Solaris Arnold does not output metadata

[masiKBS7P]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to get the same metadata on the rendered EXRs that Arnold Maya is writing out for example, at the moment only standard metadata are available but none of the Arnold specifics are there... like the diffuse_samples or memory peak info. Do you know if there is any way to write them ?
Thanks a lot. 

Cheers and have a nice day,
Matt

[Stephen.Blair · Accepted solution]

If you're using husk to render, then no. 

If you're using HtoA 6.1.1 or later, you could use the Solaris version of kick to render:

Or write out usd files and then use kick itself.

[masiKBS7P]

Hi Stephen,

Thank you I will try to use the kick instead of husk ! 🙂

Best regards and have a nice day,
Matt

[Stephen.Blair]

Actually, it's not fully exposed yet in Houdini.
We don't ship a LOP that uses it yet.  You would have to change the USD render ROP to usd the arnold render delegate and then change the render command to sick.

[david.ostler2WSX9]

You can find info on writing metadata to your husk/anrold exr files here:

https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/75992/

[david.ostler2WSX9]

Hey Stephen,

This is the only mention of sick I can find anywhere in the forums or docs.  What exactly is it and now does it differ from kick?

[Stephen.Blair]

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@david.ostler2WSX9 wrote:

Hey Stephen,

This is the only mention of sick I can find anywhere in the forums or docs.  What exactly is it and now does it differ from kick?

---

You would use sick in Solaris instead of husk.

sick is available in 6.1.2.x, but we don't ship a LOP that uses it yet.  You would have to change the USD render ROP to use the arnold render delegate and then change the render command to sick.  When we've wrapped this in our own Arnold USD render ROP, then sick will be documented and be an official feature.notes.

[bogdan.amidzic]

1. What would be benefits of sick over husk?

2. Would it work on render farm manager like deadline?

3. Does it finally render out cryptomatte passes?

4. If I add variance aov in my render var list, could these exr files be denoised with noice.exe. This is currently very urgent problem for me.

[Stephen.Blair]

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@bogdan.amidzic wrote:

1. What would be benefits of sick over husk?

2. Would it work on render farm manager like deadline?

3. Does it finally render out cryptomatte passes?

4. If I add variance aov in my render var list, could these exr files be denoised with noice.exe. This is currently very urgent problem for me.

---

The advantage is that you're not going through Hydra to render with USD. That's a side trip that just complicates everything. Rendering USD with kick is better than husk, but you can't use kick from a USD Render ROP so we will add sick for that.
You can already render cryptomatte passes with kick. sick will do that too.

sick like kick is directly rendering with Arnold, not going through Hydra, so you'll get the right metadata.

[bogdan.amidzic]

Thanks for fast answer. I'll try it.

[bogdan.amidzic]

It seems like it is working. One problem I'm facing is that sick can't create directories for render vars, but that might be some folder permissions. Other problem is that image rendered in solaris and rendered via sick have like 1000 times brightness difference. Attached are these examples:

[bogdan.amidzic]

Reply above should have been to you Stephen.

Thanks!

[Stephen.Blair]

New HtoA just out...includes

• Cryptomatte in Solaris : Cryptomatte is now supported in Solaris, including with husk renders. A new LOP Arnold Cryptomatte AOVs allows to setup the render vars needed for cryptomatte (HTOA-2011)

https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFHUG/HtoA+6.1.3.0

[masiKBS7P]

Thanks everyone for the kick and sick info. 

I have tried with sick for the metadata and cryptomatte, everything seems to be working but even when I write 5 frames it does only render 1 and stops. 

For example the command is : ./sick -i 'filepath'.usd 

Do we need to add extra flags, even if we specified the range in solaris usd rop ?

Thank you !
 

[Stephen.Blair]

---

@masiKBS7P wrote:

Thanks everyone for the kick and sick info. 

I have tried with sick for the metadata and cryptomatte, everything seems to be working but even when I write 5 frames it does only render 1 and stops. 

For example the command is : ./sick -i 'filepath'.usd 

Do we need to add extra flags, even if we specified the range in solaris usd rop ?

Thank you !
 

---

If you're using the command line, you might as well use kick.
sick is meant mostly to replace husk in Solaris.

sick, like kick, is one frame at a time.

You can run sick -h to see the list of options

[pauldonsw]

With sick, is it possible to pass custom metadata values to exr? The following works with husk but not sick, is it expecting a different attribute?

renderproduct.CreateAttribute("driver:parameters:OpenEXR:My_Value", Sdf.ValueTypeNames.String)

Thanks