through the maya interface. Especially when using maya based shading networks. Not everything will evaluate the same way.

[samg]

Thanks for the reply. I did find that line about piping to the standalone, but we're using the built-in version.

What's odd is that in 6.5 imf_disp would show an image as it rendered just by opening the 1kb "image".
From the release notes it sounds like people were having problems with firewalls, so they shut off that functionality. I just wish mental images was more thorough in their documentation of mi_msg_pipe_mode_enabled. Or maybe it's obvious to those who write .mi files.

Sam