Question About RENDERTIME for animation

[kumodot]

   I am planning to try Corona at renderfarm. But on this farm i have a mix of processors, i7, and QuadCores, maybe even DualCores...

    My question is... How to know the right rendertime set per frame to submit with mixed machines. 20 minutes by frame looks ok on my i7 Machine, but it will be the SAME quality on an ordinary QuadCore ???

    Right now i am just trying my animations using just one machine... But it´s painfull to wait a weekend to check a simple 4s animation. ;)
     
    Do i have to use PASS instead of time ? Why can i set Time and Pass at the same time..?! Sorry for those dumb questions. :)
 
    Thks for any help !

[maru]

I think putting Corona on a render farm is pointless as it doesn't support distributed rendering yet.

If you want to test different machines then you should set fixed time and check which one was able to do more passes during this time (=which render looks better).

If you want all frames to look the same rendered on different machines, then you should use PASS setting.

I bet if you use time an pass limit at the same time, rendering will stop if it reaches first of these two.

I hope I am right. :)

[kumodot]

    Thanks Maru. But i didnt understood the "Pointless" part of putting Corona on a RenderFarm. I had a render of an animation that takes 40 minutes to be clean. I need to finish this animation in a shorter time. 120 frames Vs 40 min/frame will be like almost 4 days of rendering. Lets say i have a farm with 40 machines. I will get the render done in just 2 hours. (Ok, i´ve just explained how the renderfarm stuff works, lol )

     I don´t want to use Distributed but just network rendering.

[Chakib]

     I don´t want to use Distributed but just network rendering.

what does mean Distributed render for you?

[Ondra]

Different computers render naturally at different speed, just either limit the frames by passes instead of time, or measure the computer performance beforehand (for example with the A4 benchmark scene), and adjust the time limit for each machine accordingly

[kumodot]

     I don´t want to use Distributed but just network rendering.

what does mean Distributed render for you?

In Mentalray the DR part is like 1 Machine (mine) rendering using just the processing part for each frame distributed on network. Wrong ?Every Bucket is distributed by the network. Just the numberCrunching part. The results go back to my machine and fill that bucket. Wrong or Wrong ? :)

   

[kumodot]

Different computers render naturally at different speed, just either limit the frames by passes instead of time, or measure the computer performance beforehand (for example with the A4 benchmark scene), and adjust the time limit for each machine accordingly

   So, let me ask you  something... Hmmm. Setting by Pass seems totally more logical. :) I was testing a render, using (By time) and the main object started outside the camera, as the time it enters on frame it will render much faster by pass, than forced to time, cause the object aren´t in the scene. Ok. I am a dumb. :) It´s my first time using progressive renders... ;)

[kumodot]

Maru, are you saying that´s impossible to just submit a Network render using Corona ? Why ? What´s the technical limitation of a batch render if i can do it manually opening the scene on each machine and set to render a bunch of frames.
     Network rendering aren´t a simple batch processing to automate this ?

     I got some errors using Deadline submitting a scene with corona, but i didn´t know the neet to corona to Support Network batch rendering, is it ?
     :(

     

[Ludvik Koutny]

Pass limit will provide a lot more consistent results for an animation than time limit would. Downside is that you need to estimate amount of passes necessary first... I found a good practice to make a quick render for a few minutes to get partially clean, then find about 64*64px spot on the image that has the most noise, draw a render region there, start to render and see how many passes it takes to get clean, and then use that pass number as limit for my animation.

And corona with backburner should work just fine. With Deadline too as loocas is using it...  it just might need some tweaking to get it up and running.

[kumodot]

Pass limit will provide a lot more consistent results for an animation than time limit would. Downside is that you need to estimate amount of passes necessary first... I found a good practice to make a quick render for a few minutes to get partially clean, then find about 64*64px spot on the image that has the most noise, draw a render region there, start to render and see how many passes it takes to get clean, and then use that pass number as limit for my animation.

And corona with backburner should work just fine. With Deadline too as loocas is using it...  it just might need some tweaking to get it up and running.

  Nice workflow, thanks for sharing the tip. :) Good one ! :)