Render > Render Current Frame

Messages

The following attributes allow you to tune the hardware settings for rendering on your machine or on your network machines.

Verbosity Level: Controls the verbosity level for messages related to mental ray rendering. Messages equal to or below the selected verbosity are displayed. Messages are displayed in the console window.

Parallelism

Auto Render Threads: If Auto Render Threads is enabled, Maya automatically calculates the number of threads that should be used to best take advantage of the CPUs (or cores) on your workstation. This option is on by default.
Render Threads: Specifies the number of rendering threads to be used by mental ray for Maya for rendering. Use a thread for each CPU you utilize on the local host.
Auto Tiling: Turn on this option to automatically determine the optimal tile size at render time.
Task Size: Pixel width and height of render tiles.

Memory

Auto Memory Limit: If Auto Memory Limit is enabled, Maya dynamically calculates the memory limit prior to the start of rendering. This feature can be enabled at all times to obtain better performance.

Tip
For limited memory situations, this setting is recommended.

To view the calculated value, ensure that Export Verbosity is set to Info Messages in the Verbosity Level section. The calculated Memory Limit is then displayed in the Script Editor.
Memory Limit: Soft limit for the memory used by mental ray. A soft limit implies that mental ray may actually use more memory than indicated.
Calculate: The Calculate button computes the memory setting for mental ray in the current situation, including the scene elements and their preview options and so forth. This attribute helps customers to obtain a rough estimate of the optimal memory limit for mental ray.

Network

Used for network rendering only.

Select one of these options to determine whether the local machine renders the scene, or whether the slaves render the scene.

Render on the local machine: Select this option so that the local machine participates in rendering the scene.
Render on network machines: Select this option so that the networked machine(s) participate in rendering the scene. This is useful in reducing the workload on the master machine while Maya is also running.

Tip
To render on all available machines, select both the Render on the local machine and Render on network machines options.