Maya and Arnold's frame numbering convention on the AOV's beauty passes adds a number 1?

[Big_Rig]

Not sure exactly how to ask this question. I don’t think there is a feature to click here, but I need to ask.

When I use AOV’s in Arnold, the beauty pass gets a number one designated into the frame numbering convention that I have to renumber and rename, if later I want to play with it in the comp. Luckily, it is only on the beauty pass and the other AOV’s are perfectly numbered.

Is this to distinguish it from the other passes? It does this despite whichever Frame/Animation ext. I select. I am using render layers. My Maya is 2020.4, and my Arnold is the most current version. The current version of Arnold for Maya is MtoA 4.2.1.1. Any insight would be much appreciated. Thank you.

An example of the numbering is as follows:

Beauty_11.jpg

Beauty_12.jpg

Beauty_13.jpg

etc.

Diffuse_01.jpg

Diffuse_02.jpg

Diffuse_03.jpg

etc.

Specular_01.jpg

Specular_02.jpg

Specular_03.jpg

etc.

Coat_01.jpg

Coat_02.jpg

Coat_03.jpg

etc.

So you can see why this might be an issue, if I select one that does not designate frames separated by a dot, so I am curious why this is set up this way. What's the best practice for this? And/or is there a way around it? Thank you again in advance.

[Stephen.Blair]

Render Sequence does add "_1" to the beauty AOV. 
I remember looking into this before, I don't remember at the moment why this happens.

Use a different naming convention, such as "example_#.exr"
Then you will get example_1_0001.exr or example_1_1.exr

[Big_Rig]

Hey Stephen, Thank you for replying. I appreciate the advice.

[Stephen.Blair · Accepted solution]

The reason for the "_1" is because there are two beauty AOVs:

• One for the Maya Render View
• One for the render to disc

If MtoA didn't add the "_1", then both AOVs would have the same name and things would go wrong.

The beauty for the Maya Render View should get the "_1" suffix, imo. I'll open a ticket

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

@Big_Rig  and @Stephen.Blair 

This happens when the file name has more than 5 characters and there is no RGBA AOV added in Render Settings.

So the current solutions are:

a) Manually add the RGBA AOV to the Active AOVs in Render Settings for the beauty pass, or

b) use a file name with max. 5 characters.

[Big_Rig]

Thank you, again. I really appreciate you researching and sharing to help me understand this better.

[Big_Rig]

Thank you. I followed both of you advice. From this inquiry I gained more insight into Arnold, and learned a little better how to organize my AOV render passes. It is much appreciated.