Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

[steelers05]

Ive been searching to see if I could find anything about this but I had no luck so heres my problem....I got DR spawner up and running at our office on our network and when we went to render an animation, we used two computers to test this up and vray only uses both computers for the first frame and then every frame after that only uses the main computer that the model is running from. So we have 8 rendering boxes for the first frame and only 4 for every frame after. So what are we doing wrong? Can you even use distributive rendering for multiple frames for animation? Also I was reading in the manual that distributive rendering in v-ray for sketchup uses up to 10 computers to render a single frame...if using DR spawner for animation is possible, can it be set up so that each computer renders their own frames and all the computers drop them into one output folder? Or am I stuck having all the computers rendering each frame together? Which way is even faster? It would seem to be faster if each computer rendered seperate frames, but I could be wrong. Any help is greatly appreciated.

-Steelers05

[JHuman]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

I was wondering the same thing, sadly it sounds like there is no other option. Check out this post...

http://asgvis.com/index.php?option=c...0&topic=5764.0

Let me know if you find anything else out, because it is a paaaaaiiiin in the butt to render these animations soooo slow.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

To repeat from the other thread, DR cannot be used for animations. We've been unable to uncover exactly why, so it will be something that will have to be taken care of within the context of the Spawner rework that we're looking to do for the next full version.

At the moment the Spawners will only contribute to a given rendering that is being hosted by another computer. It will not render its own separate frame as that would require hosting the rendering on that specific computer. This is a feature that is on the list of features to add to the spawner, but at this point I can't say whether this will make it into the next version or not.

[steelers05]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

That is very dissappointing to hear. I really hope that this can make it into the next version, because even though SU is not the greatest for setting up animations, I still think it is useful and It has been succesfull for me in the past, as you may have seen on another thread. One thing though, the spawner does work on the first frame of an animation but instead like i stated before, it uses more boxes to render one frame instead of letting each computer render their own frames...would it be easier to let all the computers render frames together, because even that would be at least a contribution? I know your answer is probably going to be no, but it is just food for thought, because developing something is better than nothing and this could really help me and my office, because now we are stuck letting a single computer run for like a week to get 20 seconds worth of footage. Im not upset, it just kind of suprises me that this is a problem. But thanks for you explanation dallomar, im sure all you guys are hard at work with making this a better product. Just know I am one of those guys that would like to see this implemented as soon as possible.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

We've tried several times to figure out what the exact problem is and have made several attempts to get a fix. For some reason none of them work. The last attempt, which was while we work working out bugs for SR 1.5 involved "nuking" the spawner...basically shutting the whole thing down and then restarting it. Even still this did not work.

There are a lot of core changes that are going to be happening to VfSU, so hopefully some of these changes will either work the problem out based on the way they've been redesigned or allow us to actually get in there and find whats the actual problem.

As of right now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend adding DR to animations as there would be a slowdown by using it. There's a certain amount of setup time that is required for DR, and vray has to go through that process for every frame. Depending on your scene it could be anywhere from a few seconds to 10-15. Either way over hundreds of frames that time can add up, so even though it helps out on the first frame it could slow down the whole rest of the process.

My suggestion would be to split up the actual animation into "chunks" of pages that would be rendered by a separate computers. For example if I had 20 pages for the animation and 4 computers, I would have computer 1 render from pages 1 to 5, computer 2 render from pages 5 to 10, computer 3 render from pages 10 to 15, and so on. The main thing you would need to do are make sure you overlap the pages (ie go from 1-5 then 5-10 not 6-10 because the transition from 5-6 will be lost).

[steelers05]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

Not gonna lie dalomar, thats dissappointing to hear, but theres nothing I can really do and I definately trust that you guys have worked hard with this and just havent had any luck. If you ever have any break throughs, please make it known. I know you reallly cant predict the future, but is this something that I really shouldnt hold my breathe on? Im just wondering, because even though sketchup is my true favorite, I keep finding more and more reasons to pursue 3ds max more aggressively. Anyways, thank you for the detailed responses and suggestions for work arounds.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

If I had my way DR in the new version would be the equivelent of an F1 car next to a model T. Don't get me wrong, I really like our current DR implementation, but when you compare it to what it could be (or what it is in my head), its off the charts. As we figure out how much of the ideas in my head get implemented we'll let you guys know. Since DR is such a valuable asset to V-Ray we'd really like to take it to the next level. It might not get to F1 status, but it might evolve into a porsche...and I can't argue with that.

In regards to looking towards 3dmax, hopefully the only reason for doing so in the next version of VfSU would be the animation limitations of SU itself. The idea is to get as much as absolutlely possible on par with VfMax...and then some. SU limitations we all have to deal with, but V-Ray limitations are in our court and we really want to remove those impediments.

[JHuman]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

Thanks for all the insight, any ETA on when the new VR4SU is coming out and if we already have a license do we have to keep buying a new one?

I do like the idea about overlapping the animations that will really speed up the process and isnt to hard to do. Thanks and keep us posted.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

No ETA at the moment. It will be a completely new version so there will be an upgrade cost associated with it. We haven't boiled down what the price on that will be, but it will be less than the price of a full version.

[vtrdo]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

for everybody ... hope i will do you happy ,

if you want to use DR for animation anly thing you have to do is set scene transition to for exapmle 19sec. in Su and then set 1 frame in sec. animation bar in Vray ... voala it vill use whole DR group ....


we use this for "static" animatio as well as for traditional animations

[JHuman]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

Seems like that has been suggested and it didnt work to well. Could you explain a little more, maybe its just to early right now and my brain is mush :'(
Thanks!

[vtrdo]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?


ok I will my best.

I have here 1.05.30 on SU7 and 6 machines in DR farm ... all on XP 32bit and

now my trick

I set up my Sketchup /animation/setting/animation/ scene transition - enabled - and whatever second lenght * frames per second ( for example I want to have 3 seconds between each scenes by 19 frames per second = 57 ) --- 57second


and then set up vray

animation enabled - user setting - 1 (frame per second)



and MODE - single frame

:

and it works for me ... use more then 20 cores per all images

I use VirtualDub for compilating video ...

hope this explain it for you and realy HOPE it will work for you

[JHuman]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

Awsome, I think that explains it better, I will try it out.
Thanks V!

[Jackson_cg]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

Can you confirm or disconfirm this Damien? If this is the case then it seems the DR animation problem lies not within any actual batch rendering process, but rather that it simply can't handle more than 1fps! I don't use DR so I can't test this, but if VTRDO's workaround of forcing SU to do the fps work rather than VfSU is a stroke of brilliance. ;D

[steelers05]

Re: Problems Using DR Spawner for Animation?

very interesting work around. Im gonna have to try this. Thank you. I would also like to see what Damien thinks about this, because maybe this will help create a solution to the DR spawner...?