Mental Ray Render Passes
 

I'm trying to render out multiple lighting passes to composite my image, and I'm really struggling to figure out how to do it.

Basically I want the following passes of my object:

-ambient
-specular
-depth
-reflection
-shadow
-diffuse

I've tried Render Layers but they don't seem to work with mental ray - the image is the same for each layer. From what I can see, I need to do something with Framebuffers but can't figure out what..

I'm using Maya 2010.

Thanks!

I haven't used passes much yet, but try going into render settings > render using mental ray. Under the Passes tab > Create new render pass icon (grey and yellow). That will give you the list of possible passes. Hope that gives you something to go on.

render layers do work with mental ray, at least it does with no hassle in 2008, i know they got a revamp in newer versions. are you sure youre rendering each layer seperately



sorry, i reread more carefully, i forgot to distinguish between passes and layers...ignore me...

Yeah it seems like the only way to do it is to go all techy and install external plugins/scripts to get it working. Pain in the arse! I've resorted to using V-Ray in 3dsmax for now unless theres a way I can get Mental Ray in Maya working.

I think digital tutors has a good render passes tutorial in its mental ray section. A months subscription isnt so expensive...

u have selected all objects on every layers ....try slct seperate obj on
diffrent layers then it will work
gud luck

I want each object on every layer though, I just want different render passes on each image!

Looks like the only way to do it is to install shader plugins and scripts, not really something I know how to do or want to mess with.

V-ray in 3DSMax is working for me now so I think I'll just stay with this, even though I hate the 3DSMax interface in comparison to Maya :(

Did the passes tab in the render settings not work?

Nope, that option seems to be greyed out for me :\ I can click the tab, but can't add any passes..

edit - actually I think that may be working now for some reason. If I select a Render Layer, it appears in the Scene Passes thing and I can choose whether to add to Associated Passes (whatever that means)..

not sure where you got that idea from... O_o

anyway, hope this attached picture can clear things up for you! :)

Thanks, that does help a lot!

After setting all that up, how do I render every pass with one click, just do a standard Batch Render? Oh and is it possible to render as a layered PSD with every pass on it? I can't seem to get that to work, it just renders one layer..

Maya 2010 has what used to be Toxik built into it, so I'm sure there is a way to get those passes directly into the compositing module, but since I don't have 2010 I don't know the exact method.

there are two ways you could do it (That i know of)

first way is to use render preview
when you use that the images from each pass is stored in a corresponding folder inside the tmp folder of your images folder in your project (provided you've used the default project settings)
so... whereever your images are places when you do a render in the render preview and save it out

so.. if your layer was called layer1 then it would be in images/tmp/layer1/masterbeauty
or something like that

alternatively you can use the batch render to render one frame and it'll put the images inside the images/layer1/ folder

i wondered where they went at first too and then i went searching in the tmp folder because i found that was where all the tempory images were stored when you do a render preview and saw the folders there.

do note that the images take on the format that you have set in the render options. so if you have images saved out as psd then it'll appear as a psd. they are an iff file by default

Is there a way to remove the master beauty from each render pass?

Thank you,
Craig