If you use the command render to create images from a given camera, you may wonder why Maya sometimes creates an extra folder, labeled with the camera name, and saves your image here rather than directly in the Project/tmp directory.
Let me explain when this happens, and how to avoid it.
Open Maya and Set a Project.
Create a set of objects and render the image with the Maya software renderer with the command:
render persp;
Maya will render the persp camera and, with the default render settings, store the image directly in your Project/tmp directory.
However, if you have more than one camera set to be 'Renderable', Maya will create a sub-directory, labeled with the camera name, when you next invoke the command. This is to allow you to save multiple images with the same name, from different cameras.
If you want your images to be stored in the Project/tmp directory - perhaps you have a script that looks for them there - you can force Maya to do so by using one of the following methods:
1. Include the camera name in the file name. If there is no immediate and potential name-clash Maya will save your image in the Project/tmp directory.
To include the camera name in the image name, you can R-Click over the Filename prefix field to insert the camera name token:
<camera>_myImage.jpg
2. Use the following shorthand in the Filename prefix field:
../myImage.jpg
This tells Maya to save the image in the directory directly above that which it would normally be saved in.
Note: on Windows, this also prevents the sub-directories from being created in the first place, but not on Mac OS where the sub-directories will be created nevertheless.
Also note that a camera does not have to be set as 'Renderable' in the Render Settings for Maya to render it with the command render, so another alternative is to simply remove all 'Renderable Cameras'.
Cheers,
Owen
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