plugins for Maya

[dhernand]

I have had to install RenderMan for Maya version 4 on my laptop. Its
their baby product and one that we don't use at school. Unfortunately,
in the plugin manager it has replaced my normal RMS link to that
plugin. Remember I'm on a Mac laptop, how can I get both plugins to
show in the manager. I don't know which file to edit. What would you
suggest??

All the best,
Malcolm

[dhernand]

Hi Malcolm,
I'm still trying to figure this out but what I have come across is that if you edit the maya executable - /usr/autodesk/maya2011-x64/bin/maya you can add the following:

setenv RATTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.2-maya2011
setenv RMSTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.2-maya2011

setenv RATTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.0-maya2011
setenv RMSTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.0-maya2011

When you launch maya it will default to the second set environment variables. For the above example rms 3.0.0 will be the default

If you comment out the second set of environment variables then, rms 3.0.2 will be the default in maya.
setenv RATTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.2-maya2011
setenv RMSTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.2-maya2011

#setenv RATTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.0-maya2011
#setenv RMSTREE /opt/pixar/RenderManStudio-3.0.0-maya2011

I know that this is an inelegant way to switch between the two different versions of rms but it will load the plugins of your choice.
I'll keep looking into it to see how we can setup both rms plugins to be available in the plugin manager in maya2011
I'll get back to you as soon as I come up with a better setup.
All the best,

Dan Hernandez

[dhernand]

Hi Dan,
I want to switch between RenderManStudio-3.0.2-maya2011 (RMS) and
RenderManForMaya-4.0.2-maya2011 (RfM4). The second one is Pixar's baby
product. But the same issue applies. In the plugin manager I can
browse for the first one - currently the baby product shows up in my
list of plugins. So switching between products is not too bad.
However, my RenderMan shelf in Maya is always populated with the
buttons for RMS even though by default I'm using RfM4. Don't worry
about it I know you have more than enough to worry about. Good luck
with the training.
Malc

[dhernand]

Malcom, Dan, et al.

Although I do not have access to a Mac I believe what Dan suggested should work with a few changes. I had also assumed that the env paths would be the same on OSX as on Linux. However, after looking at the documentation, I believe these are the correct ones.

RMANTREE /Applications/Pixar/RenderMan.app/Versions/RenderManProServer-[version]

RMSTREE //Applications/Pixar/RenderManStudio-[version]-maya[version]

This is still not an elegant solution, but would hopefully fix the shelf. And again, without access to 4.0.2 or a Mac with both RenderMan and admin rights I cant be sure. If this does fix the shelf, it should be easy to write a script that would switch between the two versions.

Zak

[dhernand]

Hey guys,

I know I'm a week late to the party here but I thought I'd weigh in. I'm going to get back in the habit of checking my scad staff account.

It seems to me that creating creating your own custom shelf and copying the renderman for maya versions of the scripts to it would be the easiest solution. That's my two cents.

Cheers,

Andrew