Backburner Job Window – Tile Rendering Added!

Alright so I've finally gotten this thing to work! I've updated Maya's send job to Backburner window. Along with a few UI changes, I've added the option to split the image into tiles and send a different job for each one. Of course this is handy when rendering for print where images can get too large for system resources to handle.
 

Maya to Backburner Additions: Render Regions

My old frenemy the Backburner window has asked me out to lunch again and I've accepted. What am I talking about?  I'm adding options to add render region flags to the job which is handy when rendering insanely large images for print. Thanks David for highlighting this handy feature (that is oh so surprisingly missing from this comprehensive option window >.>).

While I'm not married to this method, this is the direction I'm heading at the moment. The user will be allowed toggle the option and to also enter two values and the image will be subdivided based on these values.

For example this 4 by 2 tile setup. Of course the image can be split only horizontally or vertically as well. I'm trying to make this as simple and as fluid as possible.

4x2 Split

Then a job will be sent for each tile.

There are a couple features that I'd like to add as well:

• the option to use the tile size as the image size, so instead of each tile being a portion of a large and mostly blank image and using up more resources

• an option to overlap the tiles a bit, the user enters a value and the tiles will have these additional pixels in the +x and +y direction. Just in case of inconsistencies caused by anti aliasing and whatever.

 But these are not a priority.  Hopefully, I can progress a bit this weekend. And I really mean hope. I've also been having some serious mental blocks and problems focusing (more so than usual lol) and I suspect I'm overthinking it. Either way, going to try to power through this sucker :).

Edit:

Done and done! Tile Rendering Added>>

Backburner Tribulations - Update

 More changes to the performExportToBackburner.mel file! Thanks to Francois Maree for the suggestions :). A couple parameters were added.

Auto Threads – Automatically use available threads

By Frame – Render frames in increments of this value. Render settings must be set to render out a sequence of images

Francois let me know that there was a change in the Maya 2013 mel that caused an error with versions 2012 and 2011 and probably versions earlier than those. It was trying to find a procedure that wasn't included, but all is well now. There are now two different versions in the download.

To be honest, I'm really considering making a custom tab in the render settings for this, I don't know why it's not there in the first place.

Edited on 12/22/2012
There was an error saying the byFrame control could not be found. Now fixed.

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Backburner Tribulations

Have you ever contemplated stepping in front of a bus after dealing with Backburner all day? Have you ever left something to render only to come back some hours later and find a lame, cryptic error? Well I have, repeatedly! And I have to say, the “Create Backburner Job” window in Maya leaves a lot to be desired.

Something that many have dealt with is the "timeout" issue, that is, you leave a job running and an hour later the job aborts and restarts because evidently, sixty minutes is the default amount of time set for Backburner to take such action. Yes, it's possible to change the value with the "-timeout" flag in the code generated by the the custom command, but that would quickly become annoying every time you send a job. Wouldn't it be nice if this had a control in the UI? And how about controls for verbosity, and render threads and memory limits, right there on hand? The Backburner window seems kind of tacked on, so I decided to spruce it up! :3

I've modified the performExportToBackburner.mel file and added five parameters to the job window:

Render Thread – Specify the number of CPU threads right there when you send the job and not in another window!!

Verbosity – Level of detail in render progress messages

Auto Memory Limit – Dynamically calculate memory before each render

Memory Limit - Soft cap for memory used by MR

Time Out – Amount of time before job aborts and restarts

If the custom command is used, the flags will be added automatically as well. Even if you choose “from the scene file” instead of “mental ray” from the renderer dropdown, the appropriate flags will be sent because the script runs a check for the current renderer.

If the defaults for the custom parameters need changing, just change the value for the optionVars. Look for this code:



///////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////GENNY T 11/30/2012
/////////////////// optionVar for Timeout,Verbosity,
///////////////////////////////////Thread Number, Memory Limit
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

if (!`optionVar -exists "bb_Timeout"`)
optionVar -iv "bb_Timeout" 600;

if (!`optionVar -exists "bb_Verbosity"`)
optionVar -iv "bb_Verbosity" 3;

if (!`optionVar -exists "bb_Threads"`)
optionVar -iv "bb_Threads" 4;

if (!`optionVar -exists "bb_autoMemory"`)
optionVar -iv "bb_autoMemory" 1;

if (!`optionVar -exists "bb_memoryLimit"`)
optionVar -iv "bb_memoryLimit" 1024;

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////




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