V-Ray specific files and /sourceimages

[Fredrik Averpil]

Hi,

Will irradance map, .vrmesh (proxies) and other V-Ray specific filepaths be found/work when you try to access them via the relative /sourceimages/<filename> method?
I'm on an older version of V-Ray so I don't really know if the V-Ray plugin works like this...

[t.petrov]

Yes, they should work as expected.
If you find some that is not working please report it, so we can fix it.

[Fredrik Averpil]

I am having issues generating the irradiance map using a relative path. I've made sure (even in the ascii code when opening the .ma in a text editor) that the path is:

sourceimages/defaultRenderLayerImapCache.vrmap

This is the output I'm getting at a remote renderfarm we're using. Maybe we should ask them to use a newer build?

[2013/Apr/17|13:21:21] V-Ray: V-Ray for Maya version 2.20.01 from Feb 1 2012, 17:09:48 
[2013/Apr/17|13:21:21] V-Ray: V-Ray core version is 2.00.01 
Initializing V-Ray for Maya 

...

[2013/Apr/17|13:21:58] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 2m 51.2s): 10 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:07] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 1m 49.1s): 20 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:15] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 1m 22.5s): 30 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:23] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 1m 5.8s): 40 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:32] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 52.6s): 50 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:40] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 40.3s): 60 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:48] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 29.3s): 70 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:22:56] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 19.1s): 80 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:05] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 9.4s): 90 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:15] V-Ray: Merging light cache passes... 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:15] V-Ray: Light cache contains 21290 samples. 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:15] V-Ray: Prefiltering light cache... 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:15] V-Ray: Saving light cache to file ""... 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:15] V-Ray: Light cache saved successfully 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:15] V-Ray: Prepass 1 of 3... 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:17] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 12.6s): 11 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:18] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 9.3s): 22 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:19] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 7.9s): 30 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:20] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 6.8s): 40 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:21] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 5.7s): 51 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:22] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 4.4s): 60 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:23] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 3.1s): 71 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:24] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 2.2s): 80 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:25] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 0.7s): 93 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:26] V-Ray: Prepass 2 of 3... 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:28] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 17.1s): 10 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:29] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 13.6s): 21 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:31] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 10.5s): 33 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:32] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 8.9s): 40 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:33] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 6.6s): 51 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:33] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 5.0s): 60 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:35] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 4.0s): 70 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:37] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 2.6s): 80 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:39] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 1.5s): 90 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:40] V-Ray: Prepass 3 of 3... 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:44] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 37.0s): 10 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:47] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 27.5s): 21 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:50] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 24.3s): 30 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:52] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 17.7s): 40 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:52] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 12.8s): 50 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:54] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 9.2s): 60 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:23:58] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 7.8s): 70 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:01] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 5.3s): 80 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:08] V-Ray: (Estimated time remaining: 0h 0m 3.1s): 90 % completed 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray: Saving irradiance map to file "sourceimages/defaultRenderLayerImapCache.vrmap" 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray warning: Error saving irradiance map: Error opening file 
Warning: Error saving irradiance map: Error opening file 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray: Retrying to save irradiance map (0) 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray warning: Error saving irradiance map: Error opening file 
Warning: Error saving irradiance map: Error opening file 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray: Retrying to save irradiance map (1) 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray warning: Error saving irradiance map: Error opening file 
Warning: Error saving irradiance map: Error opening file 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray: Retrying to save irradiance map (2) 
[2013/Apr/17|13:24:10] V-Ray error: Could not save irradiance map 
Error: Could not save irradiance map 

...

[t.petrov]

Hm, what method are you using to send the job on the farm?

[Fredrik Averpil]

I'm not sure what you mean. I upload the maya project, with the scenes/ and sourceimages/ folders only. The Maya .ma file resides in the "scenes" folder and all textures, proxies and other things such as caches or IES files resides in the "sourceimages" folder. I try to write the irradiance map to the "sourceimages" folder as well.

Primary: Irradiance map
Secondary: Light Cache
I've ticked "do not render file" under V-Ray Global Options.

If you like I can provide you with a zip of the project with all files and folder structure intact.

[t.petrov]

I was asking what are you using to send/start the job.
Like do you use mayabatch, deadline, other farm manager, vray-standalone, etc.

So, if what happens after you upload the scene?
Are you starting Maya, MayaBatch or something else?

[Fredrik Averpil]

This is how the scene starts rendering, so it's Maya (2012, 64-bit, Windows) commandline rendering:

Render.exe -r vray -proj <projpath> -s <startframe> -e <endframe> <scene>

[t.petrov]

It has turned out that V-Ray doesn't support relative paths for the various maps, yet.

There is one workaround for Maya Batch tough.
Try the following (if you're allowed to execute commands on the remote farm):

1. set the path to be relative to the root of the project, make sure you have no '/' or '\' characters at the beginning of the path
2. open cmd window
3. cd "to the directory where the workspace.mel file is"
4. execute the Render command

We tried this on one of our machines and it worked as expected for the irradiance map.

[Fredrik Averpil]

Hi again and thank you for the workaround. We don't have this level of control, unfortunately.

It would be great if the irradiance map could be both written and read "relatively" in future versions of V-Ray for Maya though. Do you think such a feature could make it into the next major release?

[t.petrov]

Yes, I've already added it to the ToDo list. So we won't forget about it.

[Fredrik Averpil]

That's great. Thank you very much.