[Maya-Python] batch render in interactive mode (with GUI) via python

[Juan Cristóbal Quesada]

Im facing the need to batch render with arnold with maya opened.

Being very fancy of the render.exe command which allows to specify multiple
flags (the renderer among them) at first i relied on a "os.system('render
blablablalba')" call.

This has some problems which i figure have to do with the shell environment
the command is launched on. Primarily, i have a render failing because of a
custom plugin node being not recognized with this specific os.system
call... whereas if i run the command in a independent shell (not from the
maya python interpreter) the scene renders correctly and it just simply
ignores the node.


Im considering two fixing options:
(1) keep the call to os.system("render...balbalbal") and try to emulate the
same environment maya has when run in GUI mode.
(2) use a batch render command of the maya.cmds api. In this case i would
need as sole condition to be able to specify the render layer.

I would prefer option (2) since option (1) seems to be like reinventing the
wheel but i dont have much experience with the amount of render commands
available, and it seems to be quite a bunch.

[Juan Cristóbal Quesada]

has anyone ever tried to batch render with arnold from inside maya? Which
commands did you use?

El miércoles, 17 de octubre de 2018, 17:07:11 (UTC+2), Juan Cristóbal

Post by Juan Cristóbal Quesada
Im facing the need to batch render with arnold with maya opened.
Being very fancy of the render.exe command which allows to specify
multiple flags (the renderer among them) at first i relied on a
"os.system('render blablablalba')" call.
This has some problems which i figure have to do with the shell
environment the command is launched on. Primarily, i have a render failing
because of a custom plugin node being not recognized with this specific
os.system call... whereas if i run the command in a independent shell (not
from the maya python interpreter) the scene renders correctly and it just
simply ignores the node.
(1) keep the call to os.system("render...balbalbal") and try to emulate
the same environment maya has when run in GUI mode.
(2) use a batch render command of the maya.cmds api. In this case i would
need as sole condition to be able to specify the render layer.
I would prefer option (2) since option (1) seems to be like reinventing
the wheel but i dont have much experience with the amount of render
commands available, and it seems to be quite a bunch.

[Juan Cristóbal Quesada]

Hi, i just found out.

I digged into the "mayaBatchRender" mel command and turned out to be a
procedure located in "C:\Program
Files\Autodesk\Maya2017\scripts\others\mayaBatchRender.mel".

I inspected the code and i discovered that with the mayabatch command you
can add all specific renderer flags you only need to do it the proper way,
so it's solved.

If anyone needs some help on this let me know.

I will try now as an extra to get the batch render progress in a qt window,
not sure if this is possible.

Thanks.

El miércoles, 17 de octubre de 2018, 17:07:11 (UTC+2), Juan Cristóbal

Post by Juan Cristóbal Quesada
Im facing the need to batch render with arnold with maya opened.
Being very fancy of the render.exe command which allows to specify
multiple flags (the renderer among them) at first i relied on a
"os.system('render blablablalba')" call.
This has some problems which i figure have to do with the shell
environment the command is launched on. Primarily, i have a render failing
because of a custom plugin node being not recognized with this specific
os.system call... whereas if i run the command in a independent shell (not
from the maya python interpreter) the scene renders correctly and it just
simply ignores the node.
(1) keep the call to os.system("render...balbalbal") and try to emulate
the same environment maya has when run in GUI mode.
(2) use a batch render command of the maya.cmds api. In this case i would
need as sole condition to be able to specify the render layer.
I would prefer option (2) since option (1) seems to be like reinventing
the wheel but i dont have much experience with the amount of render
commands available, and it seems to be quite a bunch.