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Imager Overlay - Arnold User Guide

This imager allows you to print text over the rendered images and tag your renders. Various render statistics, scene settings and system information can be displayed via pre-defined tokens, such as render time, memory usage, frame number.

Input

Input points to the previous imager operation in the chain (so that you can stack them and apply multiple operations serially).

Enable

Enables this imager.

Layer Selection

Selects layers processed by this imager with a glob or operator expression. An imager can use a selection to determine whhich AOVs will be selected to be processed by the imager at render time. The selection is an expression that can consist of multiple selections concatenated by:

  • or (union)
  • and (intersection)
  • not (negation)
  • and not (exclusion)
  • () for nested scoping

Each selection uses glob patterns and regular expressions and a node will be processed by the imager if the expression matches the node name. By default, glob matching is used unless the selection is in a regex quote, i.e. r'<my_regex>'. For example:

specular or diffuse

not r'sss_(direct|indirect)'

r'color_(mask1|mask2)' or r'mask[34]'

Text

The information printed over the image.

Tokens

Define any of the following tokens in the text to display various rendering and scene information.

Render statistics

  • <frame_time>: Time spent on rendering a frame. This includes scene initialization and pixel rendering. The format is MM:SS or HH::MM:SS (e.g. 01:36).

    Note:

    This includes only Arnold core rendering. If the render is running from a DCC (like Maya or Cinema 4D), the time might not match the DCC render time, as it does not include the DCC scene initialization and plugin scene export time.

  • <memory>: Memory usage during the rendering process. If the render is running within a DCC, this includes the memory usage of the DCC as well.

  • <gpu_memory>: GPU memory usage during the render. If multiple GPUs are used, it displays the highest memory usage of the active cards.

  • <date>: Date when running the render in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. 2023-05-25).

  • <time>: Time when running the render in HH:MM:SS format (e.g. 16:05:42);

Scene information

  • <frame>: Frame number.

  • <fps>: Frame rate of the scene.

  • <resolution>: Render resolution (for example, 1280x720).

  • <samples>: Sample settings, such as camera AA, diffuse, specular, transmission, sss, volume (e.g. [5/2/2/2/1/0]) or adaptive sampling if enabled (e.g. [3 - 10 AA]).

  • <render_device>: The selected render device (CPU or GPU).

  • <camera>: Name of the active camera.

  • <fov>: Field of view of the active camera.

  • <timecode>: SMPTE timecode in hour:min:sec:frame format (e.g. 00:01:42:09).

  • <node:node_name.parameter>: Value of a given node parameter. Both built-in and user defined parameters are supported.

    Examples:

    • <node:/my_camera.fov>: Field of view parameter of the camera named /my_camera.
    • <node:options.AA_samples>: AA samples from the Arnold options node.
    • <node:my_shader.base_color.r>: R component of the base_color parameter of the node named my_shader.
    • <node:my_node.my_vector.z>: Z component of the my_vector parameter of the node named my_node.
    • <node:/Camera.matrix.position>: Position vector of the camera node named /Camera.
    Note:

    The matrix parameter of polymesh nodes is not accessible in a batch render session.

DCC specific tokens:

  • <scene>: Name of the scene or project as it appears in the DCC. Available in Maya, 3ds Max, and Cinema 4D.
  • <author>: Name of the user running the render. Available in Maya, 3ds Max, and Cinema 4D.
  • <focal_length>: Focal length of the active camera. Available in Cinema 4D.
  • <render_layer>: Name of the active render layer. Available in Maya.
  • <take>: Name of the active take. Available in Cinema 4D.

System information

  • <render_device_info>: Hardware information of the active render device. Displays the CPU information if it's a CPU render and also the GPU information if it's a GPU render or GPU is used (e.g. OptiX denoiser).
  • <cpu_info>: CPU hardware information, such as model name, number of cores, clock speed.
  • <gpu_info>: GPU hardware information, such as model name, clock speed, memory. Multiple GPUs are listed in separate lines. Only the active GPUs are listed.
  • <gpu_driver>: GPU driver version information.
  • <os>: Operating system name and version.
  • <hostname>: Host name of the machine.
  • <arnold_version>: Arnold version number.
  • <plugin_version>: Arnold plugin version number (MtoA, MAXtoA, HtoA, C4DtoA, KtoA).
  • <dcc_version>: DCC version number (Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, Cinema 4D, Katana).

Vertical Alignment

Vertical alignment of the text (top, center, bottom).

Horizontal Alignment

Horizontal alignment of the text (left, right, bottom).

Margin Left

Margin to the left of the text in pixels.

Margin Right

Margin to the right of the text in pixels.

Margin Top

Margin above the text in pixels.

Margin Bottom

Margin below the text in pixels.

Font

The font family and style used to print the text. You can use any of the system fonts (TrueType or PostScript), or custom fonts located in the folders specified by the OPENIMAGEIO_FONTS environment variable.

OPENIMAGEIO_FONTS can contain a list of font directories separated by ":" or ";".

System fonts are installed in the following folders:

  • Windows: C:\Windows\Fonts and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts
  • macOS: /System/Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts/
  • linux: /usr/share/fonts, /usr/local/share/fonts and ~/.local/share/fonts

Font Size

The size of the font in pixels.

Adjust Font Size

When enabled, the font size is automatically decreased if needed to fit the text within the image bounds.

Font Color

The color of the font.

Background Opacity

The opacity of the background, where 0 is fully transparent (no background), and 1 is fully opaque.

Background Color

The color of the background.

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