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Maya 2013 Mental Ray batch render issues...

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Message 1 of 19
Creative_Hacker
7803 Views, 18 Replies

Maya 2013 Mental Ray batch render issues...

See here is the story. Whenever I try render in mental ray I Get this message 

// Result: Saving temporary file: /Volumes/STORAGE/1 Denzyl/2013/Yo.T.V/Anouncment Board/Globe/scenes/YO__253.mb //
// Result: Rendering with mental ray... //

Which is normal everyone should get this message the only issue is that's all I get, Nothing else happens, It refused to render and it won't let me start a new render cos this one has not started and it won't let me cancel the render because it has not started so I need to close Maya down before I can try rendering again. 

I have search for ages not for a solution to the problem and found nothing, 

I have uninstalled maya and reinstalled it, still does this. the only thing that works is deleting the project restarting the Mac and starting a new project, but then sometimes when I turn on Ray tracing or GL, sometimes  even with that turned off just applying a mental ray shader or trying to render something that is slightly high res  it starts giving me this issue. 

Sure just undo to a point where it was working or just delete the shaders or turn off those features should fix the issue but it does not.  Even Starting a new scene with nothing in it it continues to do it and i have to restart the mac and start a new project ?


It renders fine in the the Render View window but as soon as I try and batch render i get this problem, no errors just

// Result: Saving temporary file: /Volumes/STORAGE/1 Denzyl/2013/Yo.T.V/Anouncment Board/Globe/scenes/YO__253.mb //
// Result: Rendering with mental ray... //

and it stays like this for hours and hours I left a render to go over the weekend once and came back to this ! Two days of rendering never happened and the whole project become unrenderable in mental ray! 


Can anyone please help me !!! deadlines are not being met!!



Maya 2013 
OSX version 10.6.8

Mental ray

18 REPLIES 18
Message 2 of 19
stumanchu
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

Wow, that sounds totally annoying....However, it may be just a simple routing issue.  I'm not sure about how you are setting up your projects and scenes.  Here's a test that may help.  Open Maya and go directly to File - Set Project and (create a new project with a name).  Then, create some basic geometry objects and go to File - Save Scene and navigate to the Project Foler you ceated for this test.  The folder should have all the default folders for scenes/images/assets/renderData/sourceimages etc.  Save the scene to the Scenes Folder.  This will create all of the stuff Maya needs to keep things all sorted out for your project and Renders.....By the looks of your routing I suspect that Maya is getting hung up on where to send your batch renders.  It's an absolute must to be very organized when it comes to predictability about render output.....Make sure to take note as to where you are specifying in the Render Globals what folder you are sending the output to....also, give it a good prefix so you can search for where the rendered images went.  You may already practice good routing and an organized flow but to me it looks like something is not right with your file paths.  Let us know, it's an interesting journey.

Message 3 of 19

here is the process I took to test

  1. Open maya

  2. File>Project Window (Created a new project. /Volumes/Storage/New_Project)Accept

  3. created a poly sphere

  4. set up a batch render using PNGs of frames 1 to 10 with the default Maya software render settings.(just as a test to compare). It renders al 10 frames fine

 

// Percentage of rendering done: 100 (/Volumes/STORAGE/New_Project/images/untitled.10.png) //

// Rendering PostProcessing. //

// Rendering Completed. See Console for more information. //

 

  1. I save the project as “Ball_Test” File > Save Scene

  2. I create a Directional Light turn on Ray Trace Shadows. and leave them on default

  3. I go into the render Globals and switch over to mental ray and and turn on final gather and global illumination and put the settings under quality to the Production Preset.

  4. I do a test render by pressing the render current frame button at the top. the render takes 1 second

  5. I then do a batch render……….. in the script editor all i get is // Saving temporary file: /Volumes/STORAGE/New_Project/scenes/Ball_Test__277.mb //

// Rendering with mental ray... //


does not render a single frame out of the 10 ?

Did I do something wrong ?



Message 4 of 19
Creative_Hacker
in reply to: stumanchu

little more then annoying, this is my job and i am just lucky there are not huge deadlines being effected by this issue yet.
Message 5 of 19
stumanchu
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

Well, it's not something that you are doing wrong, it's just that the file path string I'm seeing doesn't "click", and without knowing anything about the project or scene creation from the start, I'm just trying to isolate why Maya is hanging up on you.  I made a mistake in my previous post in that I instructed you to go first to File "Set Project" when it should have been "File - Project Window", and it is there that you create and name the project, and Maya will create all the associated folders needed to keep things straight.

 

So, from what I'm seeing, your Maya software render is routing to your main hard drive called Volumes/Storage....However, next in the string there should be a folder that you created with a descriptive title (I named mine Maya 2014 Master) which is where I direct Maya to go almost 98% of the time.  It's just a place where all things Maya happen!  Next in your string is New_Project, and I'll assume that when you created a new project, Maya created all the Default Folders associated with your scene because the next folder that follows is "/images/" which would be the "user set" or "default" folder Maya chooses to send rendered images to if you don't specify.....and then finally there is the image name you chose to save...it's called  (/untitled.10.png) //...(you will now find this image sequence called untitled in your project images folder.

 

So, there are some mistakes already in the first stages of your "routing" before we even get to the Mental Ray Render.

 

When you switch to Mental Ray....observe what is happening in the file path when you try and do a batch Render. Your filepath string looks like this

// Saving temporary file: /Volumes/STORAGE/New_Project/scenes/Ball_Test__277.mb //

 

For starters it looks as though you are routing your rendered images to a folder on your main hard drive called "Storage" which contains a folder called New_Project which contains another folder called "Scenes"...and then your file sting ends with /Ball_Test__277.mb //....Now, the last hing in that string should be the images folder that will then have have a .png (or whatever) extension you chose in the Render Globals....in other words it should have an image type file extension like .jpeg .png .tiff etc. and not a .mb extension.  So, that's the problem. You may not be correctly naming and outputting your files...It's a common user glitch that always needs to be observed.

See the attached image for some annotations about setting up some Mental Ray Render Specs so that your routing is "cool" and not wonky.  Also, there's lot's of online info about the correct file path structure to make Maya very happy at rendertime. This can be solved by making sure you route your stuff to the right place.

Hope this helps.

 

 

Message 6 of 19
n8skow
in reply to: stumanchu

I suspect Maya is not liking the special characters in your directory paths, try renaming your directories without the periods or parenthesis.

Message 7 of 19
Creative_Hacker
in reply to: n8skow

Even if the scene resaved as "apple" it give me the same problem as the project folder names they were all generated by maya "/New_Project/images/"

the thing is sometimes it renders other times it won't, normally when i turn on raytracing with GI or use Mental Ray materials,
Message 8 of 19
n8skow
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

Are you able to post your renderlog file?

Message 9 of 19

This what what I get when I open the log file in text edit after I start the render 

 

 

Mon Jan 6 07:44:25 SAST 2014

Starting "/Applications/Autodesk/maya2013/Maya.app/Contents/bin/maya"

mental ray for Maya 2013
mental ray: version 3.10.1.4, Jan 31 2012, revision 165283
File read in 0 seconds.
Result: /Volumes/STORAGE/testing/scenes/new__311.mb

Message 10 of 19

Still having the issue got no special plugins or anything that I can think would be giving me these kinds of issues . Autodesk has let me down.

Could it be a hardware issue can I test?

Message 11 of 19
archeron
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

hey have you tried to do a command line batch render?  are you doing the batch rendering from within maya? this sounds like something that would happen during a command line batch render. at anytime when you use the command line it will give you the exact reason why maya will not batch render properly. trying to get a reading of the issue when you are batch rendering within maya i found dose not give you anything to pin piont the problem. normally batch rendering within maya are flawless but when you step outside and do a command line render and if things are not set up properly you will run into a lot of unseen issues. i would advise you to close maya and try a command line render from your dos window and see what error messages appear. if it starts to render then maybe its your eviorment variables that may need to be checked.

Message 12 of 19
Creative_Hacker
in reply to: archeron

Seems to do the same thing.
Here is what I get

btw this is a new project with just a cube, on defult draft mental ray setting just to show even when I dont do anything fancy, it just refuses to render in mental ray.

Screen shot 2014-01-14 at 11.57.48 AM.png

Message 13 of 19
archeron
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

hello again.

 

i notice a few things that are to me if it were in my dos window would raise a red flag to me. it looks like maya is not reading or launching the batch engine. first, the path that maya is reading. that (maya.app) can be a problem. second, the location of maya's batch engine. third, the path to the batch engine should match what is written in your enviorment variables. i use windows and sometime my mac but i will show how things should be set so this way you can check to see if your set up are causing problems.

 

 

1: first the location of the batch engine, (may differ in a mac)

 

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2013\bin

(if you have set up a custom location put it back to what you see here. get rid off (maya.app). maya dose not like the "." maya will always look for the batch engine in this order of folders)

 

2: your enviorment variables should read

 

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2013\bin;

 

(with no other maya programs befor it. if you have more than one maya app on your system make sure maya2013 are written as the first one in the variable sting command)

 

3: go back into maya and make sure no custome paths are set up. let all paths be the default paths maya sets up when installed.

 

4: as always set your project in maya then click on "project window" to make sure it is set as you asked it. to make sure we are doing this right do not set up a custome project path. use the default project settings.

 

this is the project path that should be in "location" in your project window.

"C:/Users/renderapp/Documents/maya/projects"  this is my set up but yours should read the same. after this save your scene.

 

now i dont know if you have remote machines in your set up trying to render during batch rendering, if you dont make sure in the "render current frame" window for mentalray the "render on remote machines" are not checked. maya will take forever looking for those remote manchines if they are not set up for remote rendering maya will just hangs for days and forget it has an image to render trying to find remote machines. if you do then those machines will need mentalray satilites with "7413" written in the maya batch file and open in your ports.

 

most of all you want to make sure the paths are set up right because this looks like a path problem. double check everything. you want maya to see the batch engine and launch it, that is the goal. now try and render from your dos window and keep using the dos for now so you can catch the culprit.

 

i have had countless issues with batch rendering and if the maya app itself was not currupt it was always a path problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message 14 of 19
Creative_Hacker
in reply to: archeron

Thank you.

Mac packages Maya in a strange way and those paths i don't know how you would change these paths on a mac.

Though it might have ended up being the "Render on network Machines" Options because it worked again at first

Turned it off in both the batch and current frame settings, 

 

But as soon as I made my render HD with GI and Final Gather with some Mental ray materials it started doing it again.

Someone Suggested it might be a licencing issue but i disconnected from the network and it still didn't work

Could it be a Hardware issue?

Message 15 of 19
archeron
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

hmm...ok. it worked but then stopped working as soon as you tried to do it in HD?...hmm. then maybe you are right. it could be a hardware issue. to be honest with you i never used my mac for rendering just some modeling maybe animation, and rigging but i left the power of rendering to my render farm wich uses windows. well you see the mac cannot be upgraded. you have to use it the way you bought it. i tried to upgrade the graphics card in my mac and came to a rude awakening. even the cpu cannot be overclocked nor upgraded so to have control over these things i thought it'll be better to use windows for rendering. as i know, mentalray uses nuff memory and the cpu of a machine. if your mac is lacking in thses areas then that can be a problem when it comes time for rendering. here is a way to see if it is your hardware.

 

if you can get hold of a windows machine, go and download mentalray satelite for maya2013 and install it on that windows machine. 

go in maya and check "render on remote machine" but uncheck render on local machine. that way it will not render on the mac. 

go to your maya.batch file and type in the name of the administrator of the windows machine and the maya2013 port wich is "7413"

like this  "(administrator name):7413" write at the bottom in its own space

then in windows firewall go to advance settings and add in a new "inbound" connection with 7413 as the inbound port number

now on your mac open maya and go to the render options for mentalray in "render current frame" at the top in "verbosity level" seclect

"progress massages" so your output window can show you what mentalray is trying to do.

it should tell you if maya sees the remote machine and is ready to render from it but only after you hit render it will show the progress massage. 

after you hit render the progress message should say something like "adding new host: 7413"

now if everything gose right (and you can render inside of maya or out) the rendering will start.

 

so if it dose start to render and you are doing it in HD, then it is safe to say it is a hardware issue. maybe the mac cannot handle HD renders.

but if it dose not start rendering and your getting the same problem no matter wich machine your using, local or remote then i would conclude that something in maya is currupt and would try different version to see if the problem still arises

 

if you cannot get a hold of a windows machine for remote rendering then try about 5 to 6 renders on the mac without using HD. throw in a 7th just to make sure. then try the 8th render with HD. if that 8th render fails then yeh it maybe a hardware issue. 

 

a lot of people uses the mac for work but i have never seen a renderfarm use it for rendering. most uses linux or windows. there may be rendering set ups using macs but i bet those are some powerful machines if they are. 

Message 16 of 19
Creative_Hacker
in reply to: archeron

Seems that Doing a PRAM reset Fixes it for a while, but it soon starts up again when i eventually get onto another project having opened programs like photoshop and After effects he and there in between. 

But there must be a better solution than having to do a PRAM reset every time i get onto a new project in maya or just before I decide it is time to do a batch render. 

Thanks, so far this is the solution I have found.

Message 17 of 19

hello

 

have u checked master render layer under channel box... may be there is a cross mark on it..

1.PNG2.PNG

Message 18 of 19

I was having this problem and then i restarted maya and when i tried to render it the second time it asked me to allow maya acess which it didnt before when i did this it started to actually render so try dropping the firewall worth a shot worked for me hope this helps

Message 19 of 19
joha12c
in reply to: Creative_Hacker

Hi, I'm finding the very same error, on maya 2015... any luck on fixing this? 

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