Discussion Forums

The Latest...
Smedge has moved on. Now you can get the ease of use of Smedge 2 with the power of Smedge 3 in the new Smedge. Check out the Smedge Downloads page to download the updated Smedge for Windows, Mac, or Linux and get started right away.

See Robin's homepage.

Products Available To Render

3ds max (6.0+)	Alias Renderer	Lightwave	MentalRay
3ds max (via SFRender)	Chalice	Maya(5.0 or earlier)	MentalRay for Maya (5.0 or earlier)
After Effects	Digital Fusion	Maya (6.0+)	MentalRay for Maya (6.0+)
Air	Generic Scripts	Maya Vector Renderer (5.0)	Rayz
Alias PowerCaster	Houdini	Maya Vector Renderer (6.0+)	Shake
Alias PowerTracer	imgcvt	Maya Hardware Renderer (6.0+)	SoftImage
Alias Raytracer	Jig	MayaMan	XSI

This submits a job for MentalRay for Maya that works with Maya versions 5.0 or 1.x. To submit a job for MentalRay for Maya that works with Maya version 6.0 or later, use the MentalRay for Maya (6.0+) product.

To create a MentalRay for Maya job via commandline, you can use the following parameters for the -product switch (case is ignored):

MentalRayForMaya5
MentalRay4Maya5
MR4M5
MMR5

Summary of required options for MentalRay for Maya (5.0 or ealier) See text below for more information
Maya (5.0 or earlier) Path to executable	Should point to the full path to the Render.exe program file in the Maya 5 (or 4.5) bin folder
Mentalray for Maya (5.0 or earlier) MEL Command	Should contain the appropriate MEL command for the version of Maya you are using. See table below.

MentalRay for Maya with Maya versions 5.0 or earlier works slightly differently than most of the other products. There is no direct commandline program that executes the render, but instead it is launched by sending some MEL commands directly to the mayabatch program. This has implications for the configuration of your rendering clients. Specifically, Smedge uses the executable file path from the standard Maya render type, substituting the Render.exe program file with the mayabatch.exe program file. In the Smedge Options dialog box, with the MentalRay for Maya program selected, the text displayed in the Path to Exectuable field is actually the MEL command that is used to start the render. The command to use depends on the version of Maya you are rendering with.

You can use the following table to find the MEL command for different versions of Maya. Please note: This is not a script file or batch file that comes with the MentalRay for Maya progam. This should be the actual MEL command to start the render, picked from the following table. Do not use the browse button, because you cannot browse to this command. If you have a path to any script or executable, the render will not work. If you do not type one of the following MEL commands into this field, the render will not work.

Maya version	MEL command to start the render
4.5 (MentalRay for Maya 1.5)	mrBatchRender_v15
5.0	mrBatchRender_v5

Please not also that the Extra Commandline Parameters field works differently. These are additional MEL commands that will be inserted just before the call to actually start the render. If you use this field, be sure to use it with caution, and have a good understanding of MEL.