Critical: Settings from vray frame buffer is also affecting batchmode.

[jbvfx]

When rendering in batchmode the settings from the vray frame buffer is used to render.

Since 'vray stable 16302' we get framestamps on all our renders and it only renders the selected region from the frame buffer. If we disable the framebuffer, it renders fine.

Is this a feature or a regression?

I've attached a simple scene:

vrayFail.zip

[vlado]

This is a side effect of enabling the V-Ray VFB in batch mode, and this was how things worked some time ago as well. I would not say it's a bug - you may actually want to do both the stamp and the region for batch renders. You can add a pre-render MEL that turns the VFB off (or any other VFB options) if you don't need it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jbvfx]

I must say that this doesn't make any sense. It means that you have to either disable the framebuffer(pre-render MEL) or make sure you haven't enabled regionrender or timestamp in the framebuffer, everytime you submit a render to batch.

How about having a checkbox for using V-Ray VFB in batch mode (which should be off by default)?

[jbvfx]

We're also getting the following errors from our render management software Royal Render, which kills the job:

R355| *Handled render window: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' 'Render history settings' '' click on: 'Button'-'OK'
R356| ***Render Window 1*** found. Please report to RR support. Please report to RR support.
R357| *prc: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' Class: 'wxWindowClassNR' Title: 'Render history' Controls: 'Button-Enable VFB history, Button-Options, Button-Save, Button-Load, Button-Remove, Button-Clear, '
R358| ***Render Window 2*** found. Please report to RR support. Please report to RR support.
R359| *prc: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' Class: 'wxWindowClassNR' Title: 'Pixel information' Controls: 'Button-Corrected colors, '
R360| ***Render Window 3*** found. Please report to RR support. Please report to RR support.
R361| *prc: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' Class: 'wxWindowClassNR' Title: 'Stamp variables window' Controls: 'Button-Copy to stamp, '
R362| ***Render Window 4*** found. Please report to RR support. Please report to RR support.
R363| *prc: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' Class: 'wxWindowClassNR' Title: 'Color corrections' Controls: 'wxWindowClassNR-panel, wxWindowClassNR-panel, wxWindowClassNR-panel, wxWindowClassNR-panel, '
R364| *Handled render window: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' 'Render history settings' '' click on: 'Button'-'OK'
R365| ***Render Window 7*** found. Please report to RR support. Please report to RR support.
R366| *prc: 'MAYABATCH.EXE' Class: '#32770' Title: 'Render history settings' Controls: 'Button-&Ja, Button-&Nej, Static-The path "" does not exist. Would you like to create it?, '

[vlado]

How about having a checkbox for using V-Ray VFB in batch mode (which should be off by default)?

That could be an option, indeed.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

We're also getting the following errors from our render management software Royal Render, which kills the job:

You will have to teach it to ignore these windows. Not sure how this is done for Royal Render, I know that Deadline has options to ignore dialogs.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

I must say that this doesn't make any sense.

Quite a few people specifically requested that we enable the VFB for batch rendering

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

How about having a checkbox for using V-Ray VFB in batch mode (which should be off by default)?

I also agree with this suggestion (especially the "off by default").
Cheers.

[jbvfx]

Quite a few people specifically requested that we enable the VFB for batch rendering

Well.. to me it doesn't make sense to use the framebuffer in batchmode.. it seems that the only reason to use it is to do region renders or embed timestamps. In the previous versions of vray you could enable timestamps in 'Render Globals' and specify the region to render with the '-reg' flag. I don't see how we benefit from enabling the framebuffer in batchmode.

Even though some people may find this change usefull it should be an optional setting and not forced like it is now.

[alainfx]

We lost one night of render today because of that render region...
So we are going to add this "setAttr "vraySettings.vfbOn" 0;" in pre-render mel everywhere, but it's really cumbersome.
Because you can't simply add it in the Render Settings, as it would switch off the vfb from GUI too when previewing, we will have to add it on the command line.
That will imply changing our dispatcher scripting (we already use that pre-render mel for someting else).

The default behaviour should be the most logical one (VFB is used for preview only, not batch).

[vlado]

Yep, I already entered this as a feature request...

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

Yep, I already entered this as a feature request...

Thanks Vlado.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

It's done. You will find 2 new options under "Use V-Ray VFB" in VRay common settings

[alainfx]

Thanks !!!!!!!!!!
That's the kind of thread I show to people that still use other renderers, it demonstrates the quality of support we get with VRay.
With another vendor I would have to wait for 6 months...