Have you ever opened up a Maya scene downloaded from a website and upon trying to do a render… all you get is a blank window and an error! BAH!

Error: setParent: object ‘renderView’ not found

Luckily there is an easy solution to fix this. Check out the tutorial to the right on how to create a MEL shelf button to keep this solution handy. The MEL script is below.

$exists=0;
for ($item in `getPanel -scriptType "renderWindowPanel"`) {
if ( $item == "renderView" ) {
print "renderView exists.\n";
$exists=1;
}
}
if ( $exists == 0 ) {
for ($item in `getPanel -scriptType "renderWindowPanel"`) {
//print ( $item + "\n");
if ( $item == "renderWindowPanel1" ) {
deleteUI renderWindowPanel1;
$renderPanel = `scriptedPanel -type "renderWindowPanel" -unParent renderView`;
scriptedPanel -e -label `interToUI $renderPanel` $renderPanel;
}
}
}

Note: A permanent way to fix this issue is to simply upgrade Maya 2012 with the latest service pack. But this requires a reinstall of Maya… And when you’re in the middle of production, well thats just not a pleasant option.