Batch Camera Render

272 votes
Version: 
1.18
Date Updated: 
08/03/2022
Author Name: 
Sergo Pogosyan

This script aims to replace standard 3dsmax's Batch Render and imitates Houdini Output Node workflow. Using it you can specify rendering parameters - frame size, frame number, output path - directly to camera object, so every camera in scene 'knows' what it intended to render. Additional functionality is Lighting Assignment - you can specify which light will be turn on or off for selected camera during the rendering.

1.18:

  • Support for 3ds max 2023 Update fixed

1.17:

  • Corona and Vray Sun inside Daylight System fixed (thanks to busseynova for reporting)

1.16:

  • CoronaSun supported inside Daylight System

1.15:

  • Don't Save Render Elements Checkbox (Thanks to antomor)
  • Limited support for camera objects in xref scene files (Only root objects in first level xrefs. Cameras in nested xrefs not supported)

1.13 Bugfix:

  • Deadline submission should work now

1.12 New Feature:

  • Deadline support.
    Very basic imlementation, it allows you to submit your jobs on a deadline server. Enter deadline repository address and check "Use Deadline" checkbox. Other checkbox doesn't matter in this case ("Net render", "Show Submit Dialog").
    Probably it requires Deadline 3ds max Submitter installed. I didn't have a chance to check it on a clean machine.

1.11 Features and fixes:

  • State sets support added
  • "projectname" keyword added which resolves to project's folder name
  • other fixes and improvements

1.10.3b Fixes:

  • Crash when vray ir/lcache maps are set to auto-save
  • Region render was not set properly during the rendering

This is major update of the script, so it may not be as stable as before. Backup scenes or cameras at least before running this version. More information can be found here - 1.10b Multiple presets for each camera

Previous updates:

1.10.2b Fixes:

  • Problems with render elements paths
  • Copy/paste of render region settings
  • Properly convert render region values when change resolution

New features:

  • Multiple presets for each camera
  • New keyword %presetname% to support multiple presets
  • Distributed rendering checkbox added to vray common settings
  • Bugfix - Net render not starting after cancelling during local rendering.
  • Improved performance with scenes with lots of cameras
  • Added support of Vray RT as a production renderer
  • Added support of using MFRender script to render scenes through BatchCamera script.
  • Bugfix - Error was popping up sometimes during drag-n-drop
  • Bugfix - Render elements didn't render in certain conditions
  • Bugfix - Pre-render/post-render scripts didn't work on network rendering
  • Bugfix - Select All and Toggle All buttons didn't work properly

Here are some details: http://usakhelo.github.io/batchcam/batchcam-1.9.20.html

Script's website - http://usakhelo.github.io/batchcam/

Github - https://github.com/usakhelo/batchcam

2015 Updates

  • Region render parameter can be specified for each camera
  • Set Viewport button sets viewport camera and resolution and aspect as well
  • It is possible now to specify backburner servers and server groups for silent rendering submit (code editing required)
  • Vray Elements fixed for Vray 3 and Vray output saving with VFB color correction
  • Cancelling of rendering of multiple cameras at once,
  • Hierarchical ini files

2013 Updates

  • Drag-n-drop of cameras in list
  • Camera list window size can be changed (script restart required)
  • When committing region render it is possible to switch to view render without restarting the render
  • Keyword syntax can be used in Scene State names - thanks to Stefan Runevik for suggestion

2011 Updates

  • Preview button added - renders only current frame without saving anything - no images, no vray maps, no scripts running, no elements.
  • Ortho mode added to Vray rollout - it turns any camera to orthographic, including Vray Physical camera.
  • Copy/Paste from one camera to one/several cameras - use new buttons at the top of the window.
  • Submit Scripts section - you can assign script files that will run on each render submit. Per Submit script runs once per render submit and Per Camera script runs for each camera before submit. All these scripts run on local machine, not on render server.
  • Last Rendered Location field - here is stored last render file location. Very useful for locating last-time rendered images.
Additional Info: 

Installation:

Run this script with Maxscript -> Run Script command from any folder on your hard drive, then go to the *'Customize User Interface' -> 'Toolbars'*, browse to category 'Sergo Pogosyan' and add 'Render scene cameras...' button to the toolbar or to the menu.

Usage:

When you start this script it iterate over all cameras in scene and list them in the dialog box. To each of these cameras you can assign frame resolution, number of frames to render including nonsequential frames, output file location and lighting setup. All these properties can be changed for one or several selected cameras. Output file location is split to folder path and file name, so you can specify new folder for all selected cameras in scene. 'Lighting assignement' section contains three list: Solo light list contains lights that will be only lights turned on during the rendering, 'Forced On' and 'Forced Off' lights are turned on or off respectively during the rendering. After all these setting will be set up (if some properties is not set value from the Render Setup will be used), check the camera(s) in the list and hit Render button. Check Net Render checkbox to submit network render job.

Supported lights: All bundled 3ds max lights, all Vray Lights
Supported cameras: All bundled 3ds max cameras, Vray PhysicalCamera

Version Requirement: 
3ds max 2008-202x
AttachmentSize
batchcamerarender_1.17.ms245.88 KB
batchcamerarender_1.18.ms245.92 KB

Comments

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NicolasC's picture

"bump" on several wishes :)

Hello Sergo,

Thanks a lot for the great work you've done on your BCR, it's definitely a must-have !!
However, something is missing for me to be able to use it at its full potential. I regularly need to render more than 10 cameras for a project, and I'd need to send them to BB "silently", that means with Show Submit Dialog being off. BUT when it's off, it's not possible to: choose only a servers group or a single server to submit to ...
My suggestion would then be to add some more controls available when Show Submit Dialog is off: a dropdown list with servers available (for single-server submission) and a dropdown list with servers group available.
Do you think it can be done ?

Thanks a lot,

Best regards.

NicolasC

sergo's picture

Thanks for trying it out

Glad to hear that and thanks for trying. I'm not using it that much to test all the cases.

mali's picture

Thank you! :D

Oh man, it works perfectly now, even with backburner. Thank you so much, Sergo :)
I like how it saves both with and without the VFB colour corrections, nice touch.

sergo's picture

Make sure you are trying

Make sure you are using newest version, it should render all the elements. Just make sure you have all needed checkbox on. Check here - http://batchcam.sergepogosyan.com/batchcam-1.9.14.html

mali's picture

Backburner not saving elements

Fajar, your update seems like it doesn't save the elements if you render via backburner :/ Is there some quick fix to this maybe?

NicolasC's picture

AFAIK you can't duplicate cameras in the list

The only solution I found is to duplicate your camera in the scene ... certainly to put on the wishlist, the ability to duplicate tasks in the batch list ;)

NicolasC

locb's picture

How can i render one camera

How can i render one camera with 2 diffrenet scene state ?

NicolasC's picture

"little" wish

Hello,

The more I test your Batch Camera Render, the more I'm starting to love it ... because we heavily need a robust batch rendering system, and the one that ships with 3dsmax is, well, a bit crappy to say the least ;)
However, I'd really like 2 additions to BB submitting, if possible:

- being able to submitt to only one BB Server when needed. Would it be tricky to implement an option for that, including a dropdown list to pick one server ?

- being able to submitt to a group of servers. Same suggestion as above, with a dropdown list listing the available servers groups ...

Thanks a lot for your work on this very useful tool :)

NicolasC

NicolasC's picture

oh ok thanks Sergo !

I was pretty sure I was missing something :)

NicolasC

sergo's picture

%trynum%

You can use cam01_%trynum%.tif, cam02_%trynum%.tif path and this keyword will be incremented with each hit of render button.
Be careful - this counter gets reset to 0 on each max session. (if I remember it correctly)

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