Maya Batch Rendering

[nowends]

MAYa Batch Rendering
Open maya and set the project that you will be using.

Make sure that the scene or scenes you want to batch render have correct render settings. ie(in/out frame #'s, file type, resolution, correct camera, motion blur, ect.)
(Also make sure that none of the names of your scenes have weird characters or letters, i dont know why its just picky)

Go to the Run Option under the Start menu and type in
"render scenex.mb"

That is a simple version of a batch render.

A more complex one you can specify the
-rd x:/images/scenex location that all your files render to
-n 0 to use all processors
-s # Start Frame
-e # End frame

More Complex Version
"render -n 0 -s 1 -e 100 -rd c:\renders\ scene##.mb"

Another cool thing you can do with this is a batch file to linear batch render multiple maya files in linear progression.
1. open notepad.
2. enter the same text that you would in the START=RUN and hit enter after each line. Once you have all the information inside the file.
4. Save its as "filename.bat".
3. When you are ready to render all you have to do is double click the "filename.bat" file.

Check Maya Help For more Batch Commands. Attached is an ex. batch file. Any questions email me. nowends@satx.rr.com
or aim "nowends"

[Professor Watkins]

A few added notes

A few caveats to the linear batch rendering file (the render.bat thingy). As I've been testing it, it appears that the .bat file needs to get a bit more information about EITHER where the actual Render application is, or where the maya binary (.mb) files are.

The easiest solution I've found is to make your render.bat file in Notepad. Just open Notepad and enter something like below. An example is here:

// start of file

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REM // This is a render.bat file that renders two files
REM // notice that you have to show where the .mb file is
REM // Also notice that this render.bat file must be saved
REM // in the AliasWavefront\Maya5.0\bin folder.

render C:\TheTriune\scenes\shot10.mb
render C:\TheTriune\scenes\shot11.mb




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// end of file


Some things to note:

• Notice that anything with // is just a comment and won't affect the rendering
• Notice that its not just the "shot10.mb" file that's called for. The entire location of that file, "C:\TheTriune\scenes\shot10.mb" is called out.
• Make sure to save this file as WHATEVER.bat (I saved it as render.bat).
• Note that it is just calling for the application render. To make things easier (so you don't have to work with converting path names to DOS 8.3 format), if you make sure and save your render.bat file in C:\Program Files\AliasWavefront\Maya5.0\bin (where your Render.exe application is), then the .bat knows right where to go.

It might work differently on your machine; but on the WindowsXP machines at the school it had to be set up that way.

So to cap things off:

• Make sure to open all of your Maya files that you plan to sequentially batch render in this way and confirm that the Render Globals are all correct (size, number of frames, quality, etc...)
• Close Maya
• Open Notepad
• Copy/Paste the text above in the sample .bat file
• Make changes to the path to indicate where your files are
• Save this Notepad document as WHATEVERYOUWANT.bat (I used render.bat) - but make sure to save it where your Render application resides (probably C:\Program Files\AliasWavefront\Maya5.0\bin)
• Last, just double click the WHATEVERYOUWANT.bat file (in the bin folder) and each file will be rendered in turn