TG2 Render farms

[bigben]

Ooops... didn't have this topic on notify....

I've downloaded it but am on my wy home. I'll test it tomorrow morning.

Tomatomic: I'll post some stuff from my animation rendering later tonight. If you're in a real hurry there are a few ways to split things up and keep a track of them to fill in the gaps later. 

[tomatomic]

nice. im all ears. im not ready to render final yet. im still only doing tests. matching my camera to the artists' scene, and testing for render times, which can be extreme. i expect to start rendering final sometime this week, earlier rather than later hopefully.

thanks :-)

[bigben]

I've tested an earlier version of this software over the network, and everything seemed to work as expected apart from launching TG correctly. This has been fixed in the current beta. I had a quick play on the train on the way home and got it to correctly launch TG (using Client (Method 2).exe).  I'll try in the morning on a networked PC.

I've previously tested TGDCLI using UNC network names and mapped network drives successfully.  For convenience/simplicity I'd probably use a mapped network drive for the joblist location and output directory.

I've added a frame "manager" to my database with some basic scripting. There's still a bit to do before I release an alpha (some extra scripts and custom menus). As mentioned in a previous post I was looking at some interim integration with this software.  I previously used .bat files which were distributed to separate computers, with a log file created to keep a track of which frames were rendered.  This worked OK, and if you're desperate you could do this, but this software is much more efficient even in it's beta form.

What I have done is set up a frame sorting to provide a progressive render, allowing you to check the whole animation as it renders.  The progressive frame order is set to every 128 frames, then 64,32,16 etc...  I've hopefully got the export of the joblist correct, even if it's a very crude one assuming you're only queuing up one joblist at a time.

[Dark Fire]

note: getting error codes 3O and 4R

The error codes produced are explained here (the list was made for the old version of this new software, which worked with Terragen 0.9 - as a consequence it might be a bit confusing). I'll have a look at the source code at some point in the next week (I have an exam on Friday, so my available time is unpredictable at the moment), to see if I can pinpoint the problem.

I've tested an earlier version of this software over the network, and everything seemed to work as expected apart from launching TG correctly. This has been fixed in the current beta. I had a quick play on the train on the way home and got it to correctly launch TG (using Client (Method 2).exe).  I'll try in the morning on a networked PC.

I am pleased that method 2 works - the original method generated ugly batch files, but was virtually guaranteed to work.

Keep on testing this week, and add feedback here. I will be busy because I have an exam to do, coursework to finish and a magazine to write. I should have much more time from next week onwards to solve problems.

[tomatomic]

bigben,
i dont know what you mean by UNC network names. i do have a network directory with every windows client mapping that directory to the same letter.
i do see that dark fire's app is working, to some extent at least. all the clients got their jobs, and rendered frames.
however, i found no actual saved frame results anywhere, to the output location or in the clients directories.
i hacked the joblist.emp file -
it was
[OutputLoc]
1=
changed it to
[OutputLoc]
1=M:\render\farm\frames\

still no go :-/

off to bed

[Dark Fire]

I am glad to see that you are using your initiative and fiddling with the settings. Unfortunately, the OutputLoc setting was originally used for frame verification (which is temporarily disabled, until I write the code for extracting the output directory from the project file), but I will be adding a custom output directory setting to the ERTfT2TP soon*. For the moment, you'll have to change the default output directory in the project file.

* = Could be tonight, could be in a week. I have no idea when time will randomly appear.

[bigben]

bigben,
i dont know what you mean by UNC network names. i do have a network directory with every windows client mapping that directory to the same letter.
i do see that dark fire's app is working, to some extent at least. all the clients got their jobs, and rendered frames.
however, i found no actual saved frame results anywhere, to the output location or in the clients directories.
i hacked the joblist.emp file -
it was
[OutputLoc]
1=
changed it to
[OutputLoc]
1=M:\render\farm\frames\

You can use the hostname rather then the mapped drive in a .bat, but mapped drives are easier.  Make sure the output path you specified above is included in your TGD in the sequence output tab.  If you don't want the extra files, uncheck that as well.  Your previously rendered frames will be on the client machines in the location specified in the sequence output so you can always recover these rather than re-rendering.

My testing got interrupted by a broken arm (not mine) but I'll be back at work tomorrow, but it sounds like you're close to up and running.

[Dark Fire]

I forgot to announce that last night I released version 0.2 of the ERTfT2TP. The new version now lets you set a custom image file name (-o in the documentation). The data you enter will end up going after -o when launching Terragen, so you can enter 'C-style format strings' for the file name. If you want to be clever, you can enter this:
Output File Name" -ox "Extra Output Image FileName
(Notice how the start and end instances of " are missed out)

When T2TP is launched, that will come out as:
-o "Output File Name" -ox "Extra Output Image FileName"

[RedSquare]

Oi you, (Dark Fire) bog off, you're supposed to be swatting not wasting time on these boards.  We'll still be here when your exams are finished and the magazine written.  So get your priorities sorted out, we are last in the queue.

[Dark Fire]

A very good point. I'll go now. I should be back at the end of June, or the start of July, when my exams are over.

[bigben]

OK, my first check was a bit premature as I closed everything after I saw TGDCLI startup.   Ran the diagnostic mode to check the .bat.

<edit>  The stuff I wrote before was crap  The only thing that was missing was the -p tag in front of the project name.

c:\tg2\tgdcli.exe -p r:\pathtotgd\filetgd -r -f 1

[Dark Fire]

In the documentation that was supplied with 1.8.64.0, it says this:

  -p [filename]
    Open the project specified by [filename] before doing anything else.
    Alternatively you can specify the project file in the first command line parameter before any other options.

Unless they have changed the command line structure, the batch file should still work. Does it work?

[bigben]

I've seen it in the docs but I've never had a batch file work without the -p flag on any of my systems. Adding it to the diagnostic bat fixes it, so it may be best to add it in just to be safe.

[Dark Fire]

I'll add it in to be safe. The new version (0.3) should be available within the next 10 minutes.

[bigben]

I'll test it soon so you can disappear *again* comforted in the knowledge that it works