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Render Output - Arnold for Houdini

This is the Arnold ROP. We have tried to make it similar to the other Houdini render nodes and to the Mantra ROP in particular. You will find most high-level options are identical.

Render to Disk

Begins the render with the last render control settings.

Render Control

Opens the render control dialog to allow adjustments of the render parameters before rendering.

Valid Frame Range

Controls whether this render node outputs the current frame or the image sequence specified in the Start/End/Inc parameters.

  • Render Frame Range will allow outside frames to be rendered. This is used in conjunction with render dependencies. It also affects the behavior of the 'Override Frame Range' in the Render Control dialog.
  • Render Frame Range (strict) will render frames START to END when it is rendered, but will not allow frames outside this range to be rendered at all.

Two possible cases where you'd want the strict behavior:

  • A 60 frame walk cycle written out to a geo, but part of a larger ROP net to render out a larger frame range.
  • A texture loop from 1-20.

Otherwise, you will usually set this to non-strict.

Render Current Frame Renders a single frame, based on the value in the playbar or the frame that is requested by a connected output render node.
Render Frame Range Renders a sequence of frames. If an output render node is connected, this range is generally ignored in favor of frames requested by the output render node.
Render Frame Range (Strict) Renders a sequence of frames. If an output render node is connected, this range restricts its requested frames to this frame range.

Start/End/Inc

Specifies the range of frames to render (start frame, end frame, and increment). All values may be floating point values. The range is inclusive.

These parameters determine the values of the local variables for the output driver. For example, if the parameters are set to:

Start End Inc
10.5 12 0.5

There will be 4 frames rendered (10.5, 11, 11.5, and 12), so $NRENDER will have a value of 4. $N will have the value:

Frame 10.5 11 11.5 12
$N 1 2 3 4

Render With Take

The output driver will switch to this take before rendering and then restore the current take when rendering is done.

Use chs("take") to use this value in other parameters. See the chs expression function for more information.

The tabs contain the following render options:

  • Main
  • Properties
  • Archive
  • Scripts

Inspect Arnold Operators

This is a utility option on the Arnold ROP nodes (Right click > Inspect Arnold Operators. It displays a preview of the .ass file which will be exported for a given ROP graph (the same behaviour as 'Export Arnold Operators', but presented as a rapid way to debug within Houdini).

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