Recommended Render Pass Manager?

[bob dobbs]

A general question for those using Max and VRay. I currently use RP Manager for commercial animation work to submit render jobs to Deadline, create visibility and property sets (among many more things) and have, for a while now, run into limitations with the way that it integrates into VRay.

One of the larger pains is that RP Manager does not auto-path file names when using the VFB for deep and .vrimg files, meaning that I have to automatically update the file output path when versioning up files and changes render layers. Also an issue with multi-channel EXR's.

Another issues is that RP Manager doesn't seem to handle Cryptomatte files correctly, so that data saved the RP Manager's SMTD script does not output data useful to comp.

There are other issues too, with the way RP Manager interfaces with VRay's render elements, Material Override exclusions, and a bunch of other small points that lead to mistakes and workarounds.

I assume that larger studios have custom-built render layer plugins or simply use 3Ds Max's built in Scene States. I have heard not to bother with scene states. Have also heard that they have improved as of Max 2018.

Anyone out there happy with alternate plugins for managing scene states, property sets, render settings, submitting to deadline, etc. ?

[^Lele^]

I was one of those to write custom pass managers, which also submitted to deadline, interfaced with shotgun, and so on and so forth.
It's generally a very collaborative, very long, very expensive, and very, very custom piece of work, often in continuous evolution during a production, and often enough rewritten from scratch, or close enough, for the next.
This is due to the very specific needs each production has, and to the style and workflow of the currently hired TD and Crew.

I never used "universal" pass managers because of those limitations you mention (which changed over the years, but were always present in one form or the other.), and to the impossibility of changing the code to suit my needs specifically: steering a whole production in the directions allowed by a tool was a lot more expensive than writing a tool which suited the production, and only that.
A very pragmatic and direct approach (i.e.: coding the minimum necessary amount of stuff which fulfilled the purpose, without ever looking up at the stars.) always saved my bacon.

TL;DR: Script yourself (or hire someone for the task) a simple one to fit your needs, and only those.

[joconnell]

+1 for the above. I started in a small studio and wrote some simple automation tools for our output, mainly starting with consistent output filenames based on the max scene. From there any time I made a dumb mistake in a submission i'd find the code to auto check that and pop it into something like deadline's sanity check as a safety net for myself (always non creative tasks).

Similar to Bob, I've found issues with a lot of off the shelf things (in some cases deadline's smtd was doing things I didn't know about which caused problems) but thankfully the thinkbox staff were very friendly in helping me modify the scripts slightly to alter these settings.

I'm not sure how active Grant Adam is regarding this but hopefully you'd be able to collaborate in getting what you want out of rpmanager while getting your hands dirty too!

[bob dobbs]

Not the answer that I wanted to hear, but needed to hear. What a daunting task for someone in the animation / lighting / simulation world to take on. Thank you for your time Lele and Joconnell.

[joconnell]

Tbh learning maxscript is going to make someone in that world far better - the ability to mass edit scenes as you see fit is a huge thing in lighting - being able to take down all your lights by a third of a stop or cool off their colour? Priceless!

There's a few dvds that are no longer sold but were uploaded to youtube and they're well worth a look - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4t9...28874&index=33