rendering from the command prompt

The best way to render is not to have maya open at all. The problem however is that the uni machines have not been set-up for command line rendering and when you log into multiple machines maya can not find your preferences.

To sort this out we are going to create a file that runs a load of commands and then renders our scenes nice and quick.

We are using batch files (a simple text document saved with .bat or .cmd as a file type)

Copy below into a text document and save it to the x drive as myrender.cmd

@ECHO OFF

REM gets all the maya commands

PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2012\bin;

set MAYA_APP_DIR=x:\maya_temp_pref

set MAYA_PROJECT=X:\DATA\bouncing_ball

set TMPDIR=x:\temp

REM example render command (see manual for commands)

render -r mr -v 5 scene1.ma

REM renders the next scene file (add another set MAYA_PROJECT if your other scenes are in a different project

render -r mr -v 5 scene2.ma

Explanation of various bits:

@ECHO OFF - This stops it printing out all the commands to the console

REM - these are just comments and are ignored by the console

 PATH=... - This adds all the maya commands to the system path allowing access to them from the console
set MAYA_APP_DIR - This sets a local maya preferences (best to copy your ones from the server)
set MAYA_PROJECT - This sets the maya project you are working from
set TMPDIR=x:\temp - This sets maya's temp directory to be local rather than on the server
 render..... - This starts the render command, look it up in the help under Command line rendering to see all the options. You have access to more options than you do if you are rendering from Maya (this is a good thing)

Ok so now what??

Well to run this you need to open a command prompt. Windowskey + R then type cmd and press enter

You should be faced with a command prompt. Navigate to where you have saved your myrender.cmd file. (look up how to navigate in DOS if you don't know)

Once in the folder type .\myrender.cmd and all being well it will start.

Make sure you change the project directory to one of your project directories and the scene name to a scene you have. The really good thing about this is that you can get it to render more than one scene, as in the example above just have a second (or as many as you like) render line and once it has finished one render it will move on and do another. If the scene is in a different project you will need to set the project to the new one before the render line

This is great for setting going over night (or over a weekend).

insight to an industry modeler

taken from simply maya, thought it might interest those of you about to leave sunny cornwall and head for the yukky real world :)
http://simplymaya.com/interview-jason-edwards-2011.mhtml?utm_source=newletter_march_02&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jay_interview_dc

show reels

Since I know that the third years are starting to think about showreels this one is worth a look

http://vimeo.com/19368587

Ok, it is very funny and if you look at his other videos he clearly knows what he is doing but this has gone massively viral around the VFX communitiy, I have been mailed it by about 15 people. If he doesn't already have one it would not surprise me to hear he gets a job off this. Nice way to do something different

A good post to read for those who think you can learn everything from online tutorials

http://gennyx.blogspot.com/2011/02/newbie-trials.html

I tell people this as well, so it is good to hear it from another source

kinect as a 3d Scanner

Been playing with the xbox kinect as a 3d scanner, this is just two scans roughly cleaned and overlayed. Next up is scanning something on a calibrated turntable and see if it is possible to get a half decent model out of it.

ok slightly narcissistic but hey

Rare internships

For those of you kiddies interested in a career in games this is worth a punt....
http://www.rare.co.uk/careers/internships101112

You need to be quick as the deadline is 31st of Jan, but it is a 11 month placement so could be invaluable experience

sharing custom attributes between multiple geometry

Having seen in the Generic Male rig (http://www.characteroutsource.com/) that the author had shared a shape node with custom attributes through the rig I set out to work out how it was done.

The technique turned out to be surprisingly simple and utilises an instance of a curves shape node with custom attributes applied at the shape level.

This script simplifies the task as it allows you to select the shape node and propagate it to multiple objects and also to remove the node when not wanted. Sharing the shape node can not be done directly in the interface as it requires flags only available in a mel script.


This is a tool for riggers and should make access to your custom tools very simple for your animators.


I'm trying out a new way of sharing the files so this one is available on creativecrash you will need an account to access it but then again you should already have signed up to read about your subject :)

(script pending at the moment on creativecrash so check back if it is not available)