state sets alternative

[super gnu]

I need to do multiple cameras from a scene, but need to move /rotate hide/unhide objects for the various shots. state sets doesnt support object transforms, and from what i could see on the Render Pass Manager website, that doesnt either.

so far ive saved out separate scenes for each cam, but im still actively tweaking the look, which makes managing multiple scenes a right pain.

i had a look at reindeer, mentioned in another thread, but it looks fiddly, and very non-intuitive without learning its node-based interface.. on a tight deadline this is totally unappealing.

i just want to be able to modify the scene then save a new "state" how complex should it be?

anyone point me to a nice alternative?

[fixeighted]

I would just do this all in one scene using duplicates in layers that you can simply toggle on/off; so as long as it's well organised it should be way less hassle than managing multiple scenes,
or learning other plugin capabilities, especially with live tweaks going on.

[super gnu]

yeah i did consider that, but the scene has loads of interdependencies, linked lights, lookat constraints, distance texes etc... duplicating a single changed object rapidly becomes duplicating half the scene and opens a real can of worms...

[dlparisi]

I need to do multiple cameras from a scene, but need to move /rotate hide/unhide objects for the various shots. state sets doesnt support object transforms, and from what i could see on the Render Pass Manager website, that doesnt either.

Render pass manager definitely supports object transforms as well as just about any other animated property. Your looking for the "properties" tab where you can set the "Object properties per pass".

That said, I'm not the biggest fan of rpmanager and how it works with vray 5/6 and the new frame buffer. The newest version of rpm does handle it a bit better in that it stores the vfb layers per pass though. Vfb adjustments from older scenes with vray next just get lost when upgrading however which is a bummer for me (may not be a big deal for you).Give it a try though. I'm not sure there are any other options though.

[Vizioen]

Big fan of Pulze Scene Manager and super easy to set up. Way easier than Render Pass Manager. Which is quite a mess.

You can hide/unhide objects or layers. You can save their transformations or visibilities per scene and assign cameras per scene, etc etc. Just give it a whirl it's a total life saver.

[response]

Another vote for Pulze Scene Manager. Awesome product, couldn't live without it. Will do everything you've mentioned.

[piotrus3333]

state sets with dynamic object selection and hide/unhide?
transforms if needed done via instances.

[zoranm]

he he, I am old school. Still use Selection Sets for that.

[piotrus3333]

old habits die hard. or never.

what kind of scenes are you actually working with? hundreds of objects or thousands?
animations involved? does the scene need to be easily readable for others? do you work with a few versions of a shot that have to be all constantly rerendered until the very end?
is VRay the only engine involved? as in: can you rely on some VRay tools or it all needs to be managed through Max? Plus personal preferences - do you like Max’s XRefs or they drive you crazy.

good start would be batch script by Sergo Pogosyan - a script is more reliable than a plugin, easy to modify.
you can build the complexity you require on top: it executes scene states, state sets and pre/post render scripts.

[zoranm]

old habits die hard. or never.

No, actually I use layers for some things. Big advantage of using selection sets is that you can assign one objects to multiple sets.
For me that's the biggest drawback of Layers in Max. Maybe it's just the way I work

Z

[piotrus3333]

a bit too manual for my liking but managing the scene through object naming is not automatic either. I do remember a few versions back my max was set up so it was appending layer names to objects put in those layers. it was messing with my setups at the time but might be a helpful option to consider now.

also since I’m using Arnold more and more these days - it’s Operators seem quite interesting.

btw - one thing I forgot to mention about State Sets - obj transforms can be handled through XForms.