Caustics - Photon Map Formatting Tokens

[Kaisertod]

Hi Everyone,

I am generating photon maps for 56 unique bodies of water (each in its own state), and rendering each body of water for 24 frames with different materials (using vrayswitch to change materials for each frame)... In an effort to automate each aspect, I would prefer to not generate the photon map for each frame, but rather for each state. While I know about the %04d formatting token, I cannot seem to find any others that I could use that would isolate the photon maps generated for only that state... i.e. render frame 0 of each state in the state set and then have each photon map be named uniquely and saved. Then call that saved photon map for each of the 24 frames. From my perspective it seems like it should be able to be done, whether it be a unique time stamp in the filename of each photon map, or even better a way to call the StateName from Max.

I cannot seem to find a list of formatting tokens that are available, are they documented somewhere you could point me to? Or perhaps you have a suggestion of a different solution..

Thanks in advance,

Scott

[hermit.crab]

You can do this with the Scene States themselves.

1. Create Scene States that generate Caustics

a. Set Caustics mode to 'New Map' and give it a unique name
b. Activate "Don't render final image" from the Global Switches
c. Switch to single-frame mode and go to frame 0

2. Create Scene States with pre-calculated Caustics

a. Set Caustics mode to 'From File'
b. Set the name and folder to match the generated .vrpmap from the previous state
c. Set your frame range
d. Set a VRaySwitchMtl, the keying of which will control the material per frame
e. Set an output image directory

3. Render All States (States are rendered from top to bottom, so make sure the positioning is correct)