Of what use are Split Scan Lines in V-Ray?

[Streetwise]

I see that when I submit a job to Network Render, there's a checkbox for "Split Scan Lines". Being that V-Ray is bucket based, what is SSL, and why would I use it?

[glorybound]

I think it helps with RAM. Each machine gets a smaller chunk to chew on.

[Neilg]

splits the entire image up.

a 1000 x 1000 px image with 10 lines, goes to 10 machines as 10 seperate 1000 x 100 px renders that get attached together at the end. comes from an age before distributed rendering but is still very useful.

[Streetwise]

Any advantages to managing jobs from a team perspective? I have a client who is trying to figure out how to manage several artists, but yet have control over the queue. They are concerned with any DR failures and having to check node logs, etc. I'm pretty sure that you can have multiple instances of Monitor running and check any errors right from that unless I'm missing something.

[Neilg]

yes. you have the ability to change the priority of a job mid way. that means that each machine is taking on 1/40th or whatever of the job (even if you only have 5 machines) and if something urgent comes up another job can jump in front without wasting the work thats already done or having to wait for it to finish.

you need to pre calculate light caches and irradiance maps if you are doing this btw.

[Streetwise]

yes. you have the ability to change the priority of a job mid way. that means that each machine is taking on 1/40th or whatever of the job (even if you only have 5 machines) and if something urgent comes up another job can jump in front without wasting the work thats already done or having to wait for it to finish.

you need to pre calculate light caches and irradiance maps if you are doing this btw.

So if you've got a bunch of production jobs lined up in the queue but want to send something out for a quick test for instance? Is pre-calculating light caches a setting?