Configuration of RenderMan diagnostics primarily affects the presentation and reporting of data. By default, the system will set up an internal server for reporting live stats for any running render. The it tool displays live stats as part of its HUD, toggled on with the "V" (capital "vee") keyboard shortcut. Each DCC plugin also has a built-in "Live Stats" presentation panel, enabled by default.

Advanced users may also configure other presentation Listeners through the use of an INI configuration file.

It is currently recommended that live stats be explicitly disabled for farm renders. The live stats system will spawn a background process sbrokerd which can interfere with process lifetime and cgroup management of farm processes.

Advanced Configuration: INI File

The stats configuration file (default name: "stats.ini") holds the basic default settings for a stats session. Below is the default configuration for the stats system, equivalent to the default behavior of the system if there were no configuration file specified:

Default stats.ini

# stats.ini
# Roz Stats default configuration file
#
# Copy this file to: /a/path/of/your/choosing/stats.ini
# set RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH = /a/path/of/your/choosing

version 0.1

# Set this to 1 for extra information when parsing this file
verbose 0

# Stats processing log level.
# Range is 0 (none) to 5 (debug output). Default is 3 (warnings)
logLevel 3

# Session configuration
[Session]

# Distinguishing name for this session configuration
name "RMANTREE Session"

# Enable the internal live stats server 
liveStatsEnabled 1

# List of listeners which the session should create and manage.
#[ManagedListeners]

This file can be found in the RenderMan distribution at $RMANTREE/etc/stats.ini

It can also be utilized for advanced configuration to build a list of listeners to attach, and per-listener rules for metric data to be observed by each listener.

Below is an example of a configuration file that enables an end-of-render JSON report, including checkpoints:

checkpoint_stats.ini

# checkpoint_stats.ini
# Stats default configuration file
#
# Copy this file to: /a/path/of/your/choosing
# then run:
# prman -statsconfig /a/path/of/your/choosing/checkpoint_stats.ini

version 0.1

# Set this to 1 for extra information when parsing this file
verbose 1

# Stats processing log level.
# Range is 0 (none) to 5 (debug output). Default is 3 (warnings)
logLevel 5

# Session configuration
[Session]
name "Checkpoint Session"

# List of listeners which the session should create and manage.
[ManagedListeners]
    
# JSON output report listener
[Listener]
    type "jsonreport"
    name "jsonListener"
    outputFilename "checkpoint_stats.json"
	keepAllCheckpoints 1

[MetricRules]
    # Save all metrics to the JSON file, sampled once per second
    [Rule]
    regexp ".*"
    samplingInterval 1000

This example configuration file has both the verbose and logLevel settings dialed up for maximum verbosity when parsing the configuration file and starting the stats system, respectively. Once it is fully configured and working as expected these can be set back to their defaults of verbose 0 and logLevel 3.

The stats configuration file is provided to the prman command via the "-statsconfig" option:

prman -statsconfig /path/to/checkpoint_stats.ini /path/to/rib/scene.rib

See JSON Report Listener reference page for JSON output configuration options.

Config File Search Order

If command-line prman is not provided a config file via the -statsconfig option then the default configuration filename "stats.ini" will be used.

The stats system will search for the configuration file in the following order:

Order	Location	Default
1	/stats/configpath setting in rendermn.ini	.:${RMANTREE}/etc
2	`RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH` environment variable override	none
3	prman -statsconfig </path/to/filename.ini>	stats.ini

If you specify an absolute path on the command line it will override any requested search paths. This is a convenient way to do quick testing without having to modify an existing config file. For example, suppose you normally run with a certain configuration of listeners, but then want to do a render with details printed to the console about a specific metric or group of metrics. You could do a debugging run that temporarily overrides the default configuration in one of two ways - either by setting/pre-pending the environment variable override:

setenv RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH /my/test/directory
prman -statsconfig debug_stats.ini complicatedScene.rib

Or by providing a full-path, absolute file name:

prman -statsconfig /my/test/directory/debug_stats.ini complicatedScene.rib

Both of these methods will load the stats configuration from "/my/test/directory/debug_stats.ini"

Currently, configuration files are not merged if more than one is found. The last one found wins. Future releases will include advanced configuration mechanisms, including the merging of configuration files.

DCC Configuration

A live stats configuration UI pane is available in all RenderMan bridge products, with the exception of Solaris which does not yet have support for the new stats system. In addition, advanced configuration with an INI file is also available through the use of the config environment variable. See below for DCC-specific details.

Blender

RfB uses the prman command-line mechanism as described above, including the use of the RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH override environment variable.

Houdini

If the RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH environment variable is set RfH will use that search path to look for a file named stats.ini.

If no file is found, or if that environment variable is not set then the default configuration will be used.

Katana

If the RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH environment variable is set RfK will use that search path to look for a file named stats.ini.

If no file is found, or if that environment variable is not set then the default configuration will be used.

Additional configuration is also available in RfK through the following attributes:

prmanGlobalStatements.stats.configPath (default: ".")

prmanGlobalStatements.stats.configFile (default: "stats.ini")

These attributes are currently not exposed in PrmanGlobalStatements, they must be set via AttributeSet or OpScript at the moment. Below is an OpScript which exposes these two attributes as user args with defaults as listed above. Copy and paste into your Katana scene and modify the path and config file name as needed.

Configuration OpScript

<katana release="4.0v2" version="4.0.2.000001">
  <node name="__SAVE_exportedNodes" type="Group">
    <node baseType="OpScript" edited="true" name="AdvancedStatsConfiguration" ns_colorb="0.050000" ns_colorg="0.260000" ns_colorr="0.090000" ns_errorGlow="0.000000" ns_fromContext="legacy" selected="true" type="OpScript" x="287.350171" y="-212.346316">
      <port name="i0" source="GafferThree.out" type="in"/>
      <port name="out" type="out"/>
      <group_parameter name="AdvancedStatsConfiguration">
        <string_parameter name="CEL" value="((/root))"/>
        <string_parameter name="location" value="/root/world/location"/>
        <group_parameter name="script">
          <string_parameter name="lua" value="&#0010;-- Default: &apos;stats.ini&apos;&#0010;local configFile = Interface.GetOpArg(&apos;user.configFile&apos;):getValue()&#0010;&#0010;-- Default: &apos;.:${RMANTREE}/etc&apos;&#0010;-- Can be overriden with RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH&#0010;local configPath = Interface.GetOpArg(&apos;user.configPath&apos;):getValue()&#0010;&#0010;Interface.SetAttr(&#0010;    &apos;prmanGlobalStatements.stats.configFile&apos;,     &#0010;     StringAttribute(configFile))&#0010;&#0010;Interface.SetAttr(&#0010;     &apos;prmanGlobalStatements.stats.configPath&apos;, &#0010;     StringAttribute(configPath))&#0010;&#0010;"/>
        </group_parameter>
        <string_parameter name="executionMode" value="immediate"/>
        <string_parameter name="applyWhere" value="at locations matching CEL"/>
        <string_parameter name="applyWhen" value="during op resolve"/>
        <string_parameter name="modifierNameMode" value="node name"/>
        <string_parameter name="modifierName" value="modifier"/>
        <string_parameter name="resolveIds" value=""/>
        <number_parameter name="recursiveEnable" value="0"/>
        <string_parameter name="disableAt" value=""/>
        <string_parameter name="inputBehavior" value="by index"/>
        <number_parameter name="multisampleUserOpArgs" value="0"/>
        <group_parameter hints="{}" name="user">
          <string_parameter hints="{&apos;widget&apos;: &apos;fileInput&apos;}" name="configFile" value="stats.ini"/>
          <string_parameter expression="&apos;.:&apos;+getenv(&quot;RMANTREE&quot;, &quot;.&quot;)+&apos;/etc&apos;" hints="{}" name="configPath"/>
        </group_parameter>
      </group_parameter>
    </node>
  </node>
</katana>

RfK no longer allows interactive configuration of stats through the PrmanLiveStats Tab. Configuration of options will soon be allowed through exposed attributes, in the meantime, all configuration must come from an INI configuration file as described above.

Maya

If the RMAN_STATS_CONFIG_PATH environment variable is set RfM will use that search path to look for a file named stats.ini.

If no file is found, or if that environment variable is not set then the default configuration will be used.

Solaris

The new stats are not yet supported in Solaris.

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Advanced Configuration: INI File

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