Render .mi from maya in XSI

[nordpie]

I am trying to render an .mi file that I have exported from maya 5.0 in XSI. After I initiate the render from an XSI shell I can see mental ray going through the various phases(photon emission, fg, rendering, etc.) but I end up with an image file that is only accurate to the resolution (400*200) and image format(tif)settings from the render globals window. When I open the image in photoshop there is nothing there. I realize this is a pretty damn specific problem but would greatly appreciate any help from anyone with experience in this area.
Thanks greatly
nordpie

[latrommi_suineg]

well, if it traverses the rendergloblas (your result) but misses the scene (shaders) then its likely that your scene file is correct... but your shader libraries links are not.

assuming you are using the stand-alone:

your problem will become more apparent when you increase verbosity past 4... there sould be some kind of indication telling you that youre libs or include files are not found... and a directory where it is looking for them

you need to first set an environment variable which directs the application to the correct rayrc (as in MI_ROOT) and then you need to customize the rayrc at that location to include the mayabase and its link statements...

there is some nice documentation on www.lamru.org telling how to set variables for cross-platform and cross-implement (maya-xsi-max) variables...

r.