MayaMan Batch Command

MayaMan comes with a command line batch utility, so that you can create and render RIB files without needing to open the Maya interface. This page outlines the many arguments you can pass to this utility to modify MayaMan's behaviour, without having to save those changes into your scene.

You can find the utility in the MAYAMANROOT/bin directory of your installation.

Overview

When using MayaMan Batch, you tell it the name of an existing Maya scene file. All the MayaMan settings will be used from the scene file, unless you override the settings using command line arguments to the batch command. These arguments are detailed below.

NOTE: The MayaMan Batch command relies on having the Maya libraries (e.g OpenMaya.dll) in the current path. The version of the MayaMan Batch command should match the version of the Maya libraries in your path. i.e. use 'mayaman_batch_m3.exe' if Maya 3 is in your path, and 'mayaman_batch_m4.exe' if using Maya 4.

Command Line Arguments

USAGE: mayaman 
       [-projectdir ]
       [-ribonly][-render]
       [-ribdir ]
       [-imagedir ]
       [-ribbase ]
       [-resolution  ]
       [-crop    ]
       [-ses   ]
       [-referenceframe ]
       [-cam ]
       [-pixelsamples  ]
       [-spatialquality  ]
       [-temporalquality ]
       [-srate ]
       [-blur   ]
       [-blursegs ]
       [-display ]
       [-shadows]|[-noshadows]
       [-shadowsonly]
       [-refl]|[-norefl]
       [-ribstyle flat|flatqual|objinst|archive|delayed]
       [-del]|[-nodel]
       [-alfred]|[-noalfred]
       [-binaryrib]|[-asciirib]
       [-server]
       [-skipIfRendered]
       [-selected|-all|-object |-layer ]
       [-eochans][-noeochans]
       [-numcpus ]
       [-numrenders ]
       [-setattr  ]
       [-setstringattr  ]
       [-archive [-nomtl +shadowrib +tree -nobasexform]]
       [-us]
       [+unix|-unix]

-ribonly
When this option is specified MayaMan will only create the ribs, the renders will not be invoked. This is the opposite of the -render flag.

-render
When this option is specified MayaMan will create the ribs and the renders will be invoked. This is the opposite of the -ribonly flag.

-ribdir <directory>
Using this option you can override the directory into which MayaMan will write the RIB and other files it produces.

-imagedir <imageoutputdirectory>
Using this option you can override the directory into which MayaMan will write the images it renders.

-ribbase <basename>
Allows you to specify the base name of the RIB files MayaMan creates. e.g. '-ribbase foo' will result in RIB files like 'foo.1.rib'

-resolution <hres> <vres>
Sets the resolution of the rendered frames

-crop <xmin> <xmax> <ymin> <ymax>
Specifies the region of the output frame that will be rendered. The coordinates are x=0, y=0 in the top left corner, and x=1, y=1 in the bottom right corner.

Note, unless cropping is requested on the command line then no-cropping is assumed regardless of what was saved in the scene file.

-ses <start> <end> <step>
Specify start/end/step frame values for rendering. See also -referenceframe.

-referenceframe <frame>
Specify the frame number at which constant geometry and constant shadow maps are created. Note, does not have to be in the range specified by -ses. Using a value outside the range is useful when distributing ribgen/rendering as you can ensure that only one machine will attempt to create these files.

-cam <camera>
Use this to specify the name of a camera to use when rendering. Specify the name of the camera shape node (e.g. cameraShape1 rather than camera1). See the MayaMan F.A.Q. for further discussion about how MayaMan chooses between multiple cameras by default.

-pixelsamples <x_samples> <y_samples>
Here you can override the RenderMan pixel sample values used by MayaMan.

-spatialquality <x_samples> <y_samples>
Control for Entropy's alternative to pixelsamples. Also see -temporalquality.

-temporalquality <samples>
Control for Entropy's alternative to pixelsamples. Also see -spatialquality.

-pixelsamples <x_samples> <y_samples>
Here you can override the RenderMan pixel sample values used by MayaMan.

-srate <shadingrate>
Here you can override the RenderMan shading rate used by MayaMan.

-blur <camera> <vertex> <motion>
Specify the blur values for camera, vertex and motion. Setting the blur amount to zero turns the associated blurring off. See the MayaMan Motion Blur Options page for further explanation.

-blursegs <segments>
Sets the number of segments to use for MayaMan's multi-segment motion blur.

-display <driver>
You can specify the name of a RenderMan display driver to use when rendering. NOTE: MayaMan only allows the use of certain display drivers during previews. e.g. if you attempt to use 'framebuffer' when performing a command line render, MayaMan will automatically change the display driver to one that outputs an image file.

-shadows / -noshadows
Using these options you can enable or disable the rendering of shadow maps.

-shadowsonly
Only do shadows. Many multi-pass rendering solutions require production of special purpose shadow maps. Using this mode turns off all shadow deletion but does not ignore shadow reuse.

-refl / -norefl
Using these options you can enable or disable the rendering of reflection maps.

-ribstyle flat|flatqual|objinst|archive|delayed
MayaMan can output RIB files formatted in various ways, and this argument can control this behaviour. For more details see the MayaMan Advanced Options dialog.

-del / -nodel
This argument tells MayaMan whether it should delete the RIB files it creates after rendering them.

-binaryrib / -asciirib
Forces MayaMan to create ribs in either binary or ascii mode, binary is faster and takes less disk space which ascii is useful for debugging or further processing by other tools.

-alfred / -noalfred
Controls whether MayaMan should create and possibly auto-execute a script for Pixar's Alfred network rendering system. See also the -server option.

-server
Puts MayaMan into an alfred style 'persistent-app' mode which is useful for distributing generation of ribs. It is fully compatible with alfred and can be driven from a perl script like this:

	#!/bin/perl

	$file  = shift(@ARGV);
	$proj  = shift(@ARGV);
	$start = shift(@ARGV);
	$end   = shift(@ARGV);
	$step  = shift(@ARGV);

	open(ALFRED, "> alfred.script");

	print ALFRED "##AlfredToDo 3.0\n";
	print ALFRED "Job -title { $file ";
	open(PREAMBLE, "mayaman_batch_m5 $file -projectdir $proj -preamble |");
	while(<PREAMBLE>) {
	    print ALFRED;
	}
	close(PREAMBLE);
	print ALFRED "} -subtasks {\n";
	for( $num = $start; $num <= $end; $num += $step ) {
		print ALFRED "Task {Frame $num} -cmds {\n";
		print ALFRED "  Cmd { mayaman_batch_m5 $file -projectdir $proj -server -display file -ses $start $end $step -referenceframe $start } -msg {render $num} -tags {intensive} -expand 1\n";
		print ALFRED "}\n";
	}
	print ALFRED "}\n";
	close(ALFRED);

	system("alfred alfred.script");
	unlink("alfred.script");

	perl drive_mayaman_alfred.ph my_scene.mb c:\temp\my_project 1 100 1

	drive_mayaman_alfred.ph my_scene.mb /home/users/me/maya/projects/my_project 1 100 1