Best approach for TOPnet+render submission with houdini

[Larkis]

I have a scene that i have been submitting through the rrSubmitterLOP node for karma rendering (via husk). What works is cooking the USD rop on the farm and then the farm rendering the frames after. What i would like to do is to run a TOP network that generates a bunch of files on disk (fur cashes, etc) and then have the USD ROP and render happen.

Right now I have to do this in two steps, submit the TOP network via the royal scheduler, then when it's done submit the render job via rrSubmitter. Is there a way to submit all of this as a single job to the farm where the TOP net executes all it's tasks and then a render kicks off automatically? 

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

I am not a Houdini user (there should be some good ones in this tavern),
but I have some notes to think about:

1)
I have used the distributed_flip example in your Houdini app folder to test PDG.
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/tops/examples.html

And it renders files with Mantra in the end.
But if the render takes a long time, I would recommend not to use PDG for rendering.
Just because it is a bit more error prone.

2)

Do you use TOP just to handle one task after another?
Would it be possible to replicate that with multiple ROPs (or other export nodes)?
Then you can use rrDependency.

3)
At last, there should be some TOP node that can execute a python script.
Place it at the end of your PGD graph.
Optional: Add a Local Scheduler and assign it to the last node only.
(And the other ones to Royal)
Use this script:
import htorr

rrnode = htorr.node('/out/mantra1')

print(rrnode.jobs())
TODO: Fix scene name as I if TOP is executed with a copied scene.

rrnode.jobs().submit(gui=True)

 

regards,
Holger Schönberger

Craftsman and Keeper of the Royal Render Flame

Please use the rrKnights Tavern
or our support system for new questions.

 

[Larkis]

I have tried do use dependency nodes inside of a rop net and having some success. There is one thing that the rrSubmitter node does that is not ideal. The issue is that the file at the top of my LOP network (usd file) gets cooked by an earlier process in the ropnet and technically does not exist until that process finishes. Houdini throws a missing file error in the tree and the rrSubmitter node sees that and does not add the final task to the submission list when the whole scene is evaluated after pushing the Submit with UI button. 

Perhaps the submitter node could ignore missing file warnings in the LOP tree and assume that the missing file will be there when all the dependencies get cooked?

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

 

I hope it will be possible that you can read a Solaris/LOP network from Houdini if it is not valid.

I will try to reproduce the issue with missing input .usd.