AWS Thinkbox Discussion Forums

By render

Hi, I am trying to setup a workflow with Deadline where I could render my FinalGather map (Mental ray) on one machine not rendering every frame. Example rendering my animation from 1-200 every 5 frames.



If I set this up in deadline, I will automaticly end up with tasks. These task will then be distributed on different machines.



To get this workflow to work, the the FinalGather map render need to be done sequentialy (frame 1 must finish before the next frame starts).



Currently there is no way to do this. I would suggest 3 options to be able to do this.



Option 1.

Enable BY render, where the frame list parser could detect sequences to create task that use a by. Example, If I create this frame list: 1,4,7,10,13,16, the frame list parser will detect that the sequence is a BY 3 so it will create a task 1-16x3 (1 to 16 by 3)



Option 2.

Add a feature where each task of a job need to be render sequentialy. The first task must finish successfully before the second one is launched, 2nd task must be done before the 3rd one starts, and so on.



Option 3.

Hack the render plugin (in my case the Maya plugin) and add an override in the job properties where the frame list supplied by deadline would be overriden by the start/end/by supplied in the job properties.



I am thinking of doing the option 3 so we can use this workflow, bu I think that option 1 or 2 would be a great addition to deadline.



Thanks



Sylvain Berger

Hi Sylvain,



Based on my understanding of your requirements (and your example of

1-200 every 5 frames), you could try the following:


  1. Set the frame range to 1-200x5. This essentially means 1-200 every 5

    frames. This will create tasks for frames 1, 6, 11, etc…
  2. Set the machine limit to 1. This ensures that the job can only run on

    one machine at a time.



    The slave will dequeue the tasks in order. However, if one task fails

    for whatever reason, the slave will move on to try the next one. Perhaps

    some form of task dependencies in the future could be the solution to

    this problem.



    Let me know if this would work for you, or if I’ve misunderstood your

    requirements in any way.



    Kind regards,
  • Ryan

Yes, that will work.



I didn’t think of this option. Even if one frame crash and the next is render, I don’t think it will cause much trouble. The important thing is that each frame is done one at a time. It is always better that every frame of the FinalGather map be done sequentialy because this saves some render time.



Thanks for the workflow.



Sylvain

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