Scenes states with batch render problem

[raterry]

Hello,

I have an interior scene of a small living quarters where the only window is in the bedroom. I need to do renders of the living room, kitchen and bedroom. I've set up the scene to where the living room and kitchen renders are fine using a particular exposure control setting (mental ray) and have saved the scene state for that. Then with the camera in the bedroom, I changed the exposure control to accomodate the brightness of the sunlight coming in and saved that scene state. I set up a batch render to have them render using thier appropriate scene states but they all come out appearing to have the same e.c. settings. (bedroom is fine...kitchen and living room way too dark as if it's using the settings for the bedroom) HAs anyone heard of issues regarding saved scenes staes not retaining exposure control settings when using batch render?

I use MAX 2009 and MR

Thanks for any suggestions.

-=Rob

[John Dollus]

can you post a screencap of your batch render dialog box?

 

Also, by default, environment is not saved in the scene state so make sure you manually add that when you create the scene states

[raterry]

Sure. here it is.

I saw it doesn't default but made sure to include environment..

Thanks for your assistance

[John Dollus]

interesting - it should be working. Try this:

1. load in the bedroom scene state, save that max file as a separate file and create a batch render for just it alone for testing purposes.

2. use batch render to save out a .bat file for your living and kitchen only

3. open that .bat file and manually add in the command line for the bedroom to render after the other two

 

Try that and see if you get the same results.

[luckymutt]

It *should* work, but its a bug, at least in 2009. Don't know if it was fixed in 2010 or not.

Max seems to be aware of the different exposure settings, but gets them mixed up.

Try this to see what I mean:

create a scene state with the default settings and call it "A"

change the exposure settings, save as scene state "B"

 

Now pick "A" from the scene state dialog and press restore.

"A" is restored.

Pick "B" and restore.

"B" is now restored.

Now, click "B" again and restore...the settings from "A" is what will be restored, not "B"

Now, if you click "A" and restore, the "B" settings show up.

They have gotten swapped.

 

The process gets even more convoluted when you have even more scene states, sometimes with one state's settings getting completely lost, and much less predictable in terms of how Max will get them confused.

Edited June 5, 2009 by luckymutt
sellping

[raterry]

John, interesting idea. I will try that. Thanks!

 

Lucky, That is exactly what it's doing...is it officially a bug? Is Autodesk aware of it? any 2010 users have any issues yet?

 

Also what the story with asking me to restrore or rename materials in various scene states when I haven't changed them at all?

 

Thanks guys.

-=Rob

[SandmanNinja]

There is a modifier script/plug-in that lets you modifier camera values at the camera, rather than in the render submission process.

 

Check out http://www.scriptspot.com