IK Render View Renderer
I’m using Maya 2012 64-bit on Mac OS X, and there are often times when I can not figure out why the batch renderer is taking so damn long to render my frames. One project for example was taking on average 1.5 minutes per frame in Maya’s native Render View, yet that same frame took almost 11 minutes PER FRAME when I rendered via the Batch Renderer. What’s up with that Autodesk?!
After many hours of trying to troubleshoot it I gave in and found Mr. Irakli Kublashvili’s IK Render View Batch Renderer. It is a simple MEL file that you copy to your scripts folder, then in Maya you type “IK_renderViewBr;” to launch a nice dialog box that allows you to pick the folder, start and end frames, frame size and other relevant options for your IK Render View Batch Render. Once you click on the Render button it renders each frame in Maya’s Render View window, when the frame is complete it saves it to the folder you specify, and automatically starts the next frame continuing until it reaches the end frame.
Major props to Irakli for creating this. A project that would have taken roughly 36 hours to render with Maya’s Batch Renderer finished in the more appropriate 5-6 hours I originally had expected. I hope this helps some of you!