please add frames per task in vrayDeadline for Render Job Options

[Morbid Angel]

Hello,

I really wish this option was available. I know you guys would like us to use deadline integrated submitter but it also does not have this function, and is more bugged then your vrayDeadline submitter (which we use).

Reason for this is simple: When rendering through houdini on deadline we have to use vray standalone to do the actual rendering to avoid having as many houdini engine licenses as we have render nodes. Therefor we export a houdni export job first then render the frames. With the frames per task set to anything higher then 1, we have 2 problems. 1 submitter automatically is trying to enter ${FBATCH} into the name (which we don't want, but then deadline submitter will abort the submission. We are using a different custom string there: /${HIPNAME}_${OS}_${F4}.vrscene and it does not seem to work if frames per task is set to higher then 1. If we do accept that setting, then both export job and render job end up with the same frames per task setting. So if we are exporting a job where frames export fast, but render long this is not an acceptable way.

In my ideal world, we would have the frames per task for export job set to 10 (without any custom additional ${FBATCH}, then have the render tasks set to 1.

[viktor_angelov]

Hello Morbid Angel Thank you for taking the time to share your idea with us.

First of all I would like to let you know that VRayDeadline node was meant to provide support for Deadline in times when Houdini did not have that node themselves. Now, as they have a native one, we recommend using it and we have stopped updating ours.



Nevertheless, you could log your idea to the Chaos Ideas Portal. This will allow us to track the interest toward it. You can find a link for it here: https://chaosvray.ideas.aha.io/ideas?project=VHOUDINI

[Morbid Angel]

Hi Viktor,

Like I said before, native deadline submitter also does not have this option. Additionally it seems not to work correctly at all when exporting vray export/render jobs. We are in the same exact spot as with vrayDeadline.

[bdancer]

> I know you guys would like us to use deadline integrated submitter

If we would we'd never invest time in our custom submitter...

> ${FBATCH} into the name (which we don't want

Well, I haven't found a way how to export data in multiple vrscene files and then render those in batch by a single job.
Thats why FBATCH was added which allows export frames chunk into a vrscene file and render by a single job.

[Morbid Angel]

Hey Bdancer,

If we use export string like this:
${HIP}/vrscene/${HIPNAME}/${HIPNAME}_${OS}/${HIPNAME}_${OS}_${F4}.vrscene
then each vray scene file is written as a single frame. This is preferred method for majority of our workflow, since we can deal with large scenes and each frame can be 1Gb in size (or more), so exporting lets say 25 frames chunk would be a file size of 25Gb. I don't have a big issue with using this other than the strain on the IO during write/read, however when vrayDeadline submitter then submits a dependency job to render those frames, if we were to use ${FBATCH}, it will make 1 render machine render all 25 frames, same chunk as the exported chunk. While the export can be somewhat fast, the render of a frame can be hours per frame. So rendering 25 frames in one chunk on one machine is not a good way to utilize farm resources. It results in us having to always go in and manually set the export chunk to 25, render chunk to 1. There by it brings me to original post. I'd like to export X number of vrscene frames (write them as single frame .vrscenes) and automatically during submission make the dependency job only render 1 frame per task (1 frame per machine).

[bdancer]

Next V-Ray 7 nightly will contain frames per-task for the render job.