Why doesn't Mental Ray have .avi available for batch rendering?

# 1 06-12-2011 , 01:01 AM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Why doesn't Mental Ray have .avi available for batch rendering?

It just doesn't have it in the list. Why? How can I render a video while using MR?
Software had the option though... Or do i have to render multiple files and then merge them in some other software? (heck no! -__-)

And it seems like I'll have to use some other program in the end... Does anyone know what would work to merge a series of images into an avi and set the frame playback too? (I have Corel, but the bug with it is that it will always import images backwards when I do a bulk import).

Last edited by SilverFeather; 06-12-2011 at 01:32 AM.

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# 2 06-12-2011 , 02:15 AM

SM Tea Boy
Join Date: Apr 2002

Location: Prague

Posts: 3,228

It's a very bad idea to render out to an avi for any number of reasons.

Watch this How to render a movie in Maya - YouTube

Dave user added image

From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

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# 3 06-12-2011 , 02:20 AM

SM Tea Boy
Join Date: Apr 2002

Location: Prague

Posts: 3,228

BTW Batch rendering if you need it

Maya Batch Rendering Tutorial - YouTube

From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

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# 4 06-12-2011 , 04:56 AM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

Plus, AVI is only a container format. The information inside, stored and interpreted with a codec, can be wildly different.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 5 06-12-2011 , 11:56 AM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Well, here's what I need .avi for: I need to put a series of scenes together in a video mixing software such as Video Pad and then turn it into a video that can easily be uploaded to youtube without reducing quality. I don't think going for a .mov would be a good idea. I want uncompressed .avi and I could obtain that from Corel but since I plan on making 1024 images, importing and compiling a movie would probably take ages. (not sure, haven't tried it yet) And I'd have to select each separate image file that Maya has exported too.

I have batch-rendered to avi before with Maya Software and it worked quite well except for 1 miscalculation near the end of the movie, where the ball in a ping-pong scene went through the table and one racket just went into the ceiling.

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# 6 06-12-2011 , 02:15 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Well, it seems like batch rendering isn't working right. I set it to render from frame 1 to 300, but instead it just renders two files and then says the render was completed. When rendering and previewing, it shows just fine though and i can save to jpg, but why doesn't batch render do that? Would save me a lot of work for giving names to files...

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# 7 06-12-2011 , 03:53 PM

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Did you watch the video above that Dave linked in for you?

If you search the site for "batch rendering problems" you'll find hundreds of threads trouble shooting this issue, it can be pretty much anything. The best thing is if you put up your scene so someone else can test it for you, it could be something in there like fur etc. causing the problem.

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# 8 06-12-2011 , 04:42 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Did you watch the video above that Dave linked in for you?

If you search the site for "batch rendering problems" you'll find hundreds of threads trouble shooting this issue, it can be pretty much anything. The best thing is if you put up your scene so someone else can test it for you, it could be something in there like fur etc. causing the problem.

Originally Posted by Miss_Nova

Yes I did and still didn't solve the problem: 2nd frame always renders only to the point of 45 pct and then it just stops rendering and says render is ready.
Here is what happens in the Script Editor.

// Result: Saving temporary file: D:/temp/New_Project/scenes/A Sol Anim__2348.mb //
// Result: Rendering with mental ray... //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 0 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 5 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 10 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 15 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 20 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 25 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 30 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 35 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 40 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 45 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 50 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 55 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 60 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 65 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 70 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 75 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 80 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 85 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 90 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 95 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 100 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene001.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 0 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 5 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 10 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 15 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 20 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 25 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 30 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 35 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 40 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Percentage of rendering done: 45 (D:/temp/New_Project/images/1Scene002.jpg) //
// Result: Rendering Completed. See mayaRenderLog.txt for information. //

Originally Posted by

There is no fur, but there are:
Paint effects turned into mesh.
Textures downloaded from several websites. (idk how i will export these with the file)
One sun light.
Multiple glowing lamberts (stars, rings of planets, asteroid belt)
Scene extremely huge as well.
The 2nd frame image is always either incomplete or damaged.

Settings on the render in pic.

How can I upload a 20 mb file here? Is it allowed?

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Last edited by SilverFeather; 06-12-2011 at 04:49 PM.

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# 9 06-12-2011 , 06:50 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

I've had Vdub on the pc all this time and i didn't really know it could work that way though, so thanks to Dave for that first video. First time I tried to import images to it, the images weren't numbered so I didn't know why I could not import a bulk of images. That's why I thought it was useless.

I still need to figure out how to fix the batch rendering errors though and so far I have no idea what those errors mean.

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# 10 06-12-2011 , 07:05 PM

EduSciVis-er
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Try turning various things off until you can get a render that goes past frame 2.

-stwert

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# 11 06-12-2011 , 07:13 PM

Super Moderator
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There are free file hosting sites out there, Dropbox seems decent. Also, is there any reason why you're using jpeg as your output format?

- Genny
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# 12 06-12-2011 , 07:34 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

There are free file hosting sites out there, Dropbox seems decent. Also, is there any reason why you're using jpeg as your output format?

Originally Posted by GecT

BMP is too big, I had no idea that VDub used .iff, I might want to edit images in Corel etc.
I never used file hosting websites because I can host on my own server too but only temporarily.

I've uploaded the scene to MediaFire https://www.mediafire.com/?oqombms0sb0au06
I don't know how to bind the textures to the file though so that's why I don't think it will be of any use.

Try turning various things off until you can get a render that goes past frame 2.

Originally Posted by stwert

I'll try after I finish these 300 frames though. (frame by frame takes ages, but at least it goes somewhere in case the scene isn't going to be fixed).

Last edited by SilverFeather; 06-12-2011 at 07:54 PM.

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# 13 06-12-2011 , 10:08 PM

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I can't even open your scene it just crashes Maya, but we use 2011 so someone on 2012 might have better luck with it. That's huge though for a planetary system, try getting rid of all things generated from paint fx to start with.

You should use a project folders as well in Maya, when you start a new project go to file>project>new and that will sort your textures, renders and other things in a neat manner.

And when you upload files you should compress them, your 20 mb file is 3 mb if you compress it using something like winrar.

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# 14 06-12-2011 , 10:23 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

I can't even open your scene it just crashes Maya, but we use 2011 so someone on 2012 might have better luck with it. That's huge though for a planetary system, try getting rid of all things generated from paint fx to start with.

You should use a project folders as well in Maya, when you start a new project go to file>project>new and that will sort your textures, renders and other things in a neat manner.

And when you upload files you should compress them, your 20 mb file is 3 mb if you compress it using something like winrar.

Originally Posted by Miss_Nova

I do have a project folder... I just had no idea it was needed. O_o I have mixed up data of the character I was modeling with that other file without knowing what project folder actually does.

I don't want to get rid of the paint generated asteroids though, because then I'll have to make the asteroids manually... which I tried before and it crashed the scene while paint fx turned to mesh doesn't crash it and I can use way more debris.

This is what I've managed to put together from the animation so far. I seriously hate how Youtube fuzzes the colors out! The compressed video looked just like the uncompressed and its just 6 mb -_-
Maya Solar System Test - YouTube
And that's just Jupiter... I have way more planets to put the camera to visit there.
This video was done by saving all frames separately and giving them a name.
I still think the other stars' glow should be toned down but idk if its worth it doing all that work again X_X
Also not sure about Jupiter's ring, if it should emit that shadow or none at all (full transparent).

Last edited by SilverFeather; 06-12-2011 at 10:34 PM.

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# 15 06-12-2011 , 10:34 PM

SM Tea Boy
Join Date: Apr 2002

Location: Prague

Posts: 3,228

Question are you using Dynamics in this simulation? If you are you should cache it before batch rendering.

That could be your problem
Dave

From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

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Why doesn't Mental Ray have .avi available for batch rendering?

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