how to render with stingray

[Anonymous]

hello to all

I'm wondering how can I save image sequences for making video cutscenes etc 

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering why animation is constantly overlooked , that has nothing to do with interactive environment , I'm an animator I don't want to render my animation 15 min per frame and wait 1 month for my 1.5 min animation or I don't want to pay 500$ for render-farm for every min of animation
and it is vital for me to see the result immediately without cost because every time I look at my work I find too many goofs , but I don't have a second chance not have more money , energy and time
the quality of stingray is absolutely enough for anybody
you can render an image with it that doesn't differ with software rendering but it is thousands of times faster

[ThomasPasieka]

While I am all in favor or being able to render out a animation via Stingray, I would also like to point out a cost effective and very fast renderer called "Ocatane" render by Otoy. It uses your GPU so a good graphic card is key.

[ustaevb]

Stingray render quality is very good, and will only get better.  Our focus has been games workflows for Stingray, but as Frank and Tobias stated rendering frames is on our radar.  We have other people asking for this as well.  🙂  

[Anonymous]

Ocatane is good but still much slower that what I want , in the most optimistic case it may be 10 times faster than CPU but not thousands
1.5 GPU vs 15 min CPU but still 1.5 min a frame means 3 days rendering for 1.5 min animation

also it is limited to your vram
Redshift renderer would be a better option which is not limited to vram but still a game engine is what I need for all my rendering work

[andrew.grant · Accepted solution]

Find attached a small example project with a custom LUA flow node to render movie frames.

Please note:

• The render path is in the settings.ini under script_data (“render_movies_directory”)
• If the render path doesn’t exist it will error
• See flow_callbacks.lua and project.lua for the lua code
• see global.script_flow_nodes for the node definition

[ddesmarais]

I agree. Stingray is almost useless for ArchViz if there is no option to export an animation. We will stick to UNREAL for now for all of our gaming needs until this is sorted out. 

We dont always have time or budget to render out of 3DS Max and UNREAL has absolutely solved this issue with their ability to export animations. Not sure why autodesk would design a software that will be competing with FREE engines and not have the same capabilities. 

[ddesmarais]

I really hope this is priority. Coming from an extremely large fully integrated architectural firm dealing with some of the worlds largest projects, it is an absolute neccessity to have the ability to render out 30,000 frames with the speed real time engines can render for our clients. Not every client wants or cares to have the ability to control their movements (although we try to push this). A lot of the time the buldings are so large and certain projects require studies that need set paths. Doing 30,000 frames in 3DS Max is not cost effective nor time effective. UNREAL engine has been paramount to the success of some of our proejcts with the ability to render out animations in minutes on a single machine at no cost, vs sending to a render farm and paying high costs to render from 3ds max. 

Stingray looks promising, but realistically without the ablitly to export animations at ease and a user friendly way, it will never be a logical solution for archviz. 

[ddesmarais]

Exactly

[dan.matlack]

Hi @ddesmarais,

Stingray can render out frames the same as Unreal. Andrew included a sample above as the solution to this post. Moving forward, we will be making this feature more robust with a focus on export settings as well. Thanks!

[ddesmarais]

That is great to hear. If we can integrate stingray into our revit to 3ds max workflow and keep all of our projects in autodesk software, then we can definitely be more efficient. Would be neat to see the keyframing transfer from 3ds max over (if it doesnt already)

[dan.matlack]

@ddesmarais 

I would also recommend checking out Expo. You can go from Revit directly into Stingray. Go sign up for the beta and check it out. http://projectexpo.autodesk.com/

The workflow is pretty much Revit > Cloud > Stingray ... then at that point, you can create apps, navigatable levels, lighting, structural testing, wind flow, ... pretty much anything you can think of in a 3d environment. And then yes, spit out frames you can compile into a movie for sharing if you wanted to do that as well. 

[ddesmarais]

Thanks, signed up. It will be interesting to see how it handles our massive projects. Looking forward to an easy solution for viz

[Anonymous]

Hi Andrew, 

will you be posting/ making a tutorial on how to use this LUA flow node to render movies.

Regards.

[Anonymous]

Hi Dan,

is there a tutorial or something I could follow to use the Lua Flow node to make movies made by Andrew? Im a complete newbe in this area so you know. 

Regards,

[dan.matlack]

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/stingray/stingray-render-to-frames-movie-video/td-p/5944853

[Anonymous]

why dont you give any real answers the tutorila about how to render frames is never working it is just working in the version thaht is used in tutorial please make or tell how to render out frames for other versions as i the tutorial

[andrew.grant]

alican_90 - what version are you using?

[DaveGilbertESa]

Andrew,

How close are you to adding the ability to export hi res images and animations without having to mess with code? I would like to use Stingray for archviz to produce high quality still images, animations, and also VR environments.

I just upgraded to 1.6, and noticed that it only captures .exr files. Is there any plan to provide a feature that will capture .jpg, .png and .mp4 formats?

If I am going to devote a lot of time to creating an environment inside of Stingray to walk through in VR, I would like to be able to use all of that for still renders and animations, without having to recreate it in another software.

Please tell me this feature is coming soon!

[ddesmarais]

100% agree. There needs to be full capabilities to EASILY set up cameras and export renders and animations like 3DS Max or Maya. Needs to be user friendly for us artists. 

[DaveGilbertESa]

Exactly! Game designers are used to dealing with code, but not architects and archviz people. If Autodesk seriously wants to sell this to their Revit customers it has got to be plug-n-play. It's great that the code is there to play with if you want to, but you shouldn't have to for basic functionality.