Python cross platform problem

[Jean-Louis Billard]

Hi SI warriors,

We have a rig that was made by someone using some python script based property sets.
He did all this in a windows environment, but the moment we send the scenes to our linux based renderfarm the clients fail to render.

Looking at his script I see the lines:

import win32com.client
from win32com.client import constants as c

It looks like this is what is failing, since the module doesn�t exist in linux, but since I am not a python-head, and google hasn�t been any help, I�m hoping that some kind soul here will be able point me in the right direction.


Thanks,

Jean-Louis





Jean-Louis Billard

Digital Golem
BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563
UK: +44 (0) 7973 660 119
jean-...@digitalgolem.com
http://www.digitalgolem.com/
53 Rue Gustave Huberti
1030 Brussels

[Eric Thivierge]

That's strange since I used those imports all the time last year when
working on CentOS using Softimage. You'll probably need to post more
info about the errors for more help.

On Friday, November 15, 2013 9:13:48 AM, Jean-Louis Billard wrote:
> Hi SI warriors,
>
> We have a rig that was made by someone using some python script based property sets.
> He did all this in a windows environment, but the moment we send the scenes to our linux based renderfarm the clients fail to render.
>
> Looking at his script I see the lines:
>
> import win32com.client
> from win32com.client import constants as c
>

> It looks like this is what is failing, since the module doesn’t exist in linux, but since I am not a python-head, and google hasn’t been any help, I’m hoping that some kind soul here will be able point me in the right direction.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

these are Windows API modules, but I think they should run in xsibatch
on linux. But no way they'll work outside of XSI.

[Jean-Louis Billard]

Hmmmm� ok, but where does the module reside for it to be accessible by Linux? Are they installed by XSI?


Jean-Louis

[Jon Swindells]

on deb:

 /usr/Softimage/Softimage_#year#_SP#/Application/python

could it be that your soft python isn't registered on your render boxes ?

from your /app/bin

mwpython win32com/axscript/client/pyscript.py

On 15 November 2013 16:49, Jean-Louis Billard <jean-...@photon3.com> wrote:

Hmmmm… ok, but where does the module reside for it to be accessible by Linux? Are they installed by XSI?


Jean-Louis

On 15 Nov 2013, at 15:18, Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com> wrote:

> these are Windows API modules, but I think they should run in xsibatch
> on linux. But no way they'll work outside of XSI.
>
> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Jean-Louis Billard
> <jean-...@photon3.com> wrote:
>> Hi SI warriors,
>>
>> We have a rig that was made by someone using some python script based property sets.
>> He did all this in a windows environment, but the moment we send the scenes to our linux based renderfarm the clients fail to render.
>>
>> Looking at his script I see the lines:
>>
>> import win32com.client
>> from win32com.client import constants as c
>>

>> It looks like this is what is failing, since the module doesn’t exist in linux, but since I am not a python-head, and google hasn’t been any help, I’m hoping that some kind soul here will be able point me in the right direction.
>
>

Jean-Louis Billard

Digital Golem
BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563
UK: +44 (0) 7973 660 119
jean-...@digitalgolem.com
http://www.digitalgolem.com/
53 Rue Gustave Huberti
1030 Brussels

--
Jon Swindells
squ...@gmail.com

[Jean-Louis Billard]

Oooh now that sounds like it could be right…! 

I’ll go check it out and see.

Thanks!

Jean-Louis 

[Alan Fregtman]

You cannot use those modules outside xsi/xsibatch. They only work within Softimage. Also, Softimage Linux has its own isolated Python 2.5 (or 2.7 in 2014) environment so don't even try adding them to the module.

They're automatically available within Soft's Python. They should not fail to import ever, unless Python is completely not working altogether somehow.

[Cesar Saez]

Or you can just cache the rigs (en everything else) before send them to the farm... just saying :-)

[Eric Thivierge]

I agree with Cesar on that point. It's best practice to not send live
rigs to render and have caching an essential part of the pipeline.

[olivier jeannel]

I'd like to render the vector (Arrow) that is shown in 3Dport view when
"show value" is on in an icetree.
Do we have something already setup ? or should I make mine ?

[patrick nethercoat]

You can do it with viewport capture.

[Jean-Louis Billard]

Yes that�s what we did previously on a model that had just a few surfaces to cache (a mouse).
Here however we have a robot with hundreds of elements, some rigid and some deformed, with a pretty huge geometry count. Things risk getting big pretty quickly, so I was hoping to avoid caching unless it was strictly necessary.

Incidentally, what would be the best practice to cache rigid elements (i.e. transforms only, no geometry) to avoid having large amounts of data written out?


Jean-Louis

On 16 Nov 2013, at 02:57, Cesar Saez <ces...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Or you can just cache the rigs (en everything else) before send them to the farm... just saying :-)

[olivier jeannel]

Are you telling me too do a screengrab on a dark background ?

Too late !

[patrick nethercoat]

Oh, I like the look of those better.

[Oscar Juarez]

Alembic can save transforms and point caches, you could try with Exocortex Crate, that would help on the file size front.

You could also script saving plotted global transforms on geometries which don't have and envelope or deformer and save them to a clip which you load in your rendering scene, you would need to assume that if it has an operator on the animation section of the stack then its being deformed, if its clear then it's transforming. Just be sure you keep the centers in the same place between your rigged version and your rendering version of the asset.

All of that is scriptable, with Crate I think you get that behavior out of the box.

On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Jean-Louis Billard <jean-...@photon3.com> wrote:

Yes that’s what we did previously on a model that had just a few surfaces to cache (a mouse).

[Alan Fregtman]

The animation caching pipeline I wrote at work looks at the construction history stack and if it's operator-free it plots that item's global kinematics, else pointcaches. This way we don't have to really think about it if it's an insane asset.

Actionclips are very light in my experience. On top of that, you can choose to work with referenced actions, and then you can just keep updating a particular filepath with the latest animation and when the scene is reloaded, it's there.

[Jean-Louis Billard]

OK! Thanks Alan and Oscar for the insight.

Cheers,

Jean-Louis