Setup

No setup steps required.

Disable Maya Crash Reports

There are some known cases in which the Maya crash reports stay open after a render crashed.

You can disable the crash reports by deleting the file Maya/bin/senddmp.exe

Submission

You have two ways to submit Maya scenes.

• Via Maya plugin
  
  

    This is the recommended way. You have more options and it displays error messages.

    Installation:   
       You have to run the rrWorkstationInstaller at least once to install the RR_ROOT environment variable.

Start Maya and load the Maya plugin via the Plug-in Manager in Maya.

    Open your scene and use the new RRender menu to submit your scene.

• Via rrSubmitter

Start the rrSubmitter and use the load button.

The submitter asks you if it should start maya batch to read all scene values.

Note: By default Maya creates a project structure if there is none.

It creates a file named workspace.mel and folders like /scenes.If there is a workspace.mel file, then no folder is created

Include all  lights in each render layer by default

The Render Layer Setup window in Maya has a setting named "Include all  lights in each render layer by default".

This is a local setting and is not saved with the scene.

Which means that if you enable this setting and render it on a different machine, it will look differently.

The RR submission plugin reads your setting and enables/disables the rrJob option "noIncludeAllLights" accordingly.

3rd party Plugins

Note: For 3rd party renderer, please follow this link.

3rd Party Shader/plugin Setup 

RRender has pre-defined folders for 3rd party plugins and Mental Ray shaders. 
If the plugin is of a whole package with many files and subfolders, then you should read the next section.

They are located in (of course you have to replace the maya version with the one you use):

[RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2014\scripts\

[RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2014\modules\

[RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2014\plug-ins\

[RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2014\rendererDesc\

[RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2014\mentalray\

If you already have your own plugin paths, then you have to change Maya's Setenv File.

[RR]\render_apps\_setenv\win\maya.bat

maya.env:

If you have a maya.env file, you can place it into the folder

[RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2024\

Note: If you define one of the above defined folders (PLUG_IN, SCRIPT, MODULE, MI_CUSTOM_SHADER) in your maya.env, then you have to remove the corresponding line from the setenv file.

Variables set in the maya.bat overwrite maya.env values. 

3rp Party Plugins with multiple folders

Some plugins are not a single .mll file, they consists of multiple folders with files. 
You can install these plugins into RR instead of installing it on every machine as well

This is an example to install the Yeti plugin for Windows.

Not all plugins require to set all environment variables.

The Yeti plugin requires for example additional variables for the Arnold renderer.

It does not require/have a script folder, but I keep this variable to have everything you might need for other plugins.

1. Edit the setenv file for Maya.
   
   
2. At the end of the file, add these lines:
   rem  ###################  Yeti environment variables ###################
   IF "%RR_YETI_BASE%" == ""  ( set "RR_YETI_BASE=%rrPlugins%%rrJobVersionMajor%\yeti" )
   echo Yeti installation path is set to '%RR_YETI_BASE%'
   set ARNOLD_PROCS_PATH=%RR_YETI_BASE%\bin;%ARNOLD_PROCS_PATH%
   set MTOA_EXTENSIONS_PATH=%RR_YETI_BASE%\plug-ins;%MTOA_EXTENSIONS_PATH%
   set MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH=%RR_YETI_BASE%\plug-ins;%MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH%
   set MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH=%RR_YETI_BASE%\scripts;MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH
   set peregrinel_LICENSE=5053@localhost
   
   
3. You need to replace all "YETI"  with the name of your plugin.
   The license environment has to be changed as well. Refer to the docs of your plugin how to specify a license server, if required.
   
   
4. Submit a render and check the render log of the job.
   You should now see a line Yeti installation path is set to ....
   Copy your plugin's folders into this folder.
   
   
5. Edit the plugins .mod file and update the path inside that file with the new path to the .mod file
   
   
6. Check the other environment variables after Yeti installation path is set to. 
   Not all plugins have this folder structure with /bin, /plug-ins, /scripts.
   Change the subfolders according to your plugin folder structure.

PhoenixFD simulation

• Install phoenix on your workstation.
• Copy the folder phoenix plugins     to    [RR]\render_apps\renderer_plugins\maya\win_x64\2014\plug-ins\phoenixfd

Yeti  plugin

• Submit a render and check the render log file in rrControl. 
  Search for the line "* Yeti source path is set to".
  Create this folder.
• Copy the yeti files and folders into this folder.

Important note for Linux:

After you have copied redshift, please ensure that the files in /bin and /plug-ins have a size way larger than 100 bytes.

The Redshift installer has created file links from the libraries with the version ".so.2" to the library name without the version ".so".

If the files are small and not linked any more, just copy the large ".so.2" to the ".so" file.

Custom Maya Preferences (Maya.env, pluginPrefs.mel)

RR copies the Maya preferences from 
[RR]\render_apps\renderer_prefs\maya\win_x64\2018 to C:\RR_localdata\renderer_prefs\maya\win_x64\2018

And tells Maya to use these preferences.

You can use your own preferences and copy them into [RR]\render_apps\renderer_prefs\maya\win_x64\2018

Note: "2018" should be replaced with the Maya version you use.

Note: RR can automatically switch from Render Setup to Legacy Layers. 
But this does only work if the preferences are set to the default "Render Setup".

If you want to use a different preference source folder, then you can either edit the maya_inhouse.rrEnv file to define the variable
RR_MAYA_PREFS = mycustomFolder

or set RR_MAYA_PREFS inside the job.

See Render Environment.