Automating the Render All Viewports Process

[Jayme McColgan]

hey guys,

 

i want to explore an idea and want to see if anyone has done something like this. i sometimes need a way to update all viewports locally on another computer so i don't lock up my computer, which consists of me opening my VW file on another (super beefy) computer and rendering all viewports from there. thats all fine and dandy but I'm trying to automate that so when its done it would save and close the file and let me know its done.

 

i know VSS has this feature but i need to be able to do it locally sometimes. 

 

questions i have:

 

- is it possible for a plugin to open a VW file on a remote computer and tell it to "Update All Viewports"?

- how do you know when the "Update all viewports" process is done? (i didn't really see anything in the VS references for it)

- Could i have VW launch a script when its opened? (i could have a computer open files from a watch folder via an external python script but idk how to have VW start the update process once the file is open.)

[Dave Donley]

Hello @Jayme McColgan Calling SetPref(596, TRUE); might work to make VW wait until all viewports have been rendered.  Could try calling do menu text to run the update all viewports menu command from a script, then wait, then run save file.  (My scripting is not very developed, used to using C++ SDK but these hooks might help you)

 

[Pat Stanford]

Are you on Mac?  If so, then an AppleScript that sends Vectorscript commands to VW can probably do what you need.

 

If you are on Win, I think you might be out of luck to automate the whole process.

 

Would this need to be started from a file you have open in VW?

[herbieherb]

Here is how you woul'd send Vectorscipt/Python commands from windows:

 

[Jayme McColgan]

On 12/6/2021 at 6:52 PM, Pat Stanford said:

Are you on Mac?  If so, then an AppleScript that sends Vectorscript commands to VW can probably do what you need.

 

If you are on Win, I think you might be out of luck to automate the whole process.

 

Would this need to be started from a file you have open in VW?

 

most of our files will start on a mac then i would send the file to a windows computer that sits in our server room to do the rendering. I'm going to give the suggestion that @herbieherb suggested and see how that goes.