Maya Batch Rendering on Mac or PC

Forget Render Pal (Not your pal), Maya / Batch Render (which is not batch rendering), or rush. This is the way to go for Maya rendering at home or school while you sleep on one or multiple machines.

Maya Batch Render on Mac:

Open TextEdit and make a file called maya_render (or whatever you want, and no extension).

Make sure it's plain text.

No spaces in paths, or your screwed.

Copy and paste the template below. Edit for your project.

Open Terminal from applications / utilities (or your dock if you made shortcut).

Type in cd (and drag your folder with maya scenes to terminal).

Type chmod 777 maya_render (or whatever you called it). This will make file executable.

Go back to folder and double click on maya_render. It should render now!

/Applications/Autodesk/maya8.5/Maya.app/Contents/bin/Render -h (for render options)

-r mr (mental ray)

-s (start frame)

-e (end frame)

-rd (render directory to store images)

#--------------------------------------------------

#!/bin/sh

/Applications/Autodesk/maya8.5/Maya.app/Contents/bin/Render -r mr -verb -s 1 -e 10 -rd /cityknock/batch_render_test/ /cityknock/batch_render_test/test_a.mb

/Applications/Autodesk/maya8.5/Maya.app/Contents/bin/Render -r mr -verb -s 1 -e 10 -rd /cityknock/batch_render_test/ /cityknock/batch_render_test/test_b.mb

NOTE - You may need to modify path to your version of Maya, i.e. 2008.

Maya Batch Render on PC:

Make a .bat file, edit, and double click on .bat to run.

maya_render.bat
render -verb cgloft_logo_RND_beauty.mb -s 1 -e 100
render -verb cgloft_logo_RND_matte.mb -s 1 -e 200

mental_ray_render.bat
render -r mr -verb cgloft_logo_RND_beauty.mb -s 1 -e 100
render -r mr -verb cgloft_logo_RND_matte.mb -s 1 -e 200


Enjoy,
Louis