Render Manager

kellpossible · Post by **kellpossible** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:41 pm

I'm writing a vb.net application to aid in the automation of network rendering. I'm thinking of features such as easy installation on the client machines and even maybe something aimed at "employing" your work mate's computer (or my brother and sister in my case) and to make the idea that much more attractive for them. (it seems to me that people don't mind if you borrow their computer power when they aren't using it as long as you don't need to touch it too much or fiddle with installation.

Another Idea was to be able to start up and shut down indigo, or the client's computer when you need to or they need to, and to have Indigo running in invisible mode. One last Idea I had would be to eliminate the need for setting up windows shares, which further complicate the installation on the client computer.

There are programs out there that do things like this (i've used renderpal), but they aren't specifically aimed at Indigo. I'm new to programming, so my efforts will probably be hopeless, but if anyone has any Ideas or Comments please mention them.

I could have posted this in the main forums, but seeing as I am not a pro programmer (might never finish this), I decided to post here, because I'm familiar to sketchup and I like the plugin.

Pibuz · Post by **Pibuz** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:05 am

I truly appreciate your intention itself, Kellpossible!
I don't mind if it won't ever come to an end, it is important you have this idea already!
Thank you so much!

I don't come with any ideas, because I think you already had your good ones and frankly I can't figure what more could I want

crojack · Post by **crojack** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:04 am

I think that it is a good idea. I also think you should post it in the general forum, I think you would find lots of help from people that don't necessarily come into the skindigo forum. That being said, indigoresumer works very good, but it is lacking in deployment.

recently I used a number of machines in the office for rendering, but I had to copy the igs/igi fields to each of them, get each of them up and running, etc.
It does take a little bit of time. I am not familiar with any other network rendering, but I am guessing there are ways to have the master deploy all necessary fields to each machine and get them up and running? That would benefit everyone using Indigo in a n3etworked environment.

anyways, good luck! I look forward to results!

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:49 am

Sounds interesting your Idea!

I would also recommend to put this thread into the main Forum, you'll get more eyes on it there, and it isn't really SketchUp related

kellpossible wrote:it seems to me that people don't mind if you borrow their computer power when they aren't using it as long as you don't need to touch it too much or fiddle with installation.

Yes exactly! I also just started a Hamachi network for Indigo, so some of my friends joined.

crojack wrote:recently I used a number of machines in the office for rendering, but I had to copy the igs/igi fields to each of them, get each of them up and running, etc.
It does take a little bit of time. I am not familiar with any other network rendering, but I am guessing there are ways to have the master deploy all necessary fields to each machine and get them up and running? That would benefit everyone using Indigo in a n3etworked environment.

Actually Indigo nowadays does distribute the scene file packed via network to every connected slave! if you don't set any -h value for the host, the slaves will even look for the master by them self (IP hast to start with 192.x.x.x !) and also stop rendering if master shuts down, but keep looking for a new master to come online!

What Indigo version do you use crojack??

crojack · Post by **crojack** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:55 am

I'm using 1.1.9,
old I'm sure
but it's stable with Skindigo.

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:04 am

the most new stuff and fixes since 1.1.9 where ISL related, so you don't missed too much, but if I'm right the workflow i mentioned for networkrendering should work with 1.1.19 too!?!

here the changelog since 1.1.9

Code: Select all

1.1.15
* fixed unnecessary checking of uv sets when texture not used directly, but only by shader
* re-enabled TIFF texture support
* fixed interactive tonemapping when network rendering is enabled.
* fixed network rendering with multiple layers
* added layer names in GUI
* only displaying used layers in GUI
* Implemented proper shutdown of GUI in network mode
* added some more loading of scene stuff in network mode, so can get number of layers used.
* added layer names to IGI format
* fixed rare crash bug in WeightedSampler
* lots of fixes to make Linux builds work
* fixed render_foreground_alpha (was crashing)
* fixed exit portals for non-sky background
* RNG seed is now saved to IGI file, so that resuming a render uses new samples.
* added background_settings, background_material etc..
* fixed CIE colours having negative components, clamped to 0.
* Changed SSS a bit

1.1.14
* fixed fmod linking in ISL
* added OpenMP Dll + manifest to distributions
* replaced BIH with BVH

1.1.13
* Added LLVM JIT backend for ISL in 32 bit builds.
* added infix binary operators to ISL: +, -, /, *, <, <=, >, >=, ==, !=, &&, ||

1.1.12
* added min, max, lerp, floorToInt, ceilToInt, real(), clamp, fract, print to shader lang
* added function body return type check to ISL

1.1.11
* fixed some stuff with calling functions in the shader language.
* added ceil() and floor() to shader lang
* added xor() to shader lang
* fixed ies_profile for model element
* updated manual with displacement material parameter and new pics
* added bounds check for uv set index in shader lang getTexCoords()
* fixed BIH mem leak
* fixed some bugs with material bindings and blend materials.

1.1.10
* added comparison functions to shader language:
	eq, neq, lt, lte, gt, gte
* added boolean functions to shader language:
	and, not, or
* added length function for vectors to shader language
* messed around with shading normals a bit.
* fixed lightSourceInserted()
* added .igmesh binary mesh support.
* narrowed tonemapping panel on GUI a bit.

crojack · Post by **crojack** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:29 am

soooo, I didn't need to copy all the stuff around? I could just start the master and start he slaves? I should read up a little more!

thanks for the info Zomb!

kellpossible · Post by **kellpossible** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:28 pm

Actually Indigo nowadays does distribute the scene file packed via network to every connected slave! if you don't set any -h value for the host, the slaves will even look for the master by them self (IP hast to start with 192.x.x.x !) and also stop rendering if master shuts down, but keep looking for a new master to come online!

I wasn't aware that Indigo could do this, but I guess I should still add this feature for people still using the stable version.

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:36 pm

kellpossible wrote:I wasn't aware that Indigo could do this, but I guess I should still add this feature for people still using the stable version.

Afaik Ono is now heading for a stable 1.1 version, so the next releases should be bugfixes mostly

Also I think even the last stable version supports sending the scene file to the slaves natively...

crojack · Post by **crojack** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:23 am

I've actually been hesitating moving to a newer version of Indigo because of bugs in Skindigo (no offense Whaat!)

There have been some big changes with Skindigo that I don't have my head around yet, ways of applying materials mostly.

So, it's a stable version of Skindigo I'm waiting on.

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