Questions about RoyalRender from Deadline user

[Benjamin Roulet]

Hello,

I have some questions about how RoyalRender works and if it have some functionalities that I use all the time on Deadline.

Is it possible to save a copy of the scene file while submitting on the server ? Like that I can continue to work on the same scene in Houdini while the copy is rendering. The option is called "Submit Houdini Scene" in Deadline.

Is there on option to render multiple tasks at the same time ? There is an option called Concurrent Tasks in Deadline which allow to render like 2 or 3 images at the same time which is quite useful for small scene (it have to fit into the memory of course)

There is also the Frame per Task option in Deadline which allow to render multiple frames on the same instance of houdini. It reduces overhead as Houdini doesn't have to be kill then launch for every frame. Is there a similar option in Royal Render ?

I find Deadline not very reliable so I'm looking for an alternative.

Thank you.

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

 

1. Copy of Scene.
   It is implemented a python plugin for the rrSubmitter.
   You can enable it on the right side with the job options:
   
   
   If that works for you, you can enable it by default for Houdini or you can add an option to the rrSubmitter ROP in Houdini to automatically enable it.
   I can show you what you have to set if you want to.
   
   
2. There are two ways to do that in RR:
   a) Multiple Job Threads
   You can setup a rrClient to start multiple job threads.
   This way the rrClient takes any jobs into each of the threads.
   It may not be the same job.
   Note that if you use it, you have to think of more settings in case you have large scenes as well.
   Like the Job settings “Required Memory” (or Required Cores) .
   Or tell RR that the second thread is allowed to take Nuke jobs only.
   Because if you have large jobs and two jobs do not fit into memory at the same time, they crash.’
   As you said “(it have to fit into the memory of course)”
   
   
   b) Multiple instances.
   A client splits the frame chunk it got into multiple parts.
   Note that this requires that you have set the Sequence Divide (how many frames are send)
   to at least 2 for 2 instances, 3 for 3 instances, …
   “Required Memory” is optional in case your clients have different amounts of RAM.
   Or if you render while some artist has still loaded some huge scene/Nuke (cache)/Playblast.
   (e.g. artist did not log off, but RR renders overnight)
   
   
   
   
3. “Houdini doesn't have to be kill then launch for every frame”
   Enabled by default in RR for the apps with a “K” on this page:
   http://www.royalrender.de/index.php/supported-render-apps.html
   
   It is named “Keep Scene Open”.
   
   
   

 

 

> I find Deadline not very reliable so I'm looking for an alternative.
Yes, it is a “Fire and Forget” system.
A frame is just send and never checked afterwards.

 

 

 

regards,
Holger Schönberger

 

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

 

[Benjamin Roulet]

Nice thank you for the detailed and quick answer !

[Benjamin Roulet]

Hello Holger,

So I had time to play a little bit why Royal Render and I have some questions.

I try to use the multiple instances options which kind of work. It was slower than before so I check the log and it seems every instances is rendering the same batch of images instead of splitting the work between the 4 instances. Maybe I'm missing something..

Next I have this strange behavior. I'm testing rendering with EXR in DWA compression format so one frame is 500Ko when I render from Houdini but with Royal Render each frame is 2,5Mo. It seems the compression is not apply corrrectly.

And third question is is it possible to add and remove client during a job ?

Thank you.

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

 

1)

There should be nothing you can do wrong with the multi-instance feature.

Let me take a look.

Please select the job in rrControl.
Then execute "Export debug info - selected job(s)" via the menu "Debug".
Please upload via www.RoyalRender.de/upload_r.php

 

 

2)

> I'm testing rendering with EXR in DWA compression

That is the job option Crop Exr.
Please disable it.

 

RR crops the exr files to the area with visible objects.
With common .exr settings, this should reduce the file size.
(Done before copying it to the fileserver).

And while cropping, RR converts multi-Layer exr into exr v2.0 multi-part files.
They are way faster in Nuke as multi-layer files have to load all layers all the time.

Multi-part files can load the currently required layer only.

 

In your case you are using a lossy compression, which is not often used for .exr.

RR does not use this compression.

Perhaps I can log a feature request to use lossy compression if the file was lossy before.

 

 

 

3) remove client during a job ?

Please open rrControl.

Select the job.

Select the client.

Click the Deassign button.

Now the client does not get any new frames of that job.
Note: Assignment is shown in the first column of the client table.

 

If it is rendering, you might or might not want to

right-click and execute Abort or Abort after Frame.

[Benjamin Roulet]

File uploaded !

Thank you.

I see for the EXR yes it's not a very common workflow. I'll try without Crop EXR

I have a another question I tried to make some settings of the submitter as default setting but I'm a bit confused by the interface. I go to Default Values / Edit Presets Files UI / Edit All First / Filter overwritten only / Now I can see the value that I changed but I don't understand how to make save them as default..

Thank you.

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

)) Submitter default values.

> Filter overwritten only

If you check that option then you see which defaults have been overridden.
Don’t you want to override a new setting?

Anyway, I would use the filter string text line and not “Filter overwritten only”.

If you have found your setting, enable override and set it as you like.

Then click on the save button on the left.

Note that you can set these default settings per render app as well.
(Not available via that editor)

[Benjamin Roulet]

Got it ! It's working now thank you !

[Benjamin Roulet]

Ok so I'm going a bit deeper in the configuration of Royal Render. I made a permanent install which seems to work.

I added another computer to my test to check everything. If I render the scene on the same machine everything work as expected but when I render on a different machine on the network I have some errors. It seems some of my plugins are not loaded on the machine and the render is stopped. It's OD tools for Houdini which is loaded via packages install. I have this error message in the log. It looks like the machine cannot access some nodes from the plugin folder maybe there is some environment variable to adjust somewhere.. Every install of Houdini are identical and in the same folder on the two machines.

Thank you for your help !

[RR, Schoenberger]

1) multi-instance feature.

There is no problem with that feature.
It worked fine.

Please see line 14 of each render log:
Job: {5E7a} Sequence to render: 1-1, 1
Job: {5E7a} Sequence to render: 2-2, 1

Job: {5E7a} Sequence to render: 3-4, 1
Job: {5E7a} Sequence to render: 5-5, 1

….

 

 

5) Houdini package
I assume the package is not loaded because the Houdini user preferences are different for RR.

Please see section Plugins on this help page:

www.royalrender.de/help/Houdini.html

[RR, Schoenberger]

1)
PS: I can see two reasons for the slower total time.

a) Houdini is started 4 times at once and loads the scene 4 times.
Due to CPU, harddrive and network this is slower than starting it once.

Houdini was started for 1-2 frames and took 25 seconds.

And your frame time of 5 seconds is very low compared to that.

 

b) And RR is not able to use the KeepSceneOpen feature for multiple instances.

If you have higher frame times or increase the Sequence Divide min/max, it will get better.

a) and b) will be less or not happen if you use job threads at the rrClient instead.
As these job threads are not started at the same time, the startup times will be lower.

And with large scenes you usually have a pre-processing time with 1 core, then the render on all cores and then closing Houdini on 1 core.
With multiple instances this happens at the same time for all frames.

With multiple job threads it can shift in time and should be more random.
E.g. while one job is rendering with all cores, the other one preprocessed with 1 core.