Rendering in the background

[joe_b]

In Beta 11 we temporarily disabled the ability to render in the background. This was necessary because we wanted animations to work again, and to do so, our Render command could not allow the user to interact with Rhino until the frame was done rendering. As such, we will make a new command called RenderBackground, or something like that, to accomodate those of you who like to work in Rhino while rendering. Keep in mind, however, you won't be able to do any animation work using that command.

I just wanted to make a note of that for those of you who are concerned about this temporary change. I apologize for any inconveniance.

[Micha_cg]

Rendering in the background

Joe, thank you for making Vray for Rhino ready for animation.

Small suggestion: in Rhinoman is a small option - enable script rendering. If this is enabled, than Rhinoman dosn't allow to use Rhino during the rendering. Maybe, it's a way for Vray too. So the render command could be the same allways.

Regards Micha

[joe_b]

Rendering in the background

Joe, thank you for making Vray for Rhino ready for animation.

Small suggestion: in Rhinoman is a small option - enable script rendering. If this is enabled, than Rhinoman dosn't allow to use Rhino during the rendering. Maybe, it's a way for Vray too. So the render command could be the same allways.

Regards Micha

Thats a good idea, the reason I wanted a seperate command was to ensure that it couldn't be used incorrectly, for example, disabling "script rendering" and then rendering an animation would either crash or otherwise provide unexpected results. But then again, I guess most users would realize that was incorrect to do. How does Rhinoman react in that situation?

[Micha_cg]

Rendering in the background

I have tested it now: if I set a turntable animation at 12 frames and start rhinoman without "script enable", than the display window open and close immediately 12 times, but it dosn't seems to render anything. The display window is less than a second open. I suppose so that the display window get a open and close command from the script, but the script dosn't wait for a finished rendering. So, the user can see, something is wrong, but it dosn't seem to be a problem.

Second test with Bongo - the same. I see now at my hard disk, that 12 times the same display window is saved.

Rhinoman support two output modes - rhinoman display window and AIR frame buffer. If I use the Frame buffer mode, than only a single first frame is rendered and Rhino stop the animation in the background with the message: Unknown command: "D:\Animation\Untitled_00.BMP". Looks good.

-Micha

[joe_b]

Rendering in the background

yeah, that is the same thing that would happen to us. Thats the main reason I was thinking of seperating the commands out entirely...I don't know, do you still think its better to do it like that? I just don't like leaving holes like that. I'm interested to hear other people's opinion on the matter. I guess we could just put it in the docs somewhere explaining that you need the "script rendering" to be checked before you use any animation stuff

[Micha_cg]

Rendering in the background

The advantage of to keep only one render command is, that non animation scripts are using the render command too, for example the "render selected" script. I would like to use in the background mode too. We could say, let us modify this script for Vray for "renderbackground", but than it dosn't work for other render engines anymore. For example I use AIR for outline rendering often.
But this all is not so important, because there are not much scripts for rendering. If you build in a own "renderselected" command for Vray in background mode, than it is good too. Than I could use my script for other engines and the "VISrenderselected" for Vray.

If you build a new background render command, than we would need a new version of the renderpreview command too or is it possible to set renderpreview in background mode allways? This command would never be used per script.

-Micha

here the render selected script (it select the lightsources per automatic too)

-_RunScript (
Sub RenderSelected
Dim arrobjects, hideObjects, lights
arrObjects = Rhino.GetObjects("Select Object for Rendering" , , vbTrue, vbTrue)
lights = Rhino.ObjectsByType (256)
If IsArray (arrObjects) Then
hideObjects = Rhino.InvertSelectedObjects
If Not IsArray(hideObjects) Then
Rhino.print "Only one object in scene use regular render command"
Else
Rhino.HideObjects(hideObjects)
Rhino.command "_Render"
Rhino.showObjects (hideObjects)
Rhino.SelectObjects (arrobjects)
End If
End If
End Sub
RenderSelected
)

[joe_b]

Rendering in the background

Ok, fair enough. But I'm going to direct any people who complain their animations don't work to you

I suppose I'll put it in the global options page somewhere