[BradT]

For some unknown reason, my render is not saving the depth channel into EXR's and the alpha is solid white. These channels do appear to be available and correct in the MXI sequence. Does anyone have a script that can convert the MXI's to EXR's with correctly embedded channels?

I've tried the MXI to Image script that ships with Maxwell, but I don't get any extended channels. I'm not sure what lines I need to add to make that happen. I've also tried importing the MXI's into AfterEffects CS 5 and rendering to EXR, but I don't get any extra channels that way either. I don't own Nuke, and there is no MXI importer for Fusion yet.

It would also be great to know why the channels aren't embedding correctly in the first place. My scenes are built in 3dsMax, submitted to Backburner at a low SL with Save-MXS and Save-MXI turned on. A second Backburner job is submitted with a higher SL, Save-MXS disabled, and the -trytoresume flag on. Extended channels are enabled in both jobs, and embedding turned on. Image output is specified as EXR, RGBAZ, 16-bit Float, Linear Gamma, from the Common part of the 3ds Max render dialog.

Upon rendering, I am getting a warning "Warning: Invalid Bit Depth will be adjusted automatically (in method setPath)

Thanks!

UPDATE: I've created a workaround. Maxwell.saveChannel() is allowing me to save out these channels to separate image files. I'd prefer them to be in embedded, but this gets me what I need for now. I'm surprised at how slow the process is. 4-minutes per 4Kx4K frame on an i7-5960X.

TLDR: I need a script to convert an MXI sequence to EXR with Alpha and Depth channels embedded.

[BradT]

One more interesting note: If I load the MXI into the Maxwell Render Application, and say "Save Image", I do get all the channels embedded correctly. If there were a way to batch that, it would solve my immediate issue.

[Mihai]

Would the tool File>MXI batch processing in Maxwell help in your case? You can choose with it a folder of MXI files, and choose which bitmap format to save in.

I would contact tech support from the customer portal, and sending them a link to download one of these MXI files. So they can check why the channels aren't loading in AE via the MXI, and also the slow export time. If you could also provide them a simplified example MXS scene that would also help.

[BradT]

Thanks Mihai,

File>MXI batch processing gives me an EXR with RGB and Alpha, but not Z. Seems like a bug. It's also very slow. CPU usage averages around 4%, sometimes spikes to 65% for a half-second, then back down to 4%. It's averaging 6 minutes per frame.