Saving from the VFB while rendering

[Dan Marks]

Hello all, I hope you are well.

My request is as follows.

I am rendering via Deadline, my colleagues would like to save out progressive renders at any point during the render process from the VFB.

(Sometimes we have urgent requests ahead of meetings, we don't necessarily have time to wait for the render to finish, so we RDP to the farm)

Currently when we press the save icon, we have to find the path, give the file name and extension. This is time consuming to do on each render node if say 20-40 renders are need saving out.

Is there a way that the path, the file name and the extension can be pre-populated from the VFB render settings, so we can just hit save and get the output.

Thanks for your assistance.
Daniel

[hermit.crab]

Is there a way that the path, the file name, and the extension can be pre-populated from the VFB render settings, so we can just hit save and get the output.

The VFB browse menu path depends on where the location of the scene (by default) or the last chosen path. It cannot be manually changed. A few ideas:

1. Use the "Copy current channel to clipboard" (VFB > Image) and paste the image elsewhere.

2. Use the "Save to History" button to quickly save the image (History folder can be chosen in the options). The images, however, will be .vrimg. They can be converted through the vrimg2exr tool (to EXR) or through ChaosPlayer.(multiple formats).

3. A not-so-elegant way: enable resumable rendering (to save the progress of the rendering) and set a post-render script like so:

vfbControl #saveimage ("G:\Shared drives\3D SUPPORT\Scenes-Forum\1222611\gosho" + ((timestamp() / 1000) as string) + ".jpg")

Basically, you stop the render, the file is saved through the script, and then you resume it. This works while local rendering; I'm not sure how it will do with a network job. It also depends on whether you send the jobs to V-Ray Standalone or 3ds Max batch.

[Dan Marks]

Thanks for the reply,

I've also found this work-around. If the job is sent to deadline via the Deadline 3dsCmd submitter, the 3dsmax render dialogue is displayed on the nodes. This exposes the STOP and CANCEL buttons. RDP to the node and pressing STOP saves & cancels the render with the correct filename and in the correct location.

Wishing there was a way to do this from deadline, Ideally my organisation would to be able to suspend a a job from Deadline Monitor and all the part-processed renders would save out before Max exits.

Something similar was requested on the Deadline forums, but the response is the Vray API lacks the necessary functionality to make this happen, this is a (very) old post maybe things have changed?
https://forums.thinkboxsoftware.com/...stions/13194/3
"Not that we are aware of. Currently, V-Ray provides no way to “kill a render and force it to still save out” via its API." MikeOwenAWS Thinkbox Staff

Here are other examples of people asking for this, here is someone is looking for the same functionality with Deadline and Vray
https://forums.thinkboxsoftware.com/...ping-job/13331
And here on the Chaos forum (but for Maya)
https://forums.chaos.com/forum/v-ray...-in-batch-mode

I've emailed support@thinkboxsoftware.com but they now require a AWS premium support account before I can have a response. Requested and waiting to be approved by my organisation.

I hope Aleksandar, or someone else on this forum can shed some more light on a possible path forward.

[hermit.crab]

I've also found this work-around. If the job is sent to deadline via the Deadline 3dsCmd submitter, the 3dsmax render dialogue is displayed on the nodes. This exposes the STOP and CANCEL buttons. RDP to the node and pressing STOP saves & cancels the render with the correct filename and in the correct location.

Glad you found a solution. We tested the script workaround (script loaded in the scene's Post-Render slot) and stopping the render through the 3ds Max render dialogue, which made the script run correctly, unlike suspending the job from the Monitor (which seems to be another kind of "stop"). The script in question is a simple one:

vfbControl #saveimage ("G:\Shared drives\3D SUPPORT\Scenes-Forum\1222611\image" + ((timestamp() / 1000) as string) + ".jpg")

Something similar was requested on the Deadline forums, but the response is the Vray API lacks the necessary functionality to make this happen, this is a (very) old post maybe things have changed?

I'm not aware of any changes.

Wishing there was a way to do this from deadline, Ideally my organisation would to be able to suspend a a job from Deadline Monitor and all the part-processed renders would save out before Max exits.

If there's a way to link the Suspend Job to the 3ds Max dialogue Stopbutton, the script workaround should do it. But I'm not sure if that's possible, try asking them.

[Dan Marks]

Hey Aleksandar,

Unfortunately I've discovered the SMTD(3dsCmd) submitter for deadline to have a few problems, its not as user friendly as the SMTD submitter. For example changes to the frame range in the Render settings dialogue require the SMTD(3dsCmd) to be restarted to take effect. I don't think this will float in our production environment.



vfbControl #saveimage ("G:\Shared drives\3D SUPPORT\Scenes-Forum\1222611\image" + ((timestamp() / 1000) as string) + ".jpg")

I added this as a script in the Post-Render slot in the SMTD(3dsCmd) and as a Post-Frame script in the SMTD submitter, but it did not appear to work.

(It did save an output based on pressing STOP in the max render dialog, but to the location in the render settings dialogue, not the location I set out in the script)



It would be amazing if we could find a Post_Frame script that does work form the SMTD submitter!


Thank you for your support.

Daniel

[Dan Marks]

I've been looking for help from Deadline to make the SMTD(3DsCMD) submitter more user friendly but but had no luck so far,

https://forums.thinkboxsoftware.com/...me-range/32885

If this is a dead-end, is there any hope for making the VFB save on render cancel using a post-frame script in the SMTD submitter? (the SMTD submitter would be preferable over the SMTD(3dsCMD) submitter in any case)

[hermit.crab]

If this is a dead-end, is there any hope for making the VFB save on render cancel using a post-frame script in the SMTD submitter? (the SMTD submitter would be preferable over the SMTD(3dsCMD) submitter in any case)

Script-wise I can't seem to make it work with SMTD. I even tried saving through the 3ds Max Frame Buffer via script, but to no avail. This is something that should be addressed to the Deadline support. Maybe they know how to set it up.

Either way, along with the above solution (clicking Stop in 3ds Max dialogue via the SMTD(3dsCMD) and the post-frame script), you could always use the "Stop Render" button in the VFB, which saves an image in the folder, chosen in the Frame Buffer rollout. Note that there are two buttons - Stop and Abort; you need to click and hold to choose which one you wish to use. More on the differences here.