Python plugin and Linux CLR arguments

vtq

Hello,
I am currently trying to export the render settings from a .c4d file with python on Linux. If I'm not mistaken the only way to achieve this on Linux is to write a .pyp plugin that reads commandline arguments as explained here and use a special flag to activate a settings exporting script.
However I couldn't get any output in the console with that type of plugin, even with the example from the docs. Is it possible to use such a plugin on the Linux CLR version of c4d ?

I tried the plugins with both S24 and R23 versions in a docker container based on Ubuntu 18.04. Rendering (with Arnold or Redshift) works fine.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,

Manuel

Hi,

while with c4dpy you can execute a python script, the command-line render doesn't.
if you try to create a plugin, PluginMessage will be called before your document is loaded, so you will only have access to the default document.

The workaround is to load yourself the document in the PluginMessage:
The problem I see is that if your project has plugins, you are not guarantee that they will be already loaded.

import c4d
import sys
from datetime import datetime
from contextlib import redirect_stdout
import os.path

def PluginMessage(id, data):
    if id==c4d.C4DPL_COMMANDLINEARGS:
        # react to command line arguments
        # redirect the print to a file
        with open('d:\\log.txt', 'w') as f:
            with redirect_stdout(f):
                # now we can use print to directly print to the file
                print(datetime.now(), sys.argv) #print arguments
                fileName = sys.argv[0]
                if os.path.isfile(fileName):
                    flags = c4d.SCENEFILTER_OBJECTS
                    # open the document
                    doc = c4d.documents.LoadDocument(fileName, flags)
                    if doc is None:
                        print (datetime.now(), "file {} not loaded".format(fileName))
                        return True

                    print (datetime.now(), "file {} loaded".format(fileName))
                    # retrieve the active render settings
                    rd = doc.GetActiveRenderData()
                    
                    if rd is None:
                        print (datetime.now(), "can't retrieve the render settings")
                        return True
                    # access render settings
                    print (datetime.now(), "Resolution of the current file ", rd[c4d.RDATA_XRES], rd[c4d.RDATA_YRES])

                    # close the document
                    c4d.documents.KillDocument(doc)
                else:
                    print (datetime.now(), "file {} not loaded".format(fileName))   
                    
                print (datetime.now(), "finished")
        return True
    return False

If you still want to render the document, you can get inspired by our c++ example

What's the issue you are facing? there's maybe another way of doing it.

Cheers,
Manuel

vtq

Thanks for the answer and the example.

The goal is to get the render settings and a few other parameters from a file without rendering it. I have to do it on linux so the ways to achieve it are limited.

With your plugin code I had the same results I had with the example from the documentation, nothing happened and I had the message Warning! Unknown arguments: right before C4D END.

I install these plugins by putting the .pyp file in /opt/maxon/cinema4dr23.110/bin/plugins but they don't seem to load. On the other hand rendering plugins seem to load and work just fine. I also had to export the envvar g_modulePath=/opt/maxon/cinema4dr23.110/bin for the rendering plugins to load.
Am I missing any step when adding a python plugin ?

Best regards,

Manuel

Hi,

I also have that bad argument, but the plugin is working fine using g_additionalModulePath=/media/val/empty/cmd_plugin/

the above code but with a correct path for my linux virtual machine.

 with open('/media/val/empty/log.txt', 'w') as f:

./Commandline /media/val/empty/test.c4d g_additionalModulePath=/media/val/empty/cmd_plugin/

1- The render works and the log.txt is created. Just to be sure, did you execute bin/setup_c4d_env?
2 - If you just use the commandline to render a file, it works?

In any case the command line render isn't created to gather information about files. Wine/c4dpy could be a better solution for that case, but you could have some issue with some rendering modules.

Cheers,
Manuel

vtq

Hello,
Adding the path to the plugin in g_additionalModulePath fixed the issue.

Thank you very much for your help.