Massive 6.0 Rendering

Deborah R. Fowler

Renderman via Massive

Updated on July 9 2014

click here for Motion Capture Resources

Please use the renderman_setting folder (_MATERIAL/MASSIVE/Rendering) to provide a quick test to ensure your display is working. Read in the file, hit ctrl P to place the spheres, and under the Camera tab select Render. The prman render should appear. If problems occur please email me or discuss with next class. Check that agents/terrain are visible and shaders were assigned, you must do this for the renderman pass that is labeled in your render options.

In the body page:

Ensure that the agent geometry has shaders assigned for the pass under the “shaders” tab. The dialogue box will bring up renderman shader options.

In order to get multiple frames, go to the Run menu, pull down and select Sim. In Sim you will see a “sim parameters” tab. Toward the bottom in the OUTPUT section, there are two buttons to push is, the “Sim” button and the “Rib” button. This produces the sim and rib files that are essential to produce the render. Specify the full pathname to where you have created a “Sim” and a “Rib” folder. In in the following manner:

IN ADDITION: Under Options/Renders

NOTE: Do not put spaces in your folder names. If you do, your pathnames will not work in renderman. (It will also cause problems with saving files in Massive)

The dialogue box must have the pathname specified for the following:

output ribs – shows .\Rib\render#.rib – change this to have a full path

shadow bias – SET THIS TO A SMALL VALUE – the default is 10

(This is the default value chosen for the premade agents and is not appropriate for our objects. Set this to .1
(Don’t set it too low ie. .01 is NOT a good choice – you may start to see “lines” on a flat terrain).

Once you are ready with these settings, go back to the Sim window and, with the render selected, hit go.

This will create three things in the folders you have defined:

In the Sim folder:

frame.10.apf

frame.11.apf ….

frame.15.apf

In the Rib folder:

a0010.rib

a0011.rib …

a0015.rib

Also :

render.0010.rib …

render.0015.rib

As well as a_terrain1.rib

The render.0010.rib … render.0015.rib files are the master files, and they reference the other files to produce the image.

In order to start prman, copy over the script that is in the materials folder to this folder.

Then simply type mrender.bat on Windows or run the script (./scriptname on linux) and this will produce the resulting render.0010.tif … render.0015.tif files in your directory. Note here we have 10 to 15 as that is what the start and end frames are in the sim window.

So to recap:
            1. Create a Rib and Sim folder
            2. Under menu Run-Sim-Sim parameters tab- push in "sim" and “rib” and specify full path name of folder
                (leaving the # to indicate the frame number)

3. Specify under Options/Render/render parameters the output ribs file path
4. Select start/end frame values, and select the render

5. Save your files!
6. Hit go, the files to render will be in the Rib folder

7. Copy the script from MATERIAL/Rendering/MassiveRenderScriptLinux into your Rib folder.
Run the file and the resulting .tif file will be produced.

NOTE: save agent and scene (.cdl and .mas) – the rib and sim files refer to the files so if you want your sim render to look like your preview render you need to make sure the files are up to date. It’s a good habit as you are working in Massive to save your agent and setup as you go, and save versions that work.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: default behavior for output pics went to the directory of your session. If this is not happening, here is what you should do:

Massive 6.0 Summary

Deborah R. Fowler

Renderman via Massive

In the body page: