Create and export a main setup and import and reuse it to build shots from a sequence. Export your render setup (render layers, collections and overrides) in the .json file format. Import this setup into another scene and choose among several merge options.
Export a .json template from a sequence setup and apply this template to other shots to avoid setting up each shot individually.
A template is a .json file that represents the entirety (all of your render setup nodes) or a subset of your render setup; for example, a subset of collections, or a render layer and its collections.
You can also add notes when you export, and these notes are displayed when you import your .json file. For advanced users, you can also optionally edit your .json file in any editor and the changes are reflected upon import. The advantage to exporting via .json is that .json files are easy to read and generate via script.
Overridden attributes driven by expressions, or driven by keys on an animation curve cannot be exported with your render setup.
Your scene content is not exported as part of the .json file, only your render setup (layers, collections, overrides).
Export your complete render setup
Select File > Export All in the Render Setup editor to export your render setup in the .json file format.
You can also add comments to the Notes field; for example, details regarding what was last changed, or a description of the render setup. Notes are persistent in the scene, and saved with your .json file.
By default, both the Render Setup nodes and the scene Render Settings and AOVs are exported with the .json. Upon import, the render setup nodes are imported, the AOVs from the .json file are imported, and all scene render settings are also overridden by the settings saved in the .json file. To export only the Render Setup nodes, disable the Export Render Settings and AOVs option in the File > Export All window. This enables you to import the template to use its render setup nodes without modifying the Render Settings or AOVs in the scene that you are importing into.
This setting is saved with your preferences, and persists upon restarting Maya. You can also set the environment variable MAYA_RENDER_SETUP_DISABLE_RENDER_SETTINGS_AOVS_EXPORT to 1 to always disable this option, and 0 to enable.
Import a render setup into your scene
Select File > Import All from the Render Setup editor to navigate to the .json file that you want to import, and select from these import options.
- Overwrite
- Completely overwrite the existing render setup with the imported render setup. All of your current render setup contents are replaced with the imported ones.
- Merge
- Merge the existing render setup content with the imported content if the nodes are identical (that is, they have the same name). Content that does not exist in the current render setup are imported without modification.
- Rename
- Content that exists in the current render setup is not modified, and all render setup content in the .json file is imported and renamed with a prefix. Enter in the Append Text field the prefix that you want to add to these imported nodes.
Comments that were entered in the Notes field when exporting, or that were added to the notes dynamic attribute of the renderSetup node, are displayed in the Notes field in the Import window. See Append additional notes below for more details.
A Preview window displays the contents of the .json file that you are about to import.
; click this to refresh your layer and see the updated result.
Append additional notes
Notes contents can be multi-line, and are saved in the notes dynamic attribute of the renderSetup node.
You can enter select renderSetup in the command line to select the renderSetup node, then append additional notes in the Notes field at the bottom of the Attribute Editor.
If notes exist on the renderSetup node when you export a file; for example, if you imported a .json file that includes notes, or if you appended notes to the renderSetup node, its contents are displayed in the Notes field in the Export window.
Global templates and user templates
You can save templates to a globally accessible network location so that they can be shared among users, or to a local folder that only you will access. See Location of template files below.
Location of template files
You can set the location for your global templates by setting the environment variable MAYA_RENDER_SETUP_GLOBAL_TEMPLATE_PATH. Upon startup, Maya automatically searches for global templates in this folder. You can modify this path via the Preferences window. This way, you do not need to restart Maya to modify this path.
Setting your global template path to a remote server that is slow to access may cause a slowdown when loading the import template menus (both via
or via the layer/collection right-click menus ).
It is advisable to store your global templates to a local server instead.
Similarly, if either your local or global template path is a folder that consists of a lot of files or subfolders, a slowdown may occur when accessing the right-click menu. If this occurs, you may want to select a different folder as your template path.
Set the location for global and user templates in the Preferences window (Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Rendering).
You can also set your template location using the following option variables:
- Global templates: renderSetup_globalTemplateDirectory
- User templates:
renderSetup_userTemplateDirectory
By default, this is set to <Documents>\maya\RSTemplates.
Note:Previously, in Maya 2016 Extension 2, this was set to <Documents>\maya\Templates.
To query either of these directories, do as follows:
optionVar -q "renderSetup_userTemplateDirectory";
To change the directory, replace the value of the option variable as follows:
optionVar -sv "renderSetup_userTemplateDirectory" "C:\myTemplates";
Maya automatically searches for available templates in these directories.