I am trying to set up a render dependency workflow where the Mantra render node is dependent on a DOP simulation being cached. For some reason, even with “Node by Node” selected on the Mantra ROPs overrides, it seems to be going frame by frame.

Here's what I have:

1. A geometry ROP which is reading from the DOP network via DOP Import Field node, and then writing bgeo out.
2. The bgeo cache is then read back in to OBJ level using a File node.
3. The Mantra node is then rendering this OBJ node.
4. The Geometry ROP is connected into the Mantra ROP.
5. The Mantra ROP has the setting Dependency Render Settings -> Order -> Node by Node

See attached image which shows most of this.

My understanding was that with this setup, when I tell the Mantra node to render, it will first cache out the bgeo sim before rendering a single frame. What actually happens is that it sims each frame and then renders it.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

See the batch rop:

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/out/batch [www.sidefx.com]

I just found this thread on odforce: http://forums.odforce.net/topic/19857-render-dependencies-bug/ [forums.odforce.net]

Which also suggests using the Batch ROP as a workaround, but says that SESI confirmed this as a bug. That was back in 2014.

So shouldn't this work without needing to use the Batch ROP?