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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: Lehm on March 31, 2009, 06:53:31 PM

Title: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Lehm on March 31, 2009, 06:53:31 PM
After a bit of experimenting I've got Terragen and Autodesk backburner working together.  Need a bit of help refining it however.  Here's the command I've got at the moment.

cmdjob -jobname:"Terragen Test" -jobNameAdjust -workPath:"C:\Program Files\Planetside Software\Terragen 2 Deep Edition (Beta)" -taskList:"t:\Tests\TerragenNetwork\tasklist.txt" -taskname:1 -group:Terragen tgdcli -p t:\Tests\TerragenNetwork\BackburnerTest.tgd -o %04d.nettest.%%tp2.bmp -hide -exit -r -f %%tp2

The main issue I've got is that you have to use a taskfile.  So if you want to have each task as a single frame you need to write out one line for one frame so you'd need to make a 300 line file for a 300.  Is there a way to tell it to increment frames without the tasklist?
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Njen on April 01, 2009, 01:13:44 AM
No, it's not possible. Backburner is unable to tell what is a multiframe job from a command line submission without that tasklist file. It would be better to group the frames though, rather than have 1 frame per line (example: 1-10, 11-20, etc.).

FYI, if you run Backburner on a single computer, you don't need the tasklist arguments, because obviously, your single computer is going to render all the frames anyway.

Well done in getting the exact syntax sorted out!
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Lehm on April 01, 2009, 02:05:57 AM
Okay good to know.  I'll just have to write some kind of app to write the taskfile then...and actually create the bat file while I'm at it.  I prefer to have each frame a separate task.  Easier to keep track of in the queue. 

Do I have the output correct?  The way it outputs right now would be nettest.1.bmp.  Is there a way to get it nettest.0001.bmp?
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Njen on April 01, 2009, 03:12:18 AM
The "%%tp2" part refers to the second column of the tasklist file, if I remember correctly, so if you are calling that bit of information into your file name, then it might be best to add the number padding into your tasklist file. So instead of "1", your app could write "0001" in that column. Though I don't know if Backburner will read that padded number properly, but I don't see why it wouldn't.

What would be totally awesome is if we had the ability to write own plugins using tcl or python and load them directly into Terragen2 itself as nodes. That way, We wouldn't have to write external programs to submit via command lines. That would enable us to dynamically have things like the job name and frame range parsed automatically for submission to a network renderer. Nuke pulls this off perfectly, as it's so easy for relatively non-technical people to write their own gizmos in tcl or python.

Matt...hint hint?
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Oshyan on April 01, 2009, 03:14:44 AM
We do intend to support scripting in the future, probably using Python.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Njen on April 01, 2009, 03:18:50 AM
That's absolutely awesome, and will make things like this much easier. Any chance for tcl too? It might not be as robust as python, but for simpler things, it's quicker to get something done I think.
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Oshyan on April 01, 2009, 03:49:00 AM
Not sure about tcl. That's a decision we'll make when closer to implementation. But I'll be sure it's considered.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Lehm on April 01, 2009, 10:22:34 AM
Oh yeah it would be great to write a script to submit to backburner through Terragen.  People always seem to be asking about a network manager.  Since Backburner 2007 can be downloaded for free maybe it could be terragen's unofficial network manager.
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Lehm on April 01, 2009, 12:05:17 PM
Ah ha!  It is possible to do it without a tasklist.  I was unaware of %*tn, which is task number where * is how many digits to pad.  So I now have. 

cmdjob -jobname:"Terragen Test" -jobNameAdjust -workPath:"C:\Program Files\Planetside Software\Terragen 2 Deep Edition (Beta)" -tp_start:0 -numTasks:10 -taskname:1 -group:Terragen tgdcli -p t:\Tests\TerragenNetwork\BackburnerTest.tgd -o nettest.%%4tn.bmp -hide -exit -r -f %%4tn

Yeah that about does everything I want it to.
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: rcallicotte on April 01, 2009, 12:15:57 PM
Where would I download Backburner 2007?
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Lehm on April 01, 2009, 12:46:40 PM
On Autodesk's support site. 

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=8388951&linkID=9241178

I'm fairly certain this installs the whole thing and not just a patch like the name implies.  I'm sure it's meant for just 3ds max users to download, but there's nothing stoping anyone from downloading it.
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: rcallicotte on April 01, 2009, 01:09:30 PM
Thanks Lehm.  This might prove very helpful.
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Njen on April 02, 2009, 03:04:08 AM
Quote from: Lehm on April 01, 2009, 12:05:17 PM
Ah ha!  It is possible to do it without a tasklist.  I was unaware of %*tn, which is task number where * is how many digits to pad.  So I now have. 

cmdjob -jobname:"Terragen Test" -jobNameAdjust -workPath:"C:\Program Files\Planetside Software\Terragen 2 Deep Edition (Beta)" -tp_start:0 -numTasks:10 -taskname:1 -group:Terragen tgdcli -p t:\Tests\TerragenNetwork\BackburnerTest.tgd -o nettest.%%4tn.bmp -hide -exit -r -f %%4tn

Yeah that about does everything I want it to.

Well that is quite a find...very cool!
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: nirokugraphic on April 17, 2009, 12:25:50 PM
in the meantime . Frantic Films Deadline seems to work perfectly .

I use that to replace even Backburner now .
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Hetzen on May 28, 2017, 09:11:57 AM
I've had a few fun and games getting Backburner to work recently using Lehm's script above, here's what I came up with a few changes.

cmdjob -jobname:"Job_Name" -manager manager_machine_network_name -timeout 300 -workPath:"C:\Program Files\Planetside Software\Terragen 4" -tp_start:600 -numTasks:291 -taskname:1 tgdcli -p "location\scene.tgd" -o location\shot_.%4tp1.tif -ox location\shot_.IMAGETYPE.%4tp1.exr -r -f %4tp1 -hide -exit

Parts in red are things you need to set up, like filename and location, but I also needed to specify the frame range, so -tp_start:600 is telling backburner to start at this frame number and -numtasks:291 is saying render 291 frames from 600, so last frame is 890.

What really threw me was the timeout switch. Backburner defaults to 60mins, so if you have a long render, it will cut out after an hour and re-assign a new task number to that machine and you will never get a frame rendered.

I'm not sure what -hide does in this context, it would be nice to see a frame being rendered, but don't think this has anything to do with that.

Seeing the number of views to this thread, it seems that a few people have tried or trying this, and hopefully some of the above may help.

Best

Jon
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Oshyan on May 29, 2017, 05:49:28 PM
Thanks for the updated info Jon. 60 minute time-out! That's optimistic for a lot of production shots, even non-TG. Interesting.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Backburner and Terragen
Post by: Hetzen on May 29, 2017, 09:35:11 PM
I think the timeout has to do with direct communication with progress back to Backburner. If it doesn't hear anything it's listening for, then it assumes it needs a re-submit. Autodesk jobs work fine without setting the -timeout switch.

On Deadline it's a lot easier to manage. I remember seeing a progress line in the console of a networked render machine when I VNC'd to it, which I don't see from Backburner.