Jobs Slow down at end and use less machines!

[Cryptite]

Royal Render does a good job assigning frames to machines in the beginning. For example my 650 frame shot takes about 10 hrs for the first 600 frames and then could take like 4 hrs for the last 50! We have plenty of machines available and somehow it doesn't use them all in the end even when I change the min and max to 1. It gradually uses less and less machines the closer it comes to finishing and then may assign the last 10 frames to only one machine when there are plenty of machines available. What is going on?

[schoenberger]

Hi

What is your sequence divide min/max of the job?
_________________
Holger Schönberger
Binary Alchemy - digital materialization

[Cryptite]

I originally started it at 3 and 24 but then switched it to min 1 and max 1 when the renders slowed down in the end. After I switched those settings I reset the job.

[knekke]

Instead of reset you should hit abort. the last 50 frames are eventually assigned to 3 machines or so, and they just chew through it. When you hit abort, the server will redistribute the remaining frames and take the changed sequence divide into account.

[Cryptite]

I have tried the abort method as well. It seems to work right after I do that, but then throughout time my client number still gradually goes down. For example, I will have 20 frames left and 20 clients rendering, and then after a period of about 10 minutes that number will go down to like 4 even when there are still 20 frames left

[misterdi]

That is the draw back render using sequence chunks, it's controlled by the longest render time in the chunks.
Most likely your scene are heavier to render toward the end, for example having a lot more object to render toward the end.

Other chunks will finish earlier, leaving the last part chugging along.
The only way to redistribute is by aborting the render, making sure the min and max sequence chunk lowered and let RR redistribute the job.

Unfortunately MR for Maya can not do skip render frame unlike soft, in soft the max number of clients are the important factor. In MR for Maya, you have to keep an eye for render time. If you have multiple jobs it won't be that bad, since idle machine can render other jobs.

Setting min and max chunk to 1 in some cases also means loosing time. Time to read the scene must be calculated into the equation if it took 10 minutes to load and 5 minutes to render, having 1 frame / chunck is slower.

But yes in your case, you may see that remaining time is increased when number of machine dropped, so sometime it is misleading especially when it's near or on dead line. It's frustrating.

Cheers,
_________________
Daniel Harjanto
http://misterdi.cgpot.com

[Cryptite]

In part that is why I suggested that RR try to incorporate this functionality.

[schoenberger]

As there are two different interest I will implement a new switch.
1. Render a job as fast as possible.
The chunk size is reduced to the end as it is now, but even more.
2. Get the most output of frames on the farm.
Useful if you have a lot of render jobs on the farm.
_________________
Holger Schönberger
Binary Alchemy - digital materialization

[jean-louis]

Hi Holger,

Did you ever implement this?
And if so - where can I find this option?

Thanks in advance,
Jean-Louis

[schoenberger]

It is in rrConfig, tab jobs.
But only for RR 7.0.
_________________
Holger Schönberger
Binary Alchemy - digital materialization

[jean-louis]

Thanks Holger!

What do I need to do to upgrade?


Jean-Louis

[jean-louis]

Never mind - I'm upgrading.

Cheers,
Jean-Louis