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  • Managing Image Sequences

    Hi there,

    My team and I are currently working on a project where we are loading image sequences into a mesh light, my query works for loading/managing image sequences into Maya. We are currently finding that when sending to Vray Cloud, it's very hit and miss whether or not it'll actually show in render. The first problem we had was Maya seems to internally change the file name, eg: Image.0001.png > With 'image sequence' ticked, changes it to Image.1.png and then when sending to the cloud we got missing texture errors due to the renaming. We got around this by removing the padding, which is okay.
    We could use the <frameNum> tag, but we are finding that whilst Vray knows what this is, Maya's File Path Editor throws a warning and then when sending to the cloud, it on occasions doesn't render Also we cannot offset using <frameNum> which isn't very flexible. I've also found this to be the same for sequenced caches through the proxy object, using <frameN>, renders locally fine > send to the cloud NOPE. No warning of missing file etc, just doesn't appear.

    Just wondering how people have handled this? Whilst I think it's mostly an issue because we are sending to the cloud, I feel the way that maya handles sequenced assets and in some cases it just cannot by default.

    Cheers,
    Danny

  • #2
    Maya's always been jumpy about file sequence naming. Can't recall the naming convention/format that works the best unfortunately, but probably have a look at the docs (if there are any for this). However, are you using an expression to drive things? I think you'll get much more reliable results simply keyframing the sequence, which takes seconds (obvs just make sure your anim curve is linear). FYI, for general Maya questions like this you might want to try the HE3D Google Maya user group.

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    • #3
      Cheers SonyBoy - Like I said, locally everything seems to work just fine. It's only when we are sending to Vray Cloud that it starts being a bellend.

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      • #4
        Yes, understood, and this is the type of problem that's not uncommon with render farms. Often you never really get to the bottom of why it's happening -- it's about finding a solution.

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        • #5
          Yeah I was getting that sense....The struggle must go on!

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          • #6
            We were having exactly the same issue just before Xmas. Locally rendering fine, but deadline submissions to our farm were just going to hell with sequences (which had always worked before).

            Finall I discovered .ifl format, which was completely new to me. Basically it's a single txt file listing the paths:


            \\192.168.50.200\3d\Projects\ClientProjectClean\ma ya\sourceimages\Waterflow_RN\Waterflow_RN.0001.png
            \\192.168.50.200\3d\Projects\ClientProjectClean\ma ya\sourceimages\Waterflow_RN\Waterflow_RN.0002.png
            \\192.168.50.200\3d\Projects\ClientProjectClean\ma ya\sourceimages\Waterflow_RN\Waterflow_RN.0003.png
            \\192.168.50.200\3d\Projects\ClientProjectClean\ma ya\sourceimages\Waterflow_RN\Waterflow_RN.0004.png etc.

            and it works GREAT.

            Note that VRay also has a .IFL attribute option (menu/toggle on in file texture) which does some really handy stuff.
            The only annoying thing is the constant error that VRay can't build thumbnails, but that's just a cosmetic/QOL thing.

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            • #7
              Hey MF_Danny - can you check what version of the Chaos Cloud Client app you're using? I recall that a similar issue was fixed some time ago, so I'd recommend updating the cloud app to the latest version and checking if that helps. You can do this from here: https://cloud.chaos.com/
              Alex Yolov
              Product Manager
              V-Ray for Maya, Chaos Player
              www.chaos.com

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              • #8
                yolov we are using the latest, I saw on the cloud forum some discussion about a similar thing which I was hoping that it would solve the issue. Unfortunately it seems is hasn't.

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                • #9
                  Okay, can you help us reproduce this on our end?
                  ​​​​​​ What's the setup? Will just a meshight textured with an image sequence do it? What's the Maya and V-Ray versions?
                  Alex Yolov
                  Product Manager
                  V-Ray for Maya, Chaos Player
                  www.chaos.com

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                  • #10
                    yolov - I've been talking with your team about a similar issue with cache files, also using frame offset. Ticket number 247-986-9356, I mentioned the issues we were having with textures and I got a reply this morning saying they can reproduce both issues. But to answer your question, we are using a mesh light, animated texture with a frame offset. Maya 2019.2 and Vray 4.12.01.00001

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