Output autosave/resumable CRX - network rendering

[Tomsthor]

Hello there,
we are trying out corona renderer in our studio and so far so great but there is one feature that we are unable to make it work. V-ray has been our main render engine for years and since we are using a couple of slave computers to help us render we are really happy with a feature "resumable rendering" where you just set autosave interval in minutes and then you are set. Resumable rendering saves your rendering image by set interval into *.vrprog file format to the file where your output is set and therefore you hardly loose any progress in case of error etc.
Best part is that this all also works with network rendering on slave PCs.

Now I know that you can manually save rendering with CRX format in Save/resume rendering tab in corona renderer + you can set output autosave in system settings and it works on local pc but we are unable to make it work with network rendering and backburner (and that is what we need). I set "output autosave and interval", start network rendering and project is sent to slave pc to be rendered but there is no CRX file created in set output path at all. Not at the beggining, not by set interval and not when render is finished.

Is there something we can do to make it work (again does seem to work on local pc but fails to do so via network rendering)?

Cheers T

[maru]

Hi, we should be able to help, but can you share some about your current setup and how exactly you are rendering?
- Are you using Corona's distributed rendering to render a single frame on multiple computers?
- Are you using Backburner to render one frame per one computer?
- [any other important info how exactly you are using Corona and what you are rendering?]

Generally:

When using Corona's DR:
You can enable the autosave feature on the master machine. This will autosave the final rendering (what the master machines had rendered + what the slaves contributed). Then you should be able to continue distributed rendering by loading this autosave.

When using Backburner:
Remember that the autosave setting in Corona is a "system" setting, meaning that this setting is specified per-computer, not per scene. If you enable autosave on the master machine, it will not be enabled on the slave machines.
To enable autosave on the slaves, you can go to
C:\Users\_username_\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2020 - 64bit\ENU\en-US\plugcfg\corona
locate the newest file SystemSettings-xxx.conf
open it
you will see in it lines such as:
     String vfb.autosave.filename      = "C:\\Users\\_username_\\AppData\\Local\\Autodesk\\3dsMax\\2020 - 64bit\\ENU\\en-US\\plugcfg\\corona\\autosave.cxr"
        Int vfb.autosave.countEnd      = 3
        Int system.numThreads      = 0
        Int vfb.type      = wx
       Bool vfb.autosave.enable      = false

You can open these files on each of the computers, edit the lines, and save it, to change these system settings where you need them.

I am honestly not 100% sure how autosave works with DR/network rendering, so if you have any issues, let me know here, and we will troubleshoot.

[Tomsthor]

Thank you Maru for your answer,
we are using Backburner to render one frame per one computer, so we'll try your solution.

Thx T.