Overview

All sequence rendering will be done on our internal renderfarm using Deadline. You can access the Deadline submission panel through the Extensions menu. See how your jobs are running through the Deadline Monitor and if you’re not working, ALWAYS have your Deadline Worker open.

Rendering Best Practices

There are many instances where we have multiple jobs rendering on the farm, at the same time. To make sure this runs smoothly and everyone’s renders finish overnight, follow these practices:

• Always check your render times before submitting.
  • Submit single or few frames, per take, to the farm (or locally), in advance at high priority to check their render times.
  • Don’t assume render times and inadvertently block the farm for a night.
  • Render times, at low-res, should not exceed about 2 minutes per frame
  • Render times, at high-res, should not exceed about 8 minutes per frame
  • Of course there will be certain exceptions: A lot of refractions, SSS, hair, above high-res resolutions, but the upward number is a good benchmark for a standard project.
• Always check your render Priority. When there are multiple projects on the farm, we have to make sure the right projects come first in case of anything not finishing.
  • Check render priority with colleagues, who also have renders on the farm
  • If unsure, check with Jef or post producers for priority
• Check desired takes, frame ranges and resolution. Don’t render what isn’t necessary.
• Check every take you’re submitting for the right camera, objects, render settings, etc.
• Render half resolution until (close to) final outputs or otherwise specified.

Submitting a render

• Every time you submit a render you will have to switch the Take List to Marked.
• Use Take Frame Range must be enabled.
• The default Priority is 50. You can lower it for non-essential jobs. Only raise it after consulting with your colleagues/production to determine which jobs are most urgent.
• If you need the render be done by a single node you can set the Machine Limit to 1. It will still render Tasks of X frames.
• If you need 1 machine to render it as a single task increase the Frames Per Task to encompass the entire framerange.

Power user

In order to make adjustments to already submitted renders, Power User mode, found under Tools, will need to be activated.

Modify frame range