Multipass EXR without splited render elements

Deadline
1

Deadline 4.1
V-Ray Adv 1.50.SP5
Cebas OpenEXR Plugin 1.0.1.6

We are rendering multipass EXRs with the setup specified above. Everything works fine, but the render elements are still stored in several files besides the multipass EXR. Is there a way to store the render elements only in the EXR and avoid the storing of the splited render elements in several files?

Regards
Chris

2

Can you not save the EXR’s out of the VRay Frame buffer?
Although th eVRay frame buffer states *.vrimg files, you can actually change the file format to *.exr and it will produce multi-channel EXR’s. Deadline repsects this setup. However bear in mind that VRay frame buffer is tile based and hence the EXR’s are tile based that it produces, which is fine if you are compositing in Toxik and Fusion BUT not if you are using Nuke. In which case, you will need to convert the tile-based EXR’s to scanline based EXR’s. See the Chaos Group “Tools” menu section for more info on a possible option to achieve this, or build a plugin in Deadline to do it for you or if you’re feeling brave, download the OpenEXR source code and compile your own solution :slight_smile:
Hope this helps.

3

Under the Render tab in the 3dsmax job submitter, there should be an “Ignore Render Elements” option. If you enable that, Deadline shouldn’t process the render elements separately.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
4

Thank you for you replies.

We worked trough the whole VFB thing because we are using Nuke and wanted the EXRs to be scanline based. We thought about writing a converter but it wasn’t necessary with our former pipeline setup (Cebas OpenEXR Plugin and Backburner).

If we unable the “Ignore Render Elements” option Deadline doesn’t process the render elements separately but then the render elements in the multipass EXR got black.

Regards,
Chris

5

Hi Chris,

This looks like a bug. The intent behind this option was to still process REs, just not save them, but the way it’s implemented, they don’t get processed at all, which explains the black results you’re seeing. We will fix this for the next release, but unfortunately for the time being you may have to deal with the additional RE files. Hopefully this isn’t too much of a pain.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
6

Hi Ryan,

glad to hear this. It’s not a big issue to delete the unwanted files. We were just a little bit confused. :wink:

Regards,
Chris