8

206 Chapter 17: Rendering
patharenotautomaticallysavedandonlyappear
in the
rendered frame window (page 3–5) .
Can ce l—Cancels the batch rendering.
Command-Line Rendering
The command-line rendering tool lets you
performbatchrenderingjobswithouthaving
to manipulate parameters by hand in a MAX
file. Simple, “one-shot” rendering jobs can b e
submitted from the Start > Run dialog. More
elaborate, batched jobs can be rendered through
the use of text files; for example,
MyRender.bat or
MyRender.xml .Theabilitytoedittextfilesiswhat
provides the power to this tool. You can quickly
make changes to your rendering parameters, or
output formats, simply by opening your text editor
and editing the batch settings.
Command-line rendering is provided by the
3dsmaxcmd.exe program, found in your \3dsmax8
folder.
You can submit command-line rendering jobs that
are rendered on a single workstation, or you can
take advantage of
network rendering (page 3–169)
and let the Backburner utility manage the jobs
across multiple systems.
Wa rn in g: Command-line rendering is a professional
feature and can perform destructive operations. You
will not see messages or warning dialogs informing
you about potential mistakes, such as overwriting an
existing frame on your drive.
Pr ocedur es
To view the 3dsmaxcmd help file:
The 3dsmaxcmd.exe file contains a built-in help
system that you can access from a command
prompt.
1. Open a command prompt window (for
example, Windows Start > Run).
2. Enter the following: “c:\program
f ile s\au to d es k\3 dsmax8 \3d sma xcmd”
-? and press ENTER.
Thelistofswitchesandoptionswillscrollonto
the window.
To v iew a list of s ample command lines with
descriptions of wha t they do:
The 3dsmaxcmd.exe file also has an extensive list
of sample text strings that describe many of the
most common scenarios you’d use command-line
rendering to accomplish.
1. Open a command prompt window.
2. Enter the following: “c:\program
f ile s\au to d es k\3 dsmax8 \3d sma xcmd”
-x and press ENTER.
Setting up the simplest r endering:
In its s implest form, just a render command using
all the settings that are stored with a scene, would
look like this:
1. Open a command prompt window.
2. Enter the following: “c:\program
f ile s\au to d es k\3 dsmax8 \3d sma xcmd”
“c:\prog r a m f i les\autodesk\3dsm a x8\scenes\
myscene.ma x” and press ENTER .
Example: Rendering to a JPG file at 800x600
resolution:
Perhaps the last time you rendered your scene,
you had the output resolution set to 320x240 and
rendered a BMP file. Re-render ing the scene using
differentoutputsettingsisfastandefficientwith
command-line rendering.
1. Open a command prompt window.
2. Enter the following:
“c:\progr a m f i les\autodesk\3dsm ax 8\
3dsmaxcmd” -outputName:“c:\program