Most efficient animation process with multiple machines

[Markvanhandel]

Hi,

Currently Bongo sets "start position" and "stop position" based on time line ticks and not on actual rendered frames. This causes stutters in the animation if you break the render across multiple machines because it recalculates the camera position in a slightly different location with different parameters.

Obviously running the animation via one master and using DR to many slaves would help but sending info back and forth to all of these machines seems like a very inefficient process.

I have an e-mail out to McNeel asking if this is going to be fixed in v2.0.

In the mean time I believe that many of you, especially at ASGVis, currently do animations using this software. Is that correct?

Do you have work around to make the process more efficient? What is the process that you use when setting up animations to run?

My company is looking to invest in increased processing power and we want to make sure that we can plan on the best allocation of resources.

Thanks!


BTW After looking through the forums I did not find this specific topic so I apologize if it is repeated.

[Micha_cg]

Re: Most efficient animation process with multiple machines

Start the animation at all machines and set the output dir to a shared network directory. Bongo create a place holder txt file for every frame and so the other machines know, that the frame is rendering at an other machine. It's a nice simple method to avoid sending the scene over the network again and again.

Disadvantages - you need licenses for Rhino+Bongo+Vray for all machines - that's a lot of money. I asked for an easy solution at the Rhino or Bongo forum some months before, but without an interest from the developer side.
My idea for an easy solution was, that the Rhino evaluation allow rendering per Bongo evaluation. I thought, if both, Bongo and Rhino would allow to render an animation, but not to save anything other than the images, than it could be ok for McNell. The user would pay for what he need - in this case for renderer licenses only. I was the only one who liked the idea. My other idea was, that McNeel could get a "render license" fee that allow to use a Rhino evaluation for rendering, but ....

[Markvanhandel]

Re: Most efficient animation process with multiple machines

Thanks Micha,

I'll try that. My company should have enough licenses that doing that overnight would not be an issue. But I agree that it would be nice not to have to buy a license just to divide a render.

Mark

[Markvanhandel]

Re: Most efficient animation process with multiple machines

How have I missed that all this time? I suppose better late than never.

Thanks again Micha!

[Micha_cg]

Re: Most efficient animation process with multiple machines

How have I missed that all this time?

It's only an ugly workaround. I hope once a day it will not be needed anymore.