DR Rendering sequences

[Remi.V]

Hi!
I'm currently rendering a sequence of one of my animations and I've had some issues with network rendering.
Originally I was using backburner to render the scene, but for some strange reason I've been stuck on a loop of 6 frames the past 2 days. Considering it takes like 10h per frame on 1 PC I decided to change tactics and use the DR server instead so the frames render faster (The total time it will take is the same though) outside of the backburner setup.
At least this time I could make sure the rendering doesn't get stuck on 6 frames and at least can advance.
I've set up all the DR servers and the first frame rendered with all DR servers actively working but when the master PC has continued to the next frame, the slaves don't seem to be working with it. Their status still says "Waiting for render to start" and it shows on the CPU activity as well.
I'm using Noise limit settings instead of pass limit in case this is useful info.

Does anyone who have an idea of how to fix this?

[Frood]

but for some strange reason I've been stuck on a loop of 6 frames the past 2 days. Considering it takes like 10h per frame

You just have to set a custom timeout at submission time, otherwise the hardcoded timeout of 10 hours will stop the job with an error, which causes a restart of the job for 3 times by default per node. I guess that's your "loop"?. See

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=11965.msg80147#msg80147
https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=11450.msg76663#msg76663

(The total time it will take is the same though)

Not really. You get worse quality in more time. It's always better (regarding time/quality) to resign from any (frame-)distributing solution when doing animation/large amount of frames. I would set a manual timeout and send the frames to BB. But more than 10h for one animation frame? Curious to see one of those...


As for

"Waiting for render to start"

Which Max + Corona versions do you use? You can restart dr servers on the slaves to any time if you encounter such a problem, they will join again - just a hint, so solution. If it is Corona 2.0 (I hope not :), logfiles would be helpful for sure.



Good Luck

[Remi.V]

Thank you for your input :-) I didn't realize there was a timeout limit coded in with BB. I'll look into it.

The reason the frames take so long is most likely the scene consisting of 90% SSS water materials and volumetric materials which are heavy to render. On top of this there is also DOF activated and a noise limit set to 5%.
I use Corona 2 to render this sequence.

[Frood]

I use Corona 2

Does DR basically work for you, mean with another scene and/or shorter rendertimes (but changing frames)?


Good Luck