Troubleshoot rendered image doesn’t match interactive window display
 
 
 

In rare cases, a rendered image may not match what is displayed in the interactive window. This may be caused by different Dependency Graph solutions if nodes are evaluated in a different order.

The most common occurrences are: renders that are divided among multiple machines produce inconsistent results; an arbitrary frame within an animation range is rendered alone; or rendering with motion blur produces different results than rendering without motion blur.

Scene elements which may produce undesirable render matching include:

Workaround

The renderer can invoke a MEL procedure just before you render a frame. Write (or find) a MEL procedure that forces evaluation at the intervening skipped frames. Name this script preFrameProc.mel. Specify this script in the Render Settings > Render Options > PreRender Mel text field.

To use a MEL script

  1. Create the MEL script; name it preFrameProc.mel and put it in your Maya scripts directory.
  2. Under Render Settings > Render Options, type preFrameProc in the PreRender Mel field.

    If motion blur is on, you may need to bake the animation.