Please Help With Hwr Batch Script Problem!

[chrisk]

Hey Mel gurus!
I'm a noob when it comes to Mel and I really would appreciate some help with a script I've been working on to batch render props with the Hardware Render Buffer. It's necessary to use this method to render the objects correctly (cgfx). The script I have works if I manually run it in sections, but mel get's ahead of itself if I let it go on its own. I've been searching to see if mel had any means of waiting to insure a command like a file open succeeds before continuing but haven't had any luck. Pause doesn't work...in fact it looks as if it runs all the pause commands in the entire script before it executes anything else. I'll comment in the problem spots for the script. Any help anyone can offer will be greatly appreciated!

As far as I can tell, I can't do this from dos with maya batch because of cgfx shaders and the need for the hardware render buffer.

====================================================================
I have a seperate script I generate with the file names to load and render that looks something like this:
====================================================================

CODE
file -o -f "C:/Props/PropA.mb";
pause -sec 2;
RenderPreviewSetup;

file -o -f "C:/Props/PropB.mb";
pause -sec 2;
RenderPreviewSetup;

etc...

==============================================================================
My RenderPreviewSetup script is below. It creates a camera, groups the mesh and frames it. Pulls back a bit, angles up, and does an 8 frame rotation around it. Then it renders it using the Hardware Render Buffer.
==============================================================================

CODE
source "C:/Program Files/Alias/Maya7.0/scripts/others/buildImagePlaneMenu.mel";

global proc SelectColA()  {
select -add "ProxyShape*";
}
global proc SelectColB()  {
select -add "proxyShape*";
}
global proc SelectColC()  {
select -add "Col_Shape";
}

global proc HideSelCol()  {
hide ls -sl;
}

global proc RenderPreviewSetup()
{
trace "beginning";

catch( SelectColA );
catch( HideSelCol );
catch( SelectColB );
catch( HideSelCol );
catch( SelectColC );
catch( HideSelCol );

// Setup Render Camera

camera -n renderCam -centerOfInterest 5 -focalLength 35 -lensSqueezeRatio 1 -cameraScale 1 -horizontalFilmAperture 1.4173 -horizontalFilmOffset 0 -verticalFilmAperture 0.9449 -verticalFilmOffset 0 -filmFit Vertical -overscan 1 -motionBlur 0 -shutterAngle 144 -nearClipPlane 0.01 -farClipPlane 100000 -orthographic 0 -orthographicWidth 30; objectMoveCommand; cameraMakeNode 1 "";
catch(rename "renderCam");
lookThroughModelPanelClipped renderCam modelPanel4 0.001 1000;
setAttr "renderCamShape.backgroundColor" -type double3 1 1 1;
setAttr "renderCamShape.journalCommand" 1;
setAttr "renderCamShape.displayResolution" 1;
setAttr "defaultResolution.width" 640;
setAttr "defaultResolution.height" 480;
setAttr "defaultResolution.deviceAspectRatio" 1.333;
setAttr "defaultResolution.pixelAspect" 1;
camera -e -displayFilmGate off -displayResolution on -overscan 2 renderCam;
setFocus modelPanel4;

// Group mesh together in scene to get new camera pivot
SelectAllGeometry;
select -r listTransforms -geometry;
Group;
catch(rename "RenderGroup");
trace "after rename";
CenterPivot;
trace "float point";
float $Pos[] = xform -q -ws -piv RenderGroup;

// Move Camera and Pivot
trace "select renderCam";
select -r renderCam;
xform -ws -piv $Pos[0] $Pos[1] $Pos[2];
rotate -r -ws -26 0 0;
pause -sec 1;

// Select All Geometry and frame for render
//select -cl ;
select -r listTransforms -geometry;
setFocus modelPanel4;

pause -sec 1;

FrameAll;       //  ######## Here's a problem sometimes...maya will lose focus on modelPanel4 and it doesn't frame the object correctly.
fitPanel -all;

pause -sec 1;

select -r renderCam;
move -r -os 0 0 1.5;

trace "guess";

// Reset Camera Pivot to 0 0 0
select -r renderCam;
xform -ws -piv $Pos[0] $Pos[1] $Pos[2];

// Create Animation for Render Camera
select -r renderCam;
setKeyframe -t 0 -at ry -v 0 {"renderCam"};  // Set starting keyframe at 0 (-t 0)
setKeyframe -t 8 -at ry -v 360 {"renderCam"};  // Set ending keyframe at 8 (-t 8)

// Create Background Image Plane
createImportedImagePlane modelPanel4 "c:/RenderBG01.bmp" "image";
rename "ImagePlaneRender";
setAttr "ImagePlaneRender.sizeX" 2.52;
setAttr "ImagePlaneRender.sizeY" 1.89;
setAttr ImagePlaneRender.displayOnlyIfCurrent on;
setAttr ImagePlaneRender.fit 4;

// Create Light Source (SUN)
CreatePointLight;
setAttr "pointLight1.translateX" 500;
setAttr "pointLight1.translateY" 1500;
setAttr "pointLight1.translateZ" 200;
rename "pointLight1" "sun";

// Set Rendering Attributes

HardwareRenderBuffer;
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.extension 1;
setAttr -l false "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.startFrame";
setAttr -l false "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.endFrame";
setAttr "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.startFrame" 0;           // Set Start Frame of Render
setAttr "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.endFrame" 7;             // Set End Frame of Render
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.imageFormat 8; //JPEG
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.lightingMode 1;
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.alphaSource 1;
setAttr "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.lineSmoothing" 1;
setAttr "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.fullImageResolution" 1;
setAttr "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.backgroundColor" -type double3 0.5 0.5 0.5;
setAttr -type "string" "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.resolution" "640x480 640 480 1.333";
string $path = file -q -loc;
string $base = basenameEx $path;
setAttr -type "string" defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.filename $base;
glRenderEditor -e -lookThru renderCamShape hardwareRenderView;
scaleBufMenuRW glRenderWindow 0;

// Render Sequence

evalDeferred StartHWRender;
float $RenderStatus = 0;
do    {
    print("$RenderStatus equals: " +$RenderStatus+"\n");
    print("glRender status equals: " +glRender -q -cf+ "\n");
    trace "Waiting for RenderStatus";
    $RenderStatus = glRender -q -fe;  // set render status to current frame
    }
while ($RenderStatus < glRender -q -fe);

evalDeferred StartHWRender;

//playbackOptions -min 0 -max 300 -ps 30;
//play -w;

trace "end";

}

global proc StartHWRender()  {
glRender -renderSequence hardwareRenderView;  // ####### This never seems to wait until it's done rendering, even with my do while loop and evalDeferred....HELP!
}

[joojaa]

QUOTE(ChrisK @ 03/04/09, 08:35 PM) [snapback]302234[/snapback]
The script I have works if I manually run it in sections, but mel get's ahead of itself if I let it go on its own.

Mel never goes ahead of your load but your load may bail out.

QUOTE
Hardware Render Buffer.

Umm your talking of hardware render buffer yet your setting the maya hardware render! 2 different things.

DONT mix them up!

Maya hardware render buffer is NOT equal to maya hardware render.

2 separate things entirely

QUOTE
As far as I can tell, I can't do this from dos with maya batch because of cgfx shaders and the need for the hardware render buffer.

Offcourse you can. Ist jsut the people who dont know how to use aya doent realize that theres 3 kinds of things in mayas language vocbulary.

Commands
Runtime commands
Functions

Now the 2 secondary types may or may not be loaded outside gui. So if you type something in your script that doesnt tell after whatIs commandOfInterrest command then you might nt get it to work. Uless you know fro sure its the inpoint of your script file.

Leads to alot of toruble.

[chrisk]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/04/09, 11:13 AM) [snapback]302252[/snapback]
Mel never goes ahead of your load but your load may bail out.

If you say so..but it certainly gets ahead of other events. If it's not the load, it's the render process that it doesn't wait for.

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/04/09, 11:13 AM) [snapback]302252[/snapback]
Umm your talking of hardware render buffer yet your setting the maya hardware render! 2 different things.

In Maya 7 it's called Hardware Render Buffer in the window that it renders from, so that's what I call it.

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/04/09, 11:13 AM) [snapback]302252[/snapback]
Offcourse you can. Ist jsut the people who dont know how to use aya doent realize that theres 3 kinds of things in mayas language vocbulary.
Commands
Runtime commands
Functions

The only way it can render is through the viewport with the hardware render buffer, and I'm not interested in fully loading and unloading maya for each render. That would take forever. Plus I need external plug ins that are dependant on the gui of maya, so dos batch is out.

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/04/09, 11:13 AM) [snapback]302252[/snapback]
Now the 2 secondary types may or may not be loaded outside gui. So if you type something in your script that doesnt tell after whatIs commandOfInterrest command then you might nt get it to work. Uless you know fro sure its the inpoint of your script file.
Leads to alot of toruble.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.... Regardless it's still along the lines of a dos batch process, which will not work for this situation.

All I really need is a way to force maya to wait for the render to finish before running the rest of my script.

[joojaa]

QUOTE
In Maya 7 it's called Hardware Render Buffer in the window that it renders from, so that's what I call it.

Err yes tha hardware render buffer is called the hardware render buffer yous should really NOT use it, in newer mayas because its not batchable. No may at hand but i think maya 7 allrweady has a hardware render (cant remeber its 5 major releses since then, but i would bet thats the point where it was itridoduced) in the render view options use that instead ist better. It aslo tells you when to bail out.

QUOTE
it's the render process that it doesn't wait for All I really need is a way to force maya to wait for the render to finish before running the rest of my script.

Unfortunately life doesnt work this way you cant force a good solution you must conform to one. Yes i know your being forced by your bosses. Unfortunately it DONT work that way.

well the hardware render buffer has no way of doing that, it is permanently decoupled form your system all maya GUI is, like all maya viewports. You could do something VERY ugly with scriptjobs (and risk crashing your maya). But what id do is add one extra frame that triggers a expression that sends you forward.

You can do ONE init with eval deferred in conjunction witha 0 sized delay.

Or with ai you can monitor refresh calls.
QUOTE
fully loading and unloading maya for each render

you can do this most of mayas startup time is in initailizing about 20,000 lines of mel if this is all you need then its possible to instruct maya to load a simpler interface.

What you really want tough is a maya that loads the gui but not the full environment. This is possible all you need to do is declare maya to aoad up a different gui starting file.

I can whip up a script on sunday. Thing is tough i would suggest you do it like this:

append all the files as references to a file and render them all and at boundaries load the references. Its faster. Also ist not less memory consuming as your basically wasting it nonetheless in yoru script.

QUOTE
Plus I need external plug ins that are dependant on the gui of maya, so dos batch is out.

Who on earth would be that stupid, as to make plugins that are taht impossibly usefull? All things in maya MUST be aware that mayas not allways in gui mode. MAya will be in nongui mode most fo its lifespan.

[b]

PS:[/b] Dam it, theres indeed a smart way to do this with scriptjobs! What you do is you make a scriptjob that contains the do render on load, then you flush maya with new evel defeered and put a load next onto a file new scriptjob. And so on.

[chrisk]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/06/09, 02:38 AM) [snapback]302425[/snapback]
Err yes tha hardware render buffer is called the hardware render buffer yous should really NOT use it, in newer mayas because its not batchable. No may at hand but i think maya 7 allrweady has a hardware render (cant remeber its 5 major releses since then, but i would bet thats the point where it was itridoduced) in the render view options use that instead ist better. It aslo tells you when to bail out.
Unfortunately life doesnt work this way you cant force a good solution you must conform to one. Yes i know your being forced by your bosses. Unfortunately it DONT work that way.

Unfortunately I don't have any other option. The cgfx shaders being used do not render any other way.

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/06/09, 02:38 AM) [snapback]302425[/snapback]
But what id do is add one extra frame that triggers a expression that sends you forward.

How do I do that exactly? Can you give provide a working script?

QUOTE
You can do ONE init with eval deferred in conjunction witha 0 sized delay.

Or with ai you can monitor refresh calls.

you can do this most of mayas startup time is in initailizing about 20,000 lines of mel if this is all you need then its possible to instruct maya to load a simpler interface.

What you really want tough is a maya that loads the gui but not the full environment. This is possible all you need to do is declare maya to aoad up a different gui starting file.

I can whip up a script on sunday. Thing is tough i would suggest you do it like this:

append all the files as references to a file and render them all and at boundaries load the references. Its faster. Also ist not less memory consuming as your basically wasting it nonetheless in yoru script.

I'm open to any script you can provide.

QUOTE
Who on earth would be that stupid, as to make plugins that are taht impossibly usefull? All things in maya MUST be aware that mayas not allways in gui mode. MAya will be in nongui mode most fo its lifespan.

Nvidia....this shader is designed for game engines, not rendering.

QUOTE
PS:[/b] Dam it, theres indeed a smart way to do this with scriptjobs! What you do is you make a scriptjob that contains the do render on load, then you flush maya with new evel defeered and put a load next onto a file new scriptjob. And so on.

Can you provide a sample of this?

[mcatg6k]

Hi, this is an old post but it's the closest I have found to my issue without really finding a solution.

I'm having to render a really huge amount of render layers in maya 2010 for crowd animations. This only needs to be playblast quality and we're using animator PC for this.

The client provided some scripts for crowds which we need loaded to get the renders out, so we can't do a regular batch script.

Since we have to have the scene open in the end and it can't handle batch renders (crash etc), the best solution we've found so far is to use maya hardware buffer to get a layer sequence out, but it still means we need to sit around and wait for that to finish to start the next layer render. There's a very large amount of layers...

I have very basic knowledge in MEL but I tried making a script with a loop so we can try get through the render layers overnight, but it's only rendering one layer then stopping. Again I think it's a case of the script not waiting for the hardware buffer task to finish before going through with the script.
 Here's what I have, anyone know a workaround?

HardwareRenderBuffer;
float $maxTime = playbackOptions -q -maxTime;
setAttr "defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.endFrame" $maxTime;
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.imageFormat 7;
setAttr -type "string" defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.resolution "HD_720 1294 628 2.452";
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.alphaSource 6;
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.extension 4;
setAttr defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.fullImageResolution 1;
scaleBufMenuRW glRenderWindow 0;

global proc crowdRender()
{

string $renderLayersAll[] = ls -type renderLayer;
string $itemsToRemove[] = { "defaultRenderLayer" };
string $renderLayers[] = stringArrayRemoveExact($itemsToRemove, $renderLayersAll);
print $renderLayers;
int $i;
$i=0;
int $layerSize = size($renderLayers);
while ($i<$layerSize) {

editRenderLayerGlobals -currentRenderLayer $renderLayers[$i];
setAttr -type "string" defaultHardwareRenderGlobals.filename $renderLayers[$i];
glRender -renderSequence hardwareRenderView;
$i++;

                       };
};

crowdRender();

[joojaa]

You should start a new thread for following reasons:

This thread is 4 years old

The tread does not help you, Maya has considerably changed since then. All doing it in this thread does is obfuscates things.

It has not been established what is the best course of action. Right now you just have keyword match for something you think may help.

New question new thread. You can link here.

Hardware render buffer is not supported anymore.

OK first concentrate on:

The client provided some scripts for crowds which we need loaded to get the renders out,
so we can't do a regular batch script.

You absolutely sure about this? I mean the situation in this thread is different, they are relying on something that does not do anything outside the hardware render buffer. Lets break down this a bit:

You should solve the crash issue, doing a strategic bake would probably solve all your problems on this avenue. And it would be easier to use just use the newer hardware render instead. Have you explored baking as a solution?

[li]Playblast is enough. Then why not playblast? This is much easier and faster:

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for ($layer in stringArrayRemoveExact( {"defaultRenderLayer"}, ls -type renderLayer)){
editRenderLayerGlobals -currentRenderLayer ($layer);
playblast -widthHeight 1280 720-percent 100 -fmt "image"
-showOrnaments 0 -fp 4
-v 0 -f ("Drive:/some/folder/basename_" + $layer);
}

[/li]
[li]You could sue some of the forcing render scripts such as render please.[/li]
[li]Then go into hardware render buffer issues as the last resort, which is don't see ever going to happen.[/li]

Start a new thread.

[mcatg6k]

Ok noted, actually playblast wouldnt work in this case since render layers need to be isolated but I figured it out anyhow will make a new thread next time: I was hoping the original poster of this thread might have a solution for me.