(Resolved) Command line render frame numbers missing

[begem0t]

Both with Vray Standalone 6 and with Vray Houdini render from the command line I don't get frame numbers (the frames just overwrite themselves).

With Vray Standalone 5 everything works as expected. But Standalone 5 is not available in my download section, so I assume it's been phased out.

I'm currently writing the .vrayscene files from Houdini 19.5 with vray_adv_52024_houdini19.5.303_c61acc6_22130, but same stands for older nightlies, including Houdini 19.0.
I'm not using any render manager, just plain batch file on the command line. And it's Windows.

[bdancer]

> But Standalone 5 is not available in my download section, so I assume it's been phased out.

It's not phased out.

You have to use V-Ray Standalone shipped with V-Ray for Houdini, it's located under "appsdk/bin" subdirectory.

[begem0t]

Thanks, bdancer , with V-Ray from the appsdk/bin directory the frames do NOT get numbered. That's why I thought V-Ray 5 is being phased out and an early version of v6 ships with Houdini nightlies.

[Gosho.Genchev]

Hey begem0t ,

Do you have a $F token anywhere in your file output path? The behavior you are describing should not be happening, and our internal tests are behavng as expected.
I'll be happy to figure out what is happening if you'd be willing to send me an empty scene with just the V-Ray Renderer ROP inside of it so we can find out whether it's a scene setup issue or indeed a bug.

Best regards!

[begem0t]

Hi Gosho.Genchev , I've emailed you logs and a test file.

[Gosho.Genchev]

I've checked the files, turns out the issue is related to the image output override passed to the Standalone V-Ray executable.

V-Ray expects one of the following when passing a VRScene to Standalone with an output override:

vray.exe -scenefile=C:\Users\USER\projectPath\scene.vrscene -imgFile="outputFolderName/outputImageName.<frame04>.png"

The important part here is to include the <frame04> token.

or

vray.exe -scenefile=C:\Users\USER\projectPath\scene.vrscene -parameterOverride="SettingsOutput::img_dir=C:/Users/USER/projectPath/outputFolderName/" -parameterOverride="SettingsOutput::img_file=output ImageName.png"

Where those parameter overrides are referencing the SettingsOutput plugin inside the VRScene, and the img_file and img_dir parameters of SettingsOutput, respectively. You can open any VRScene with a text editor to check on your end.

Best regards!

[begem0t]

Big thanks, Gosho.Genchev for solving it!