Rendering specific frame ranges in one go

[Anonymous]

Hi folks,

is there a way to set the frame range for rendering to sort of this:

001-200, 400-600, 900-1000

So that it just skips 200-400 and so on.

Would be great!

Maya 2015, win8 64bit

thx, best

erik

[halfstone · Accepted solution]

Not a lot of time to give a detailed answer, but your solution is to create a batch script outside of Maya.  

Open up a text file in your scenes directory, and in it write: 

render -s 100 -e 200 -b 1 myfile.ma;

render -s 300 -e 200 -b 1 myfile.ma;

render -s 500 -ee 700 -b 1 myfile.ma;

pause;

save this with a unique name (myrender.txt), then rename it to "myrender.bat".  Double click on the file to launch the render. 

Look up "command line rendering" for additional flags - anything not stated in your batch script will refer to the settings in the render settings window on the saved file. 

[halfstone]

Incidentally, if you want to take the chance of disabling your firewall software and enabling MAPISEND, you can enter a command at the end of the batch script to text you when your renders are done, or after each incremental line.  If you are rendering to a cloud-based space (like Dropbox, for example), you can receive the text on your smartphone from your poolside chaise-lounge, and log in and check your images while ordering another Margarita. 

If you don't want to disable the firewall, you can dig out your old modem from the attic and have the script send a call-string to do the same thing.  

Or you can insert a call to mediaplayer.exe to play an alarm sound while you're sleeping under your desk. 

[Anonymous]

This sounds interesting, what command line would this be?

[halfstone]

Not sure I understand your question - I posted an example of a batch script that would take care of the job; you need to save this in the same folder as the scene(s) you want to render with a *.bat extension instead of *.text; double-click on the file and it will launch.  

"Command Line Rendering" should be a section in the Maya help documentation; you can read that to learn of the various options 

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot I understand.

[Anonymous]

This needs to be remedied. I have found this "solution" so many times for Maya... Maya users *should* be, first and foremost, artists - not coders. The only reason I even mention it is because my background in Blender, at MOST, had me add in plugins now and than. Working in Maya is difficult enough as it is...

[Anonymous]

Maya is difficult but please can I remind you that anything is possible in Maya is just isnt and cannot all be documented. But I feel your frustration, next time if this occurs.

I would highly suggest creating Render Layers for your scene, place everything in your scene into a collection so each layer is the same as one another, do this for each frame 'segment'' you want to render, start by clicking the Eye or Visible Icon on the Layer you want,  go to the render settings and right click on the frame range, click 'Absolute Override Visible Layer' and type the start range, repeat for the end range.

Do this for each section you want to render, you can then have 5 layers for instance rendering 5 different frame ranges on one file all at once without you needing to manually set it up each time. make sure each layer is set to render, and that is it sorted!

hope it help!

[liepins444]

This only works if you aren't already using render layers for, well, rendering layers... It's a hack that works for beauty only I guess but is far from any valuable solution to a fully built scene. Maybe the idea is duplicate all layers for every range, and that's not really a viable for users on a production. Maya should simple replace start and end frame with a single string field that we can format. Nuke for exmaple lets you enter ranges or frames and seprate them with comas, done and done. It's not hard, they literally just do not care.