command line rendering questions

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laeyzer
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Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 12:45 am

command line rendering questions

Post by laeyzer »

not sure where to post this but I have a question for the Moho guys about command line rendering.

I seen there is a batch renderer but i assume that is for render more than one project, one after another on one machine.

The command line rendering is a great feature and we will be using it soon. I used it before with maya but the network guy had set it up.

I am am command line challanged!!!

Could you guys post a simple step by step setup for getting a project rendering on 2 or more machines if you can do that?

maybe in this order using a project in the samples folder in moho

setting up more that one machine. what you need on each machine to allow rendering part of the project. so many frames to each machine.

bringing up a command line (where is it), what to type to get the frames rendering on different machines.

questions
can you send out renders to other machines from your computer and the files come back to your machine when they are done?
Or
do you have to setup a command on separate machines and move the project to each machine to access it and then manually send the files back to the original machine?
Or
is this command line render intended for 1 machine at a time?

I know it might be simple for tech heads but you have to draw pictures for us animators!!
Hope to get some feedback and probably will have more questions.
laeyzer
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Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 12:45 am

Post by laeyzer »

should i just email the guys directly on this one??
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cribble
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Post by cribble »

yeah go for it. unfortunatly i haven't a clue.
--Scott
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myles
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Post by myles »

Hello laeyzer,

Lost Marble made the command-line version so the Moho community could build render-farms (rendering on 2 or more machines).
The command-line renderer itself cannot distribute to multiple machines.

Unfortunately there are no ready-to-go render-farms for Moho yet.
I don't know if Lost Marble/e-frontier have plans for one.

J.Baker has said his moren program is working towards becoming a render-farm program.
I've got an extremely alpha work-in-progress experiment which is not ready for release yet.
Somebody posted about generic render-farm software you can plug any software into - I can't find that post at the moment, so somebody please chime in.

(If Lost Marble and/or the e-frontier guys are listening, please retain the command-line renderer for the Anime Studio Pro version at least.)

My own thoughts on file locations etc.:
Set up one machine with a shared folder that all other machines can access, whether you do it through Windows file sharing, Samba, NFS, or some Mac equivalent.
Put all your project files (or at least all final and/or official files) in that shared area.
Get all other machines to use that area, and render from and to that shared area.
There will be file management/versioning issues for projects with more than one person working on them.

You will need to install Moho (or at least the command-line render part) on all render-clients, or install it centrally and run it on each client. There are probably some licensing issues with that.

Regards, Myles.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."
-- Groucho Marx
laeyzer
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Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 12:45 am

Post by laeyzer »

thanks i will look into to it further and try out some of you suggestions
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Manu
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Post by Manu »

Just out of curiosity. Would it be possible to make use of multiple processors when using this command line renderer by running multiple instances of the renderer? Computers are moving more and more towards multi core systems.
My line of my thinking is that the pro version of Anime Studio might want to justify its higher price by allowing for say four render licenses.
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