I’ve had many artists come to me lately asking, “Where’s the suspend task button?” I’ve also wondered that myself. As it is now, if we want to pause certain tasks we either have to fail them or complete them, both of which don’t properly represent the status of those frames and creates confusion. Is it possible to add this feature?
It’s already on the wishlist, and we designed the new backend for 6.0 so that it should be possible to support this in the future. We hope to start looking at it during 7.0 development.
Cheers,
Ryan
I’d like to second that request
at the moment I fail the tasks to give priority to other segments of the render, but would be prettier to be able to suspend them.
If you want to make it perfect it would be great if they could be automatically reactivated after the other tasks in that job have completed…
but that might be asking a bit too much 
We’ve bumped up this feature’s priority for 7.0, so it should get done.
I don’t think we want to be releasing them though once the others have completed. If you want to give priority to certain frames, you can change the frame list. For example, if I have frames 1-100, and I want to render every 10th frame first, I could do this:
1-100x10,1-100Because Deadline never duplicates frames for a job, you end up with a frame list like this:
1,11,21,31,41,51,61,71,81,91,2,3,4,...You can find more information about the frame list syntax here:
thinkboxsoftware.com/deadlin … ng_Options
Cheers,
Ryan
well the thing is… that I love the “render from beginning, middle & end” feature…
With 250 frames it results in a this frame range:
0,250,124-125,1,249,123,126,2,248,122,127,3,247,121,128,4,246,120,129,5,245,119,130,6,244,118,131,7,243,117,132,8,242,116,133,9,241,115,134,10,240,114,135,11,239,113,
136,12,238,112,137,13,237,111,138,14,236,110,139,15,235,109,140,16,234,108,141,17,233,107,142,18,232,106,143,19,231,105,144,20,230,104,145,21,229,103,146,22,228,102,147,23,
227,101,148,24,226,100,149,25,225,99,150,26,224,98,151,27,223,97,152,28,222,96,153,29,221,95,154,30,220,94,155,31,219,93,156,32,218,92,157,33,217,91,158,34,216,90,159,35,215,
89,160,36,214,88,161,37,213,87,162,38,212,86,163,39,211,85,164,40,210,84,165,41,209,83,166,42,208,82,167,43,207,81,168,44,206,80,169,45,205,79,170,46,204,78,171,47,203,77,172,
48,202,76,173,49,201,75,174,50,200,74,175,51,199,73,176,52,198,72,177,53,197,71,178,54,196,70,179,55,195,69,180,56,194,68,181,57,193,67,182,58,192,66,183,59,191,65,184,60,190,
64,185,61,189,63,186,62,187-188
And the problem with altering the framerange is that the rendering tasks are requeued which is a bit annoying when you have long renders and lose hours of rendering just to redirect the priority to a certain segment.
This separate issue of rendering tasks being requeued (even if when reorganized, they would fall into separate tasks with the same status) is actually hurting us a lot as well for simple scenarios of changing frame chunking etc
Hey guys,
Unfortunately, this problem isn’t a trivial one to solve without refactoring the core idea of what a “task” is in Deadline. We will definitely be considering this request though for Deadline 8, since our current plan for that version is to focus on core scheduling improvements, and this fits right in with that.
Cheers,
Ryan
Hey fellas,
Do you think suspending tasks will make it into 7?
cheers
laszlo
Already done. Part of me keeps forgetting how much stuff we’ve already done for 7 =)
Great news, ill notify the anxious users.