zap's script for large renderings

[kevin miller]

I have tried to use zaps script for rendering large renderings in Max and Mental Ray. Hiw instructions on his site seem pretty clear but leave a couple of unanswered questions.

 

1. In his script, the default file save type is jpg which is worthless since I need to have an alpha channel. How can I get this to render out in a format with an alpha channel? Someone asked this question in an older post on this forum and it never got answered.

 

2. Also, when rendering at the lower resolution to the final gather map, how does this information get integrated with the final rendering? I had set my rendering in the script to render out in 4 pieces. Do I composit this with a FG map in Photoshop? The FG map was rendered at 1,000x450. The final rendering is 5x that size.

 

3. Lastly, for some reason my skytexture in my envorment slot appears to have been moved up from the horizon in the split renders. Does anyone have a clue why? This is why I need an alpha channel so I can bring in the sky afterwards and composite it.

 

I sure hope I can get this to work as this rendering is needed for a client review tomorrow. This is my last ditch effort and I am pretty bummed this is not working out so well.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Not sure if this will help, but I had to go through the process of getting Mental Ray to output a very large image some time ago. You might be able to get a few details from the thread.

 

If I remember correctly, in the end I think I wound up relying on region render, and pieceing it back together in Photoshop for the final image.

 

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/34983-backburner-hanging-very-high-res-image.html

[dylannewell]

Try Prime Focus' Deadlinr render. It's a network renderer that is free for 2 computers. It can render in tiles and re builds them after all are completed. I've never had a problem with it. You can send the render out from 3ds max, close max, start the render slave software and then just let it render. Might help you with what you want.