output passes to separate folders

[Morbid Angel]

I know this feature exists in maya, but it's not yet in max. It would be great to have it!

[joconnell]

It's in deadline if you're using that - it actually caused me a huge amount of problems when it automatically renamed and repathed elements on submission - totally screwed up another system based on naming conventions

[joconnell]

Actually on that note I've a script I wrote to set up output file names based on a root path for renders, the scene file name and your render element name if that's any use.

[Morbid Angel]

yeah this wish is not for me...

[tashko.zashev]

Hi,

This is added in our "to do" list already.
Hope it will be implemented soon.
A related thread :
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...eperate-folder

[joconnell]

Hi Tashko,

If it's not too far down the development line, would it be possible to get the naming based on some kind of token system? Kind of like the %1, %2 %3 type of thing you commonly see in mp3 file tagging? Or even %folder %passname or something along the lines of that?

[vlado]

It's not impossible, though it is some work... what kind of tokens would you need?

Best regards,
Vlado

[joconnell]

If it's work then leave it, I've got a lot of it sorted in maxscript personally. Stuff like max filename, camera, element name, date and so on - the type of things that'd be useful for version tracking?

[trixian]

multiple +1s from me. Has this not been requested before (a long long time ago)?

[joconnell]

I presume this is when you're outputting separate passes via the frame buffer? Or are you talking about using max render elements?

[trixian]

Personally i was hoping for these tokens in any vray related file dialogue

[Rens]

Ah yes this would be really great!

I've always liked the tokens that Softimage uses:
http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/...hTemplates.htm

It gives a lot more freedom and flexibility. Note the frame padding as well.
If you have the render element token then you would need only one line to set up the shot for all the render elements.

An issue might be if you need the render elements in a subfolder of the beauty.
Options would be to either use two file name boxes, one for the beauty and one for the elements.
Or use a token which will be ignored when it comes to the beauty/rgb_colour image, e.g.
D:\[project]\[shot]\[task]\[version]\[renderElemSub]\[sceneName]_[renderElemSub].[framepadding].exr -- For REs in sub-folders. The underscore might be somewhat of an issue though, if you'd want to get rid of that for the rgb_col.
D:\[project]\[shot]\[task]\[version]\[renderElem]\[sceneName]_[renderElem].[framepadding].exr -- For everything in its own folder.
D:\[project]\[shot]\[task]\[version]\[sceneName]_[renderElem].[framepadding].exr -- The current everything in one folder.

Custom creatable and definable tokens like [project] and [shot] etc. would be really useful as well.

[KiboOst]

Actually on that note I've a script I wrote to set up output file names based on a root path for renders, the scene file name and your render element name if that's any use.

Maybe offtopic but I have written such script for renderelements, and the problem I have is getting the good options for file formats. Like png 8bit, without alpha, exr half or float, rgb or rgba etc. I can't get these settings working with maxscript, any insight on this ?

[joconnell]

Yep - I can get formats, it's only decided by the name of the file you put at the end but they haven't exposed certain important parts. For example I use EXR for everything and it doesn't give you access to the 16 bit / 32 bit options or RGBA / integer and so on.

All of the controls are listed under the topic bitmapIO in the maxscript docs, but as you say some parts of the image options aren't exposed to maxscript.

[KiboOst]

Well, all options I need are exposed to maxscript, but works totally heraticaly. sometimes works, sometimes not, sometimes do the opposite ... nothing robust
-- EXR interface settings
fopenexr.setLayerOutputFormat 0 1 -- 0:Full 1:Half 2:Integer
fopenexr.setLayerOutputType 0 1 -- 0:RGBA 1:RGB 2:Mono
fopenexr.SetCompression 2 -- 0:None 1:RLE 2:ZLIB(per scanline) 3:ZLIB(block of 16) 4:PIZ
fopenexr.setSaveScanline true -- false:tiles true:scanlines
fopenexr.setSaveRegion false -- false:full image true:region
-- PNG interface settings
pngio.setType #true24
pngio.setAlpha false
pngio.setInterlaced false