Maya - Ranch Computing
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1. When your project is ready to send to the RANCH check that there is only one mb scene your main scene at the root of the scenes directory otherwise the project will be rejected by the automated server That being said you can use several other referenced scenes mb files in your project but they must not be at the root of the scenes directory They can however be placed in a scenes Weferences subdirectory like in the example below Be MyProject ie 3dPaintTextures assets men autosave 3 data en images amp particles amp renderData El scenes E mayaSwatches 3 edits Lj REFERENCES 3 sourceimages C3 scenes C mayaSwatches 3 scenes PA AnotherScene mb mayaSwatches edits LZ mayaSwatches BB RefScene1 mb edits REFERENCES edits n MA RefScene2mb Lj REFERENCES PB MainScene mb e REFERENCES Mire fScene3 mb 4 Your project should look like this 1f some of these directories are empty you do not need to include them 3dPaintTextures 02 02 2011 20 48 assets 02 02 2011 20 48 autosave 02 02 2011 20 48 dips 02 02 2011 20 48 data 02 02 2011 20 48 DXF Dc 02 02 2011 20 48 C fur 02 02 2011 20 48 image 02 02 2011 20 48 images 02 02 2011 20 48 IPT DC 02 02 2011 20 48 mel 02 02 2011 20 48 mentalRay 02 02 2011 20 48 partides 02 02 2011 20 48 derD 02 02 2011 20 48 _JrenderScenes 02 02 2011 20 48 scenes 02 02 2011 20 48 sound 02 02 2011 20 48 sourceimages 022. project txt SEE Fichier Edition Format Affichage 12345 R Train vua Then compress it in Zip format do not use another compression technique and rename the newly created archive as a vua file here we choose the name Train2 vua As you can see this fake project file contains only the necessary information to gather the referenced project R_Train vua on the RANCH and use its data to render Train2 vua below 5 CARF donelTrainz vua Hom Taille Eleferenced_project txt 206 You can now upload this fake vua project which only weights a few KB to the RANCH Obviously the referenced project must already exist on the RANCH either because it has already been rendered or because it is in the waiting list and has already been validated If the referenced project cannot be found or has not been validated the new project will be rejected Appendix A frame preview The RANCH offers you a very handy feature for checking visually your animation project when it is being rendered It displays 256 pixel wide thumbnails of a large sample of rendered frames on a web page specific to your inprogress project To access this page you just have to click on the RU button which appears when your project is being rendered and of course if there is something to preview if each frame of your animation takes 30 minutes to render obviously there will be nothing to see during the first 30 minutes Below 1s an exampl
3. 02 2011 20 48 textures 02 02 2011 20 48 Ga workspace mel 2Ko 18 06 2010 14 11 5 You can now use RANCH packer to convert your Maya project to a ready to render project archive RANCHpacker will compress the files into a RANCH for Maya project archive vua that you can directly upload to the RANCH 3 Referenced projects or how to save upload time If you have several scenes which use the same assets textures you can use our Local Assets function see appendix B of this guide to upload these assets once and for all But what can you do if you have to render the exact same scene several times but with different parameters It can happen if you want to render the scene first in low definition for a test and then at full resolution you want to split a lengthy animation into several smaller sequences you want to render the same scene but with a different camera To do this without having to re upload the entire scene you can reference a project previously sent to the RANCH All you have to do is create a text file named referenced project txt wich must contain two lines the ID number of the referenced project and its name In the example below let s say that you have previously sent an animation project named R Train vua with the ID 12345 and now you want to send a new project named Train2 vua using the exact same scene and assets but with different settings First create the referenced project txt file P referenced
4. square is _unchecked_ otherwise frame output will not work correctly on the RANCH Frame Range start frame End frame 99 000 By frame 1 000 Renumber frames e If you use Maxwell Render as the render engine for your Maya animation project please verify that the values for Render Time minutes and Sampling Level are correct as you will not be able to change them in the Maya Submit project form General Settings Quality Production Render Time minutes 30 000 i Sampling Level 14 Output Image Depth a BPP Number of Threads ooo pEI MM Global Scale Factor ron E Attenuation Scale Factor roo 1 Displacement Scale Factor roo D The Render Time value entered here is the maximum render time in minutes for each frame of the animation not for the entire animation This render time does not include the preparation voxelization time We recommend that you always use a Sampling Level to stop the render for each frame instead of a time limit to do so enter a very high value in Render Time so that the SL will always be reached before the time limit This 1s the best way to ensure that each frame of the animation will have exactly the same image quality 2 Scene preparation before sending the project to the RANCH As the RANCH is entirely automated you need to send your scene in a project archive which contai
5. The RANCH RenderFarm User Guide Part II the RANCH for Maya www ranchcomputing com 15 12 09 December 9 2015 Welcome to the RANCH automated rendering service the super powerful and affordable supercomputer for all your Maya projects This document contains information specific to the use of Maya on the RANCH Before reading it we highly recommend you read Part I first the General Guide which includes everything not specifically related to Maya Summary of supported render engines The RANCH supports Maya 2010 to 2016 x64 projects Che Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 Supported rendering engines Mental Ray V Ray Arnold Maxwell Render Maya Software for animations We render Maya animation projects only Still image rendering is not supported We support Vue xStream from e on software as a high end natural environment solution for Maya projects If your project needs specific external plugins please contact us first to see if we can support them only 64 bit plugins will be compatible with the RANCH 1 Important information about scene preparation Itis VERY important that you read this section carefully before submitting a scene It will help you avoid common mistakes e Please verify before sending the scene that you have saved it with all the correct parameters It is your responsibility to provide the scene with every parameter correctly set The scene will be r
6. ails on how to setup a project please refer to the Maya user manual 2 a If you have a Mental Ray project and want the RANCH to use your pre computed GI maps final gather map photon map etc make sure they are saved in the renderData mentalray subdirectory and are referenced in your scene like in the example below Photon Map Rebuild Photon Map Photon Map File MyS cene pm Enable Map Visualizer Direct Illumination Shadow Effects Diagnose photon Ut M l Photon Volume n Importons Final Gathering W Final Gathering Accuracy 300 eee Point Density 1 000 Point Interpolation 10 r Primary Diffuse Scale Secondary Diffuse Scale Secondary Diffuse Bounces E Final Gathering Map Rebuild Freeze Primary Final Gather File MyScene fgm Secondary Final Gather File Add New them b If you are using pre computed V Ray Irradiance map and or Light cache GI files make sure to include them in the root of your project directory like below scenes g J sourceimages OB Z camera txt g E InteriorStill vrimap 1646 K E Interior Stil vrmap 18M Gal workspace mel 1846 and that they are correctly referenced in the scene Mode ETE File name Ic M aya LurrentJab InterarStll vrmap Browse Mode Made From File M File name IC Maya CurrentJob lnteriorStill vrimapl Browse C Maya CurrentJob is the directory where your project will be stored when rendered on the RANCH 3
7. e of what you will be able to see when you click on Preview the preview image is always around 1900 pixels wide its height depends on the number of thumbnails Notes This function works with all supported renderers At the end of the render the preview image is also copied in your project s directory The preview function may not work with some graphics formats in that case it will display black frames or nothing at all That does _not_ mean that your project has a problem of course You can still check its progress in in the queue Appendix B temporary storage of assets If you have a slow internet connection and need to render several scenes which all use the same assets textures etc you may want to use the possibility of uploading the assets once and then include in your vua projects only the elements which change generally the mb scenes To benefit from this feature contact us and tell us you would like to use this feature We will create a temporary ftp account and master directory on the RANCH for you The ftp server is ftp ranch ftpaccess cc The login and password to access this ftp account will be the same ones that you use to login on your RANCH account on the RANCH web site The name of your ftp master directory will be your e mail address with the replaced by a e g if your RANCH registered user e mail is john smith MyISP com a john smith_MyISP com ftp directory will be created f
8. endered exactly as you send it e Do not use accentuated non alphanumeric characters spaces apostrophes and dots in the filenames of your project scene textures objects output bitmaps etc To avoid any possible parsing problems on the RANCH Runner please use only letters and numbers You can also use the sign underscore to replace spaces e Please always specify individual frames rendering for animations output bmp tga tla etc We cannot directly render an animation to a video file format like avi mov wmv due to multiple differences between video formats codecs platforms 64 bit incompatibilities etc In any case it is always best to render individual frames for a lot of reasons more security better quality ability to do compositing ability to try different compression methods afterward with your video editing software etc e The RANCH only accepts mb Maya binary scenes Do not save your scene in ma Maya ASCII format as it would not be recognized e If you use e on software Vue xStream in your Maya projects you must embed the Vue scene in the Maya scene before sending your project to the RANCH To do so please verify that you have checked the Incorporate Vue scene in Maya scene file square in the Vue xStream options before saving your Maya scene in mb format Vue 9 xStream Options AN General Scene file Incorporate Vue scene in Maya scene file e Make sure that the Renumber frames
9. n process which includes the assets in the final project may indeed occur as soon as your vua file is uploaded an assets directory content must respect the Maya project structure but you have a great flexibility to organize your files as you want For instance you can include only a sourceimages subdirectory with only textures in your assets directory and include everything else in the vua project The important thing to remember is that all that 1s 1n the chosen assets directory will be added to the content of the vua file to form the final project see next page 11 C 3dPaintTextures assets _autosave data images partides C jrenderData scenes O sourceimages Typical content of a final project 12
10. ns all the files needed for your scene to be rendered correctly Follow the steps below Your project must respect the Maya project structure which makes it easy to gather all the needed resources in a single location To create a new Maya project select File Project New give a name to your project in the Name field enter its location in the Location field click on the Use Defaults button click on the Accept button In this Maya 2010 example the following structure will be created 1 Mame MyProject Help Location C Maya2010 Browse Project Locations Scenes scenes Images Source Images Disk Cache Particles Render Scenes Depth IPA Images Templates Clips Sound Adaobe R lllustratar R Shaders Textures Mel 3dPaintT extures mentalH ay DF IGES OB RIE Wire Move Anim EPS mauva amp scil mayabBinary Image furFiles furShadowM ap furE qual ap furlmages furAttrd ap DxF DC IFT_DC mentalA ay Accept Use Defaults Cancel aa assets 0000 nxI mel 3dPaintT extures renderD ata mentalrau ee aa Gata ee aa a ee aa image 00 fuMulmages 000000 DXFDE 0 mwe It is important for your scene to be saved in the Scenes subdirectory and all your textures in the sourceimages subdirectory If the textures of your project are scattered bring them together and relink them if necessary with the excellent freeware FileTextureManager For more det
11. or you Please wait for a confirmation that we have created this ftp account before sending a project Phase 1 assets directories creation and management in your newly created ftp master directory you can create several subdirectories if you want each one with a different set of assets With your favorite ftp client upload in the chosen assets directory the elements that needs to be reused by several projects Content of john smith_MyISP com ProjectAssets ex hom E ee textures File Folder sourceimages File Folder yrenderData File Folder partides File Folder images File Folder data File Folder _Jautosave File Folder Cj john smith_MyISP com assets File Folder ProjectAssets 1 D 3dPaintTextures File Folder In the example above user John Smith has been allocated a john smith MyISP com ftp master directory on the RANCH In it he has created a ProjectAssets1 subdirectory in which he has uploaded all the assets he needs a Maya project structure must be preserved 10 Phase 2 sending a vua project which use preloaded assets on your computer put in your main project directory only the elements which are not already included in the assets ftp directory e g the scenes directory workspace mel file include in the root of your project directory a UseLocalAssets txt text file which contains the name of the ftp assets directory to use in our example it would be ProjectAssets1 UseLocalAssets t
12. xt Sex ea Fichier Edition Format Affichage workspace mel ee enna ek ea er ProjectAssetsi You can now pack your project directory with RANCHpacker as usual to create the vua file and upload it to the RANCH When the RANCH Runner checks the project archive and detects the UseLocalAssets txt file it will automatically add the content of the ProjectAssets1 ftp directory to the content of the vua archive to create the full project 3 Things to keep in mind this feature 1s not intended to be used as a permanent online storage facility When the content of the assets directory ies is no longer needed you must erase it The content of the chosen assets directory 1s always merged to the content of the vua archive you send If files with the same name are present in the assets directory and in the vua archive the files in the assets directory will overwrite the files in the vua archive Do not include unnecessary files in your assets directory They would all be added to the project even if they are not used in the scene and thus would increase the time needed to distribute the project across all the RANCH Runner nodes Very important make sure that all the assets to be used by a project are already uploaded on the RANCH _before_ you send the project in the queue Otherwise there is a high risk that the validation process will pack the project without all its content leading to errors in the final render The validatio
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