Maxwell Render | Official public forum

It would be great to have a small utility outside Maxwell to check if it has crashed and resume the render if it has. It would be easy to write one, just a check every 2-3 min to see if Maxwell process is running and if it's not call a bat file and send it the necessary variables.

Actually this utility could be made for starting Maxwell renders as well, so it would have the variables already.

Anyone good with VBScript or other suitable language?

Hy Mihai which system do you use? Pc or MAc?

Because i m making a architecture competition and i m using the Maxwell to make the renders and i had the crash problems when i use physical sky with sun or sky dome with emitter plan, it starts well but crashes after a while... and now we use all of our macs here in the office and we bring a pc to help rendering and when i pass the file to the pc and make the render IT NOT CRASHES... only crashes on MAC

The modelation is quite complex... In another files it not crashes in MAC.

I'm on PC but still get crashes
Just thought this kind of utility would be especially useful for Maxwell since resuming a render is so easy......I wish I knew VBscript...

Mihai another question if you don´t mind

I can make the resume in command line

i tried the commands -mxi:w and -mxi:c and nothing happens... but for sure i made something wrong... can you explain with some detail how to resume a render wen it crashes? Thanks

Oh i work with maxwell under cinema4D

Hi goncalo,

Just look in this post, it's good to read the whole thing but scroll down until you see a post about making a bat file with variables, that's the most practical at the moment:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=350

Hello Mihai... thanks for the concern... i saw the post you send me but i have a problem that i forgot to tell you ... Im in mac osX not in windows.

Can i also make a bat file in Mac? Thanks gain Mihai

I really have no idea if you can make something like a bat file on a Mac Must be a way....

@Mihai

Hello,

I guess it could be simple like this ... ;o))

Change the batchfile to something like the example. The batchfile creates
a file named mxcl.run, starts maxwell and if maxwell stops it checks
if the file exists, if so it runs maxwell again. If you want to stop the rendering,
just delete the file and stop maxwell. ,o)


Example:
I hope this is useful.



take care
Oleg

Thanks a lot olbo! I don't understand though, in your file how often does it check that mxcl is still running, or when you say "if Maxwell stops it checks", how does it know that Maxwell has stopped? I'd like for it to check every 2-3 minutes, not continuously. Would I do this with something like the task manager instead to call this file or can I do it in the bat file directly?

Hey Mihai,

you can use this batchfile the same way as before. It works pretty easy,
it just loops the whole thingy. So for the batchfile, it cannot know if the
render is crashed, or just finished rendering.

If you stop the render and did not delete the mxcl.run file it will start
maxwell again and use the .mxi to resume. So if you use 5 minutes
as rendertime it will loop the heck out of your workstation. ;o)

Usage: X:>NameOfBatchFile NameOfMXSWithoutExtension

PS.: The batchfile checks for the file, if the mxcl process stops/dies etc.


Have a nice day, ... it's raining here. -.-



take care
Oleg

Hi everyone,

This is the first thread I have come across to use the command line, its very interesting and I've managed to get it to work. Thankyou to everyone who has contributed, I have a couple of questions though....

I was under the impression you could resume a render, rather than restart it.... This solution seems to get the render to restart, losing any information saved.

When I close the "render" viewer the render restarts, but if I close the "dos" viewer, it doesn't restart.

Any comments or help would be appreciated, I am a complete novice at programming!

Thanks,

Mark

I hope maxwell R1 do not crash and we dont need all of these .bat and scripts!!!countdown for R1? 16 days?

thank you olbo for this little thingy jewel! it´s jsut a great idea! me not being comfy with command languages.. ohoh.. never got that to work by myself.
anyway, it seems to work properly!
and @ acquiese: this solution doesn´t restart but continue the render as in the second part of the script you can locate the mxi:c option which uses an existing mxi solution file.
so, glad my dually will be definitely working all night!

alex

Hey Alex,

you are welcome and good to hear it is useful. And one thingy, ... big
greetings to Aachen, I spend there 17 years of my childhood. ;o))


take care
Oleg

Hi,

Thanks for that, it turns out I had a typo which was upsetting it! Also a tip for other novices is to make sure your resolution is the same as the one in the script. Otherwise it goes a bit mental!

Thanks everyone,

Mark.