Workflow guidance for large collection of images (batch rendering process)

[l.croxton]

Hi everyone.

I am hoping to find some guidance (links to sources) of how I achieve the following (if it all possible?)

Basically I am having to produce a large quantity of renders of a product in 5 different angles which will need colour correction applying via photoshop/aftereffects in 30 different finishes (to ensure colour matching of finishes).

Essentially I want to know if it is possible to get photoshop or after effects to load up these individual renders and their respective elements and apply the colour corrections in the correct manner (I am thinking of selecting the correct outputted masks)

Or is this something that is not currently possible or would require some specialized script/program to do? I've spoken to one person about this and for something kind of similar a custom script had to be developed for it.

Finally I have tried looking online and so far all I can find are tutorials based on single elements which apply either a crop/resizing/pasting on top a simple graphic. There are none that show element selection, use of multiple selections of masks in a singular action which can be run across multiple renders ie View 1, view 2, view 3, view 4, view 5.

I appreciate there are quite a few batch rendering posts on here and I have tried scanning through to find the answers or atleast an idea and I have been unable to, so apologies in advance if this has already been covered, a simple copy and paste link to what could be the answer is all that I would need and be hugely grateful for.

Thanks everyone :)

[l.croxton]

Hi everyone again,

So I've had an idea on how to do this. Its a bit of a work around and no doubt it'll probably come off as obvious for a lot of you but just on the off chance it helps someone else then here is my plan!

Basically I'll run this like an animation, so instead of it being view 1, view 2, view 3, it'll be essentially an animated export so I can then use after effects to bring in the renders, and from there I can section off the colour correction for each of the finishes via frame count and because then the mask will be "animated" it'll follow where I need the corrections to be made and I can re-use these for the different products which may use the same finish but will be the same colour.

The only short coming I can see of this process is that on the export of the files being not named correctly.... but honestly that seems far less painful than the alternatives that I can think of.

I hope this is of some help to someone or it helps to generate a better idea from anyone else.

Cheers,
Leigh

[maru]

What you are describing does not sound impossible. :) Maybe even Photoshop actions or batch processing would be enough?
I think we would need a bit more information on what exactly you need to do. Otherwise it may be hard to advise.

I would also recommend asking on some specialized FB groups, like post-processing, fx, etc. I guess it's every day work for some of those guys.

[l.croxton]

@Maru

Thanks for getting back to me. You're totally right I am sure there are some better places for asking this question, however I have rarely had to ever do this line of work of mass production of images and so I am pretty ignorant to even knowing what websites/forums to go and ask, I do know however you guys over here are very helpful! So I thought I would try my luck ;)

Again you would think that would work and for some instances I think it can work. The problems I am having is to try and get the action to run through importing the large amount of files, performing the selections of the masks needed for specific areas of colour correction and then saving them out.

This is where I believe I have got middle ground with after effects because the way it obviously runs through the frames is essentially exactly what I need it to do, as I say the big problem is having the exported file name with the correct name. However having to rename 1000+ by hand is far more appealing than having to open and save photoshop a few hundred times ^-^.

I'm sure there is some way of doing this properly but quite honestly I wouldn't really know where to even begin looking in the correct places.

Thanks again for replying! :)

[Juraj]

To avoid the naming issues you don't have to render animation with arbitrary frame naming, you can place your regular renders or batches of correctly named frames into AfterEffects (or other Compositor) as well.

Look at Pulze scene manager, it's the simplest render manager. I can vouch for it, although it has slow (or non-existent) development and I am unable to even submit bugs & requests anywhere.
You could setup individual animations through it, so you would always get "Product X/Y/Z/.. View 1/2/3/4/5/etc..".

Photoshop actions&batch processing is quite powerful, but I would also agree that compositing software might make this faster and more transparent.

[maru]

Look at Pulze scene manager, it's the simplest render manager. I can vouch for it, although it has slow (or non-existent) development and I am unable to even submit bugs & requests anywhere.

That's very odd. We are constantly in touch with them. AFAIK they just released a new improved version (or are releasing soon), and they even added support for some Corona features. I met those guys personally at D2 and SOA. :)
You can ping me and I will forward your notes to them. :)

[Juraj]

I got email only about Pulze manager for post. It's 3 different products.

The Scene Manager has been over half a year the same. I already send them those notes twice on email :- ).

I am too spoiled by Connecter guys, who are just phenomenal in developing and supporting it. The Pulze is amazing concept by being tailored to be so simple that even dumb Archviz guys like me want to use it, but half a year without updates..

[JulioCayetano]

Hey,

We are also using Pulze Scene Manager here for our current projects, to "batch render" our scenes, that usually contains 4-8 cameras, that need completely different mood settings. We really like the workflow with Pulze. We usually automatically manage (per shot): camera to use, layers to hide/show, CoronaSun if needed, Environment (HDRi or CoronaSky) and Render output with Camera name and File version. The post-production needed is set in each Corona Camera. It makes our life much easier, specially when you open a scene that was created by another artist. I only miss an option to add a specific, per Camera, CoronaVolumeMtl in the Global Volume Material slot.

However, I have noticed a strange behavior for the last days in the complex scene we are working right now (since we installed Corona 5 RC2, but not sure if it´s related), pulze suddenly stops working after batch rendering, it remains there, as it was ok, but it doesn´t work at all. I´m not sure how to contact pulze to ask for help, for this and for a strange behavior with Sun+Sky(in 3DsMAX environment) that we are suffering.

Could you please point me to the best way of asking for help about Pulze issues/doubts/suggestions? Or should I just ask it here in this forum in a new threat?
thanks a lot in advance

Julio

[Juraj]

However, I have noticed a strange behavior for the last days in the complex scene we are working right now (since we installed Corona 5 RC2, but not sure if it´s related), pulze suddenly stops working after batch rendering, it remains there, as it was ok, but it doesn´t work at all. I´m not sure how to contact pulze to ask for help, for this and for a strange behavior with Sun+Sky(in 3DsMAX environment) that we are suffering.

I just wrote them about this bug! Not just after batch, for me it's any render while it was open but not IR. Please do so as well. I also don't know if it's RC related because that's the only thing I changed and I didn't see it before I think.

Write them here: info @ pulze.io (put it together)

What do you think about the fact it forces new version of Environment? You can't use the same one, it will always create new one with suffix. With 50 setups, I end up with 50 Environments.

[JulioCayetano]

I just wrote them about this bug! Not just after batch, for me it's any render while it was open but not IR. Please do so as well. I also don't know if it's RC related because that's the only thing I changed and I didn't see it before I think.

Yes, true, the only thing we´ve installed these days is Corona 5 RCs and Railclone 4. And our scene had quite a bunch of RC objects.

Write them here: info @ pulze.io (put it together)

Of course, I will, thanks for your help.

What do you think about the fact it forces new version of Environment? You can't use the same one, it will always create new one with suffix. With 50 setups, I end up with 50 Environments.

Oh man, please don´t ask me about that, it really drives me mad! First time I noticed it I was trying to set up some cameras in Pulze under a rush to render overnight and submit next morning, and it was like "oh my... what the heck??? What is happening? How I ended up with a "HDRiForCam03_Env_Env_Env_Env???" :-D

[sprayer]

However having to rename 1000+ by hand

You may also batch rename in total commander for example

[l.croxton]

Hi everyone, thank-you for your replies to this problem of mine, I'll certainly check out the Pulze piece of software. I am extremely ignorant to this side of production, I've done very little of mass product renders so its all a bit new to me!

I must have been doing the photoshop actions part incorrect as I just couldn't get the automatic selection of masks to automate and for it to work across files which are named differently, so Product 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

With the exporting with the correct naming, are any of you or maybe someone just lurking about reading my hapless reply be able to give me a weblink or direction of how to export with the same render file name?

Thanks again for all your help!

[sprayer]

You should save images with your action in Photoshop via
File-Automate-batch

[l.croxton]

You should save images with your action in Photoshop via
File-Automate-batch

That was my original plan and I've done that before for mass re-sizing, however I was unable to get the process to automate the selection of masks for colour correction etc. I've probably done it wrong, however I've got a very tight turn around for this so I've had to try and think of a plan of what I think could work with minimal pain in the butt.

[Attila Cselovszki]

However, I have noticed a strange behavior for the last days in the complex scene we are working right now (since we installed Corona 5 RC2, but not sure if it´s related), pulze suddenly stops working after batch rendering, it remains there, as it was ok, but it doesn´t work at all. I´m not sure how to contact pulze to ask for help, for this and for a strange behavior with Sun+Sky(in 3DsMAX environment) that we are suffering.

We were not able to replicate this malfunction. I would like to kindly ask you to contact with us via mail: info@pulze.io or on Facebook.

Oh man, please don´t ask me about that, it really drives me mad! First time I noticed it I was trying to set up some cameras in Pulze under a rush to render overnight and submit next morning, and it was like "oh my... what the heck??? What is happening? How I ended up with a "HDRiForCam03_Env_Env_Env_Env???" :-D

We had a deep conversation with Juraj and we agreed on that this function should be reconsidered. Once the Render Manager will be released we will investigate further this topic!