UHD Cache Needs Additional Precomp Method

[Dippndots]

I think I've ran into a limitation of the "try to load+append" feature of the UHD Cache when re-rendering animations.

Normally, I would setup a "pre-pass" render job with "try to load+append" and rendering every 25th frame for 1sec. However I just realized, that if I have to make changes to the scene, I can't use the same .uhd to save to because it contains information of the old scene.

It would be really nice if there was an additional option like "calculate from scratch+append". 

[Dippndots]

I just want to make sure that I am going about this "prepass" method correctly, or if there is another way I should be doing it. Because my current method is pretty integral to the way we render animations.

[Frood]

UHD in animation mode doesn´t work for you? You can´t save as much time doing a prepass compared e.g. to a finalgather pass (mr) so personally I would not hassle with prepasses and just calculate every frame. Usually it needs only a fraction of the total render time. I don´t think cache calculations will ever be able to evaluate scene changes and store difs.

Good Luck!

[Dippndots]

We're trying to replicate Vrays "camera path" setup since that's what we previously used. Which, to be fair does take considerably more time than Corona's UHD. But UHD is still 90-120sec per frame, so over an animation of a few hundred frames it makes a difference compared to just UHD'ing every 25 frames.

I'm not asking for the cache to be able to evaluate scene changes, it would just be really convenient if there was an option to clear the cache file it is saving to and start over. Instead, I have to hunt down and delete UHD files if the scene has been changed and needs re-rendering.

[romullus]

How about that: change precomp method to calculate from scratch, render one frame, change it back to try to load + append and render your sequence. No need to delete anything.

[Frood]

[...] if there was an option to clear the cache file it is saving to and start over. Instead, I have to hunt down and delete UHD files [...]

Ah ok. Having the scene UHD settings in front on the screen it´s 3 clicks to delete the file. But I assume it´s about situations where you need to restart a job another way (BB/DL). Out of curiosity: what are the rendertimes per frame you have with precalculated cache?

Good Luck!

[Dippndots]

@rumullus: That would work, but in terms of our workflow it would mean creating another backburner job. So we'd have a calculate from scratch, try to load + append, and finally the render job. Doing this for a couple of cameras isn't too much of an inconvenience, but when I have to send off 15+ cameras it would be a pain.

@Frood: Rendertimes are about 90mins a frame.

[CJI]

You could try a plugin called Render Pass manager to help with that. Its set up for vray but does work with other engines. Helpfull when you have multiple set ups and passes for cameras. It saves us so much time for things like this as well as visual sets per camera.

So essentially you would set up your camera passes using this and it automates the sending process.

Example- Set up "from scratch" pass
-Duplicate and change pass to "load and append"
-Duplicate again and chnage to render.

You could then duplicate all of these on the list and just change the active camera through the relevant drop down list.

When done click send and it will batch send everything to deadline/backburner for you.

Honestly, combined with visual sets this plugin can be a massive timesaver. Worth the learning curve to get used to it.

http://rpmanager.com/

by the way im not affiliated with the above, i just use it daily at the studio :)

[Dippndots]

We had just started using RPM, but I wasn't aware it worked with Corona? It is a huge time saver.

edit: It looks like corona does work for RPM, but RPM doesnt seem to be working on Windows 10 for us :(

[Ondra]

the cache cannot be reliably reused with animated geometry, this is a principal limitation. I am moving this to "I need help" for discussion of workarounds

[Dippndots]

I feel like we've gotten sidetracked from the original point. I have a suitable workaround at the moment, where I just have to delete the prepass files before resubmitting the animation. While this is fine by myself, in a studio setting I feel like this is one more thing that could go wrong when rendering animations.

Forgive me for presuming, but it doesn't seem particularly difficult to add another option in the drop down menu that clears the prepass before loading and appending. I think it would reduce the chance for error.