[Maya 2022, VRay 5] Cannot Export Render Element

[saddington_baynes]

Hi there,

I've recently been looking at making some tools which were compatible with maya 2018/vray 3 work with maya 2022/vray 5. I've encountered an issue which seems odd to me, and I am unsure if it is a bug or intended behavior.

Steps to produce the issue:

• Go to a new scene in maya.
• Add a new render element to the scene (I've been testing with a range of different types, particularly diffuse vray render elements).
• Select the render element node.
• Export selection to a maya ascii file.
• Save the whole scene down to a maya ascii file.

The expected behavior for me here would be the vray render element being present in both the scene I saved, and the scene I exported. Using maya 2018 and vray 3, this is what happens.

However, when I follow the same steps in maya 2022 and vray 5, the render element does not appear in the exported file (it is still in the saved file). I cannot see it when I import the scene back into maya, and I can see when I open the exported in a text editor there is a requires field up top saying that -nodeType "VRayRenderElement" is required, but no actual node entry in the body of the file.

Is anyone able to confirm they have seen the same issue? Do we know if this is intended behavior?

Thank you,

Ben

[hermit.crab]

Seems to work with V-Ray 3, indeed. Not sure what's happening on newer builds. What's the issue with using the regular Render Elements export options (Presets>Export/Import AOV and the "Save option", which exports respectively .json and .mb)? Also, are you using the Render Setup Layers or the Legacy layers system?

[saddington_baynes]

Hi there, thanks for the reply! Honestly, I hadn't considered the save button within the render settings window. I can see that this calls a method in the vray api, so I'll do some testing and see if that works for our needs, and report back.

We're using the new style render setup layers as opposed to the legacy layers system, as far as I am aware.

[saddington_baynes]

Okay that seems to do what I'm after. I had a look at the docstring for vray_maya_utils.vrayImportAOV and I noticed that it talks about temporarily disabling "Maya's attempts to stop us importing AOVs outside Render setup menus". So I'm guessing it's actually the behaviour of maya itself that changed in recent versions, perhaps.

[sean_willis]

Hello! We are experiencing this same issue in Vray 6 for Maya update 1.2.

The render setup workaround does not work for us as can't export light select elements and memberships properly.

Is there a way to get the default behavior back from Vray?

[hermit.crab]

The render setup workaround does not work for us as can't export light select elements and memberships properly.

It should work when saving through the "Save" option below the render elements window. Importing the VRayLightSelect RE this way will include the set (attached lights).

[sean_willis]

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, it still does not export the LightSelect elements. Previously light-rigs would be exportable with all other scene contents.

(Maya 2020.2)

[hermit.crab]

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, it still does not export the LightSelect elements. Previously light-rigs would be exportable with all other scene contents.

(Maya 2020.2)

Please, send a scene and a video reproduction. Maybe I am misunderstanding the issue.