3ds Max Rendering

3ds Max Rendering

Overview

Everything in the 3ds Max Render Setup dialog can be scripted. Settings that belong to 3ds Max itself are MAXScript globals (renderWidth, rendOutputFilename) and interfaces (batchRenderMgr, RenderElementMgr); settings that belong to the renderer are properties of renderers.current. Chaos documents only a handful of V-Ray and Corona property names and the full list depends on the installed version, so the dependable workflow is: assign the renderer, list its properties with showProperties, then set them. This skill covers that workflow, render elements, denoising, light mix, batch rendering, 3dsmaxcmd, V-Ray Standalone and network rendering.

Instructions

1. Assign the renderer and inspect it

for c in RendererClass.classes do print c     -- every installed renderer class
renderers.current = VRay()                    -- fresh V-Ray with default settings; VRayRT() is V-Ray GPU
vr = renderers.current
vrayVersion()                                 -- #(version, build)
showProperties vr                             -- every scriptable setting with its type
showProperties vr "*noise*"                   -- filter by name pattern

With Corona assigned (Render Setup > Common > Assign Renderer):

cr = renderers.current
show cr                                       -- Corona settings and current values
showInterface CoronaRenderer.CoronaFp         -- Corona functions
CoronaRenderer.CoronaFp.getVersionString()

2. Output size, frame range and file

These are 3ds Max globals. Close the Render Setup dialog first — changes made while it is open do not stick.

renderSceneDialog.close()

fn setResolution preset = (
    case preset of (
        "draft":    (renderWidth = 1920; renderHeight = 1080)
        "4k":       (renderWidth = 3840; renderHeight = 2160)
        "print-a3": (renderWidth = 4961; renderHeight = 3508)   -- A3 at 300 DPI