I’m looking for a solution to render Render Elements in a different format from the main render. On large animation projects we don’t always need the same file format or bit depth for all the elements and this could save us a tremendous amount of space on our server.
Set render output location via VFB under Separate render channels, file format is exr.
Created two new render elements. Manually changed their path to the same location as above and manually changed extension their extension to jpg.
No options besides Enable Local Rendering is on under 3ds Max Pathing in the SMTD.
If I view the job properties in the monitor it shows the correct path and file extension for all the files, but the RE are never saved out to the directory.
Is there an easy way to do this? I’ve also written a simple Post-Load script that changes the file extensions on the render elements and it seems to do nothing. Not sure what is happening.
Out of curiosity, what happens when you disable Local Rendering too? In that case 3ds Max (or the renderer if using V-Ray) will write straight to the unmodified path without any Deadline manipulation. At that point any problems could be blamed on Autodesk
Thanks for the quick response. If I disable Local Rendering using the same scenario as described in my first Test, the output renders but it’s extension is changed to .exr, the main render format. There is a small wrinkle and possibly this is Vray renaming? The render output name as described by the job info in deadline does not match the actual file names.
Either V-Ray or 3ds Max is doing the renaming, not 100% sure which one. You can do a test with Scanline Renderer and a few of its Render Elements, and see if it does the same. My understanding is that 3ds Max insists on keeping Render Elements and its main output in the same format. If you are using only the V-Ray VFB output and not specifying anything in the Common tab, then it is likely V-Ray doing it.
Have figured out how to do it if anyone else stumbles upon this:
Set main output type (ie .exr) using the Render Setup → Common Tab → Render Output - Save File.
Under Render Setup → V-Ray Tab → Frame Buffer-> make sure ‘Separate render channels’ is unchecked.
Disable the V-Ray frame buffer. ‘Enable built-in frame buffer’ should be unchecked.
Update your render element outputs to the correct location and extension for what you want (ie .jpg) . (I’ll probably write a script to do this.)
In Deadline’s SMTD under the Render tab, and the 3ds Max Pathing section, have nothing checked.
Submit.
Now we can send animation jobs to the farm, have the main render/beauty pass and some of the elements be 16bit exrs and then have the rest of the elements as jpg. This should help us cut down on storage space when rendering long and high res animation jobs.
