Render animation command - groups and deep data?

[simonbjork]

Hi,

I've been testing VRay in Modo recently and I must say I'm really impressed. The implementation is extremely good. It doesn't feel like a plug-in, it feels native to the application. Great job!

In my pipeline I have written a command line script where I use modo_cl to do the rendering. Basically I just call the render.animation command in a python script like this: lx.eval("render.animation {*}"). I'm still not entirely sure about how modo works with it's commands, but I think the {*} means no extra arguments (you could pass a scene path/file format for example). Anyway, if I run vray.render.animation {*} I get an error. It seems that the command doesn't expects any arguments. If I run vray.render.animation it all works as expected. But, two things:

- Is there a way to tell vray.render.animation to render deep exrs? Basically if an argument could be added to support this. Something like vray.render.animation {deepEXR}.

- It also seems that render passes are not supported. In modo I can do render.animation group:my_render_pass_group. But render passes does not seem to work in the UI either? Not sure how important it is to support render passes, I'm just asking in case I'm missing something.

Cheers!

[vladimir.nedev]

Yes, I need to extend our render commands with options to specify
- the output file name and format (currently the Final Color Output item in the Shader Tree is used to determine these)
- a render pass group from which to render all render passes
- animation range for the vray.render.animation command

You gave me a good idea to make these arguments match the same arguments from the MODO command exactly, so the MODO and V-Ray commands are as similar as possible.

But render passes does not seem to work in the UI either? Not sure how important it is to support render passes, I'm just asking in case I'm missing something.

You should be able to use render passes in V-Ray for MODO by manually switching the current render pass, hitting render, switching the render pass, rendering again and so on.
Not very convenient, but still useful until I extend the V-Ray rendering commands with the ability to render all passes in a render pass group.

- Is there a way to tell vray.render.animation to render deep exrs? Basically if an argument could be added to support this. Something like vray.render.animation {deepEXR}.

Not sure if this should be added as an option to the render commands. You can enable deep output by executing
vray.channel 0 vray_re_use_deep_output_in_modo true
before executing a rendering command.
I got this command by enabling deep output in the UI and opening MODO's Command History (F5) and then going to the Undos tab to see what was executed.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[simonbjork]

Thanks Vladimir,

the command to enable deep works well .

And it sounds great to support the same arguments as Modos native render.animation. But I don't think the modo command supports a frame range (even though it really should). It would be great if this was added to the vray command as you say.

Thanks!