MTOR
Batch Rendering

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It is often possible to batch-render a sequence of frames in less time than it would take Alfred (figure 1) to process the same job. To make batch-rendering worthwhile the animation sequence needs to be larger than 30 frames. This tutorial describes one way of setting up a batch-render job.

s e t t i n g    u p    m t o r
Lets assume you have modelled, setup your animation, shaded and lite your Maya scene. You have rendered single images in order to check selected frames and you are ready to render a sequence.

checklist
1    Open the RenderMan Controls (Globals) window and make sure the Display Resolution and Display Server (tiff output) are set correctly - figure 2.

2    Next go to the Frames->Spool tab and ensure the Multiple Frames, Compute Start/Stop and Sequence Start/Stop are set correctly - figure 3. In general the last two will use the same frame range.

3    Finally, go to the Frames->Job Setup tab and ensure the Renderer is set to none and that Cleanup has the rib button in the UP position - figure 4.

figure 1 - Alfred in use

figure 2

figure 3

figure 4

4    This step really only needs to be done once. Make sure you know the location of the torRIBs directory - figure 5. By default it will be set to,

maya/projects/default/rib

You can reset this directory - the destination directory for the RIB's is not important. What is important is that you know where the RIB's will be saved.

5    Render the animation/sequence.

6    If you are using Cutter go to the Templates menu and choose the tcl cutrPrmanBatchRender.tcl script - figure 6. Save the script to the directory chosen in step 4. Name the TCL script batch.tcl.

The same tcl script is available here.

figure 6

7    Run the TCL batch render script by double clicking on it - figure 7. Or, open a dos command prompt window (or shell in Linux/OSX) and cd to the RIB's directory. Then type this command,

tclsh batch.tcl

The script will generate a file called batch.bat.

8    Finally, the actual batch rendering can be started. On Windows this may be done by double clicking on the batch.bat file. On Linux or OSX execute the batch file by typing this command,

./batch.bat

figure 5

figure 7