Question about Vray Standalone

[duckie]

on the linux box I'm getting this error:

Error: Failed to open display "".
Error: wxWidgets could not open display. Exiting.

Okay found the fix in another thread. Basically for linux the work around is to add this flag -display=0

[duckie]

Thank you. I see it now, I must have read that several times and it didn't sink in.

That was successful on the mac but on the linux box I'm getting this error:

Error: Failed to open display "".
Error: wxWidgets could not open display. Exiting.

Do you know what might be causing this?

[vlado]

Ah, sorry, I thought this is what you wanted. If you want to render a .vrscene, the command is

/Applications/Autodesk/maya2012/vray/bin/vray -scenefile="v-ray scene file"

as explained in the PDF installation guide.

Best regards,
Vlado

[duckie]

But when I run the vrayslave command, it enters 'server mode - waiting for render requests on port 20207...'
So how do I specify a vrscene?

[vlado]

Just run the vrayslave command.

Best regards,
Vlado

[duckie]

You need to run V-Ray Standalone for this; depends on your OS, but on Windows, go to Start Menu > Programs Chaos Group > V-Ray for Maya > V-Ray Standalone command prompt. This will open a console window with the options of V-Ray Standalone.

Hi vlado,
I'm trying to do this on mac OSX and also on Linux. I did a vrayslave install only on both machines and I can't find a V-Ray Standalone. Where should I look?

On the mac machine I have
/Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Maya2013-x64/bin
and
/Applications/Autodesk/maya2013/vray/bin

On the linux machine I have
/usr/autodesk/maya2013-x64/vray/bin
and
/usr/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Maya2013-x64/bin

On both machines these are the binaries that exist:
imapviewer
img2tiledexr
initVRaySlaveDaemon
ply2vrmesh
registerVRaySlaveDaemon
startVRaySlaveDaemon
stopVRaySlaveDaemon
unregisterVRaySlaveDaemon
vrayslave
vrimg2exr

I can't find a V-Ray standalone binary anywhere - where should I be looking?

Thanks

[t.petrov]

Thanks Vlado. Really appreciate your replies Interesting how we can choose RT for the stand alone too. What's the advantage of RT? Speed?

You can use -rtEngine=1 (cpu) or vray -rtEngine=3 (for opencl/gpu rendering).
If you want your rendering to finish you need to set a time limit or a paths per pixel limit in the RT Engine options in Maya.

[vlado]

Thanks Vlado. Really appreciate your replies Interesting how we can choose RT for the stand alone too. What's the advantage of RT? Speed?

The RT engine is quite a bit faster at raytracing than the regular production renderer (of course, partly due to the fact that some things are not supported). It can be very useful for quick previews of still images or animations, and in some cases even for final images. It supports most of the features of the production renderer (on the CPU anyways) including hair, fur, displacement, subdivision surfaces etc. When rendering from the standalone, it also supports motion blur.

Best regards,
Vlado

[bigbossfr]

RT is the IPR in Maya. Normaly, you use it to work, but no to render the "final" image because it is very limited.
It is to speed up the workflow.

[jpenguin]

Thanks Vlado. Really appreciate your replies Interesting how we can choose RT for the stand alone too. What's the advantage of RT? Speed?

[vlado]

Hi. More question about vrscene.

So I set up the scene to save vrscene from render globals, how do I tell Maya to start exporting?

When I render the scene, Maya also gives me vrscene file. Is there a way to export only the vrscene without having to do the render?

The topmost checkbox in the "Translator" dialog allows you to turn off the actual rendering, so that only a .vrscene is exported.

how to I render the vrscene file?

You need to run V-Ray Standalone for this; depends on your OS, but on Windows, go to Start Menu > Programs Chaos Group > V-Ray for Maya > V-Ray Standalone command prompt. This will open a console window with the options of V-Ray Standalone.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jpenguin]

hmm by the way, how to I render the vrscene file?

[jpenguin]

Hi. More question about vrscene.

So I set up the scene to save vrscene from render globals, how do I tell Maya to start exporting?

When I render the scene, Maya also gives me vrscene file. Is there a way to export only the vrscene without having to do the render?

[vlado]

Do you think vray stand alone will be able to handle scene with strange mental ray nodes?

Since the .vrscene file format is designed for V-Ray specifically it won't contain any mental ray stuff. The V-Ray for Maya plugin takes care of translating (or ignoring) the different parts of the scene, so if comes across a node that it doesn't understand, it will most likely skip it.

This is the case we're having right now actually. Our rigs are provided from another studio and they already have quite a lot of mental ray nodes connected in ways we can't really figure out. When referencing/importing these characters into Maya we got tons of errors about mental ray connections. These scenes would render fine using mental ray if open in Maya first and render from the GUI, but fail completely trying to render with command line. Sometimes we get message that maya batch crashes, sometimes it says Maya exit with code 210, 211.

This sounds more like a Maya issue...

Best regards,
Vlado

[jpenguin]

We're certain the problem is with Mental Ray, because the very same scene can still be rendered with command line using 3delight (even if we get the same mental ray connection errors).