Rendering IFD files

[evanrudefx]

Hi,

How do you render a IFD file in the mantra node? I know how to create it by enabling disk file in the driver. Once the IFD is created what do I do? I am trying to render to disk. I read the manual and I did not really see how to render and IFD in mantra node.

Thanks,

Evan

[symek]

Once IFD file is on disk, you don't use Mantra ROP, but render with command line:

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/render/batch#mantra

Also on a wider context:

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/render/ifd_workflows

 

hth,

Szymon.

 

 

[evanrudefx]

Ok, I see how to open the command line tools, but what do I do from there? I watched a few tutorial, but nothing seemed to make sense. What is the first step after opening the command line tools? Also, does it use my mantra node's render settings? Or do I manually have to input the settings? How do I point to the idf file I created?

Thanks

[fencer]

1. generate ifd
2. /bin/hcmd.exe
3. mantra.exe -f ifdfile.ifd

Edited October 12, 2017 by fencer

[evanrudefx]

How does that work? How does "mantra.exe -f ifdfile.ifd" work?  How does that tell where my IFD file is located?

[fencer]

2 hours ago, ejr32123 said:

How does that work? How does "mantra.exe -f ifdfile.ifd" work?  How does that tell where my IFD file is located?

Your idf file contains data about camera, geometry and output path.
You just ask mantra to execute it.
IFD is located where you saved it.
mantra.exe -f ifdfile.ifd c:\\myfiles\ifdfile.ifd

Edited October 12, 2017 by fencer

[symek]

mantra -f /path/to/ifdfile.ifd <optional image.pic> 

By default mantra will use ROP settings embedded in IFD file, but you can overwrite them in command line like:

mantra -j8 -Va -f /path/to/file.ifd image.exr

All of this is explained in a first link my first post. 

[evanrudefx]

14 minutes ago, symek said:

mantra -f /path/to/ifdfile.ifd <optional image.pic> 

By default mantra will use ROP settings embedded in IFD file, but you can overwrite them in command line like:

mantra -j8 -Va -f /path/to/file.ifd image.exr

All of this is explained in a first link my first post. 

I got it working, thanks!. One question still, if I want to render 30 frames, when I create my IFD file would I type ocean.$F.ifd? Or are all frames contained in one IFD file?

[symek]

11 minutes ago, ejr32123 said:

I got it working, thanks!. One question still, if I want to render 30 frames, when I create my IFD file would I type ocean.$F.ifd? Or are all frames contained in one IFD file?

Neither of that. Single IFD file contains a single frame definition, but you can't write ocean.$F.ifd as $F is Houdini's specific variable. You need to loop over files. Depending on a OS you're running on this gonna be simple expression like (Linux):

for file in `ls *.ifd`; do mantra -f $file; done

You typically have some sort of script for doing such things. Why you're trying to render from IFD file? If you'd like to render from a command line on a single computer, you may take a look on hrender script provided by SESI. It will take a hip file and render specified ROP from command line. No need to export IFDs (IFDs are mostly useful for render farms, and funcy production render orchestration...)

[evanrudefx]

All I am trying to do is manually send my render to multiple computers. Where I go to school, I am the only person that uses houdini, so we only have two licenses, which comes with 20 mantra tokens. If I render the IFDs using command line, I can render on multiple computers (up to 20) at once. I can't just go to each computer and open houdini and start the render, because I only have two licenses. Even if I use render to disk in background, it still uses my non-commercial license, which means I would only be able to have two computer rendering at once. After I contacted sidefx, they said "To avoid Houdini holding a license while rendering, the proper procedure is to render the ifd to disk and the submit the written ifd to mantra." So that is what I am trying to do.

edit[we are using windows 10]

Edited October 12, 2017 by ejr32123

[symek]

OK, that's a good reason for using IFDs (unless you can install HQueue there, which simplifies this task a lot). Google says for Windows looping command would look like bellow, but I don't know a thing about MS shell.

for /r %i in (*) do mantra -f %i

Actually there seems to be bash for Windows these days too, lol.

[evanrudefx]

Alright, thanks for the help!!!!!

[evanrudefx]

I finally got it working!! I had to open the directory in the command prompt then run >>>>>for %i in (*.*) do mantra -f %i<<<<<

it looked like this:

cd /path/ 

for %i in (*.*) do mantra -f %i