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11:37 p.m.
Hi,
I'm trying to override let's say the vm_rendersubd (Polygons As
Subdivision) per instance point. I set this property on a Property node
inside my shader and then I override it on a Material Sop like I can do
with any shader parameter.
However it seems like the object properties cannot be overriden this way.
Any ideas?
Fran?ois

2:06 a.m.
SideFx has helped me with this. Since vm_rendersubd is an object
property and not a regular shader parameter that we want to override, we
have to use the instancepoint() function for that.
If we add the vm_rendersubd properties on a material, we can then use
the instancepoint() on that parameter on the shader to do the override.
Fran?ois
Fran?ois Duchesneau wrote:
Hi,
I'm trying to override let's say the vm_rendersubd (Polygons As
Subdivision) per instance point. I set this property on a Property
node inside my shader and then I override it on a Material Sop like I
can do with any shader parameter.
However it seems like the object properties cannot be overriden this way.
Any ideas?
Fran?ois
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4:51 a.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hi,
Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for alternative Render
Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would be something we could lease on
site, or we would lease time on the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud.
I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had suggestions or
information about what solution works best.
Kind regards,
Phil.
Philip Spicer
Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
National Centre for Computer Animation
Bournemouth University - UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain
confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the
sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any
other person. otter
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any
contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.

7:52 a.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Here at Realise we run on the sun grid engine. (6.2r5)
the interface is really bad and it's completely un-user friendly but it's
free, rock solid and command line based. we had to develop our own viewing
system on to so users can manage there renders (MSc project ??)
if your budget fits nothing and you have machines. it's a good way to go.
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Phil Spicer <PSpicer at bournemouth.ac.uk>wrote:
Hi,
Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would
be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon
EC2 Compute Cloud.
I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
suggestions or information about what solution works best.
Kind regards,
Phil.
Philip Spicer
Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
National Centre for Computer Animation
Bournemouth University - UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may
contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error,
please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied,
distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
subsidiary companies via email.
_______________________________________________
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Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
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9:17 a.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Phil, do you mean hardware or software?
I used GridEngine when I was at NCCA, worked like a charm, but as Lars
says, needs a bit of interface love :)
Hardware we still render internally on HP render blades. Remote
rendering is pretty hard due to the file, plugin, shader and other
dependencies required. Usually more work than it's worth to try to use
a "cloud" solution. Also, security of data (for us) is a big issue, so
sending things out of house would violate contracts etc...
I remember when I was there the students' workstations were not part
of the farm, we double our farm size at night when the artists go
home, though I realise "students" and "going home" aren't phrases
you
hear together often :)
Cheers,
Peter B
On 28 April 2011 04:52, Lars van der Bijl <com48com at gmail.com> wrote:
Here at Realise we run on the sun grid engine. (6.2r5)
the interface is really bad and it's completely un-user friendly but it's
free, rock solid and command line based. we had to develop our own viewing
system on to so users can manage there renders (MSc project ??)
if your budget fits nothing and you have machines. it's a good way to go.
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Phil Spicer <PSpicer at bournemouth.ac.uk>wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would
> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon
> EC2 Compute Cloud.
>
> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Phil.
>
> Philip Spicer
> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> National Centre for Computer Animation
> Bournemouth University - UK
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>
>
>
>
> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may
> contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error,
> please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied,
> distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not
> necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
> subsidiary companies via email.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
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12:59 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hi Phil,
I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using it and
supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with Houdini-native rendering and
simulation. As it's python-based and architected to be open, it can handle rendering
jobs - any kind of jobs, in fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
Cristin
On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
Hi,
Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for alternative Render
Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would be something we could lease on
site, or we would lease time on the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud.
I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had suggestions or
information about what solution works best.
Kind regards,
Phil.
Philip Spicer
Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
National Centre for Computer Animation
Bournemouth University - UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain
confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the
sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any
other person. otter
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any
contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
---
C. Barghiel
Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876

1:43 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hi Cristin,
Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
Cheers,
Peter B
On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel <cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
Hi Phil,
I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using it and
supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with Houdini-native rendering and
simulation. As it's python-based and architected to be open, it can handle rendering
jobs - any kind of jobs, in fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
Cristin
On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for alternative Render
Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would be something we could lease on
site, or we would lease time on the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud.
>
> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had suggestions or
information about what solution works best.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Phil.
>
> Philip Spicer
> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> National Centre for Computer Animation
> Bournemouth University - UK
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>
>
>
>
> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain
confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the
sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any
other person. otter
> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any
contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
---
C. Barghiel
Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
--
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1:58 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
also looking at dependencies.
is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops? one of
the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but not of
a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and its still
hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that create
dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final image. (2
sets of images actually).
is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue? I'd love
to read up on it.
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar <pbowmar at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Cristin,
Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
Cheers,
Peter B
On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel <cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
> Hi Phil,
>
> I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using
it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs, in
fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
>
> Cristin
>
> On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would
be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon
EC2 Compute Cloud.
>>
>> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Phil.
>>
>> Philip Spicer
>> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
>> National Centre for Computer Animation
>> Bournemouth University - UK
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and
may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in
error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be
copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
>> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
subsidiary companies via email.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
> ---
> C. Barghiel
> Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
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2:31 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Yes, dependencies for a render queue are an essential feature.
On 28 April 2011 10:58, Lars van der Bijl <com48com at gmail.com> wrote:
also looking at dependencies.
is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops? one of
the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but not of
a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and its still
hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that create
dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final image. (2
sets of images actually).
is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue? I'd love
to read up on it.
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar <pbowmar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Cristin,
>
> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter B
>
> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel <cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
> > Hi Phil,
> >
> > I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using
> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs, in
> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
> >
> > Cristin
> >
> > On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would
> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon
> EC2 Compute Cloud.
> >>
> >> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
> >>
> >> Kind regards,
> >>
> >> Phil.
> >>
> >> Philip Spicer
> >> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> >> National Centre for Computer Animation
> >> Bournemouth University - UK
> >>
> >> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and
> may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in
> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be
> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
> >> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
> subsidiary companies via email.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> >> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> >> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >
> > ---
> > C. Barghiel
> > Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> > Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> > https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> No, I am not on Facebook.
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
_______________________________________________
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Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
--
No, I am not on Facebook.

2:42 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
You can generate a dependency tree from a ROP network using:
render -p -I -f <start_fr> <end_fr> <output_rop>
-p will print the results instead of rendering
-I will process all of frame 1 first, then frame 2, etc. instead of the
entire range of each ROP at once
-f specifies the frame range.
The output is in the format:
<renderid> [ <dependencies> ] <ROPname> <frame>
So, for a ROP named out, which depends on A and B (its inputs),
rendering frames 1 and 2 would look like:
1 [ ] A 1
2 [ ] B 1
3 [ 1 2 ] out 1
4 [ ] A 2
5 [ ] B 2
6 [ 4 5 ] out 2
So, render job 3 is rendering 'out' at frame 1, but is dependent on
render jobs 1 and 2.
By default each frame depends on the corresponding frame number in the
inputs, but special ROPs such as Batch and Frame Dependency can alter
the frames that an output frame is dependent on. The Frame Container ROP
can restrict these frame dependency alterations, and the Pre Post ROP
can execute pre and post render ROPs, similar to using the pre and post
render scripts.
Cheers,
M.
On 04/28/2011 02:31 PM, Peter Bowmar wrote:
Yes, dependencies for a render queue are an essential feature.
On 28 April 2011 10:58, Lars van der Bijl<com48com at gmail.com> wrote:
> also looking at dependencies.
>
> is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops? one of
> the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but not of
> a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and its
still
> hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that create
> dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
>
> here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
>
> this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final image. (2
> sets of images actually).
>
> is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue? I'd love
> to read up on it.
>
> Lars
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar<pbowmar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Cristin,
>>
>> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Peter B
>>
>> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel<cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Phil,
>>>
>>> I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively
using
>> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
>> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
>> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs, in
>> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
>>>
>>> Cristin
>>>
>>> On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
>> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would
>> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon
>> EC2 Compute Cloud.
>>>>
>>>> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
>> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>> Phil.
>>>>
>>>> Philip Spicer
>>>> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
>>>> National Centre for Computer Animation
>>>> Bournemouth University - UK
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and
>> may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in
>> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be
>> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
>>>> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
>> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
>> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
>> subsidiary companies via email.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>
>>> ---
>>> C. Barghiel
>>> Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> No, I am not on Facebook.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
>

3:25 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
but surely this is not the way task get submitted to hqueue?
I understand the method that houdini uses to create it dependency tree for
local render. but how will it turn this into a tree of separate task to
utilise the farm most efficiently?
also something that bugs me in how subnets always get handeld as a "bucket"
of task where everything that has no output connector gets rendered. this
works perfectly in theory but it means that you cant split things out
easily.
stream one for local render. stream two for farm rendering. granted you can
do it with a switch. set it to a invalid input. stopping the traversal.
it also means that it's harder to use houdini's traversal to create a
dependency tree. or am I missing something?
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Mark Alexander <malexander at sidefx.com>wrote:
You can generate a dependency tree from a ROP network using:
render -p -I -f <start_fr> <end_fr> <output_rop>
-p will print the results instead of rendering
-I will process all of frame 1 first, then frame 2, etc. instead of the
entire range of each ROP at once
-f specifies the frame range.
The output is in the format:
<renderid> [ <dependencies> ] <ROPname> <frame>
So, for a ROP named out, which depends on A and B (its inputs), rendering
frames 1 and 2 would look like:
1 [ ] A 1
2 [ ] B 1
3 [ 1 2 ] out 1
4 [ ] A 2
5 [ ] B 2
6 [ 4 5 ] out 2
So, render job 3 is rendering 'out' at frame 1, but is dependent on render
jobs 1 and 2.
By default each frame depends on the corresponding frame number in the
inputs, but special ROPs such as Batch and Frame Dependency can alter the
frames that an output frame is dependent on. The Frame Container ROP can
restrict these frame dependency alterations, and the Pre Post ROP can
execute pre and post render ROPs, similar to using the pre and post render
scripts.
Cheers,
M.
On 04/28/2011 02:31 PM, Peter Bowmar wrote:
> Yes, dependencies for a render queue are an essential feature.
>
> On 28 April 2011 10:58, Lars van der Bijl<com48com at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> also looking at dependencies.
>>
>> is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops? one
>> of
>> the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but not
>> of
>> a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and its
>> still
>> hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that create
>> dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
>>
>> here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
>>
>> this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final image.
>> (2
>> sets of images actually).
>>
>> is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue? I'd
>> love
>> to read up on it.
>>
>> Lars
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar<pbowmar at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> Hi Cristin,
>>>
>>> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Peter B
>>>
>>> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel<cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Phil,
>>>>
>>>> I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively
>>>> using
>>>>
>>> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
>>> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
>>> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs,
>>> in
>>> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cristin
>>>>
>>>> On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
>>>>>
>>>> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it
>>> would
>>> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the
>>> Amazon
>>> EC2 Compute Cloud.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone
had
>>>>>
>>>> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Phil.
>>>>>
>>>>> Philip Spicer
>>>>> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
>>>>> National Centre for Computer Animation
>>>>> Bournemouth University - UK
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed
and
>>>>>
>>>> may contain confidential information. If you have received this email
>>> in
>>> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be
>>> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
>>>
>>>> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
>>>>>
>>>> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its
>>> subsidiary
>>> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or
>>> its
>>> subsidiary companies via email.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> C. Barghiel
>>>> Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> No, I am not on Facebook.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list

3:58 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hola~
-- On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 08:25:18PM +0100, Lars van der Bijl wrote:
but surely this is not the way task get submitted to hqueue?
I understand the method that houdini uses to create it dependency tree for
local render. but how will it turn this into a tree of separate task to
utilise the farm most efficiently?
That's what we do.
We take the output of the hscript render command and turn it into a parallel
job graph to alfred. We added two hdk nodes "In Parallel" and "In
Serial" that
take up-stream rops and splits the render request into parallel or serial
requests. Frame Dependency might be able to take the place of In Serial, but
don't think In Parallel. We use frame container, pre-post, and fetch quite a
bit as well.
This lets us run a simulation on a single farm machine, but the post
processing of the simulation results in parallel, for example.
The only non-houdini thing we do is to tag ROPs with parms that determine
machine, memory, mpi, etc... Those parms are eval-ed by the script that takes
the render output when generating an alfred script so alfred knows what sort
of profile to schedule on.
We also have a sop file-cache otl that can one-click send stuff to the farm.
This allows the user to iterate quickly, inline, and then create a true ROP
dependency graph using Fetch's.
It's been great. We offload nearly all non-trivial computation from the user's
workstation, which let's them multitask between shots on a single machine.
also something that bugs me in how subnets always get handeld as a "bucket"
of task where everything that has no output connector gets rendered. this
works perfectly in theory but it means that you cant split things out
easily.
Yeah, we hit this for a long time. Subnets don't handle as bucket, but otl's
do. If you have a subnet, you can specify which inputs depend on up-stream
graphs.
We just stopped using ROP otl's and moved to toolbar buttons that generate a
subnet with a ROP graph in it. This allows us to specify which rops should
depend on up-stream connections and also let's users muck with the graph
easily (which we found they were doing quite a bit of in the otl case). So
far, that's been going well.
MO
stream one for local render. stream two for farm rendering. granted you can
do it with a switch. set it to a invalid input. stopping the traversal.
it also means that it's harder to use houdini's traversal to create a
dependency tree. or am I missing something?
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Mark Alexander <malexander at sidefx.com>wrote:
> You can generate a dependency tree from a ROP network using:
>
> render -p -I -f <start_fr> <end_fr> <output_rop>
>
> -p will print the results instead of rendering
>
> -I will process all of frame 1 first, then frame 2, etc. instead of the
> entire range of each ROP at once
>
> -f specifies the frame range.
>
> The output is in the format:
>
> <renderid> [ <dependencies> ] <ROPname> <frame>
>
> So, for a ROP named out, which depends on A and B (its inputs), rendering
> frames 1 and 2 would look like:
>
> 1 [ ] A 1
> 2 [ ] B 1
> 3 [ 1 2 ] out 1
> 4 [ ] A 2
> 5 [ ] B 2
> 6 [ 4 5 ] out 2
>
> So, render job 3 is rendering 'out' at frame 1, but is dependent on render
> jobs 1 and 2.
>
> By default each frame depends on the corresponding frame number in the
> inputs, but special ROPs such as Batch and Frame Dependency can alter the
> frames that an output frame is dependent on. The Frame Container ROP can
> restrict these frame dependency alterations, and the Pre Post ROP can
> execute pre and post render ROPs, similar to using the pre and post render
> scripts.
>
> Cheers,
> M.
>
>
> On 04/28/2011 02:31 PM, Peter Bowmar wrote:
>
>> Yes, dependencies for a render queue are an essential feature.
>>
>> On 28 April 2011 10:58, Lars van der Bijl<com48com at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> also looking at dependencies.
>>>
>>> is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops? one
>>> of
>>> the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but not
>>> of
>>> a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and
its
>>> still
>>> hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that create
>>> dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
>>>
>>> here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
>>>
>>> this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final image.
>>> (2
>>> sets of images actually).
>>>
>>> is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue? I'd
>>> love
>>> to read up on it.
>>>
>>> Lars
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar<pbowmar at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Cristin,
>>>>
>>>> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Peter B
>>>>
>>>> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel<cb at sidefx.com>
wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Phil,
>>>>>
>>>>> I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are
actively
>>>>> using
>>>>>
>>>> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
>>>> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
>>>> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of
jobs,
>>>> in
>>>> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Cristin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking
for
>>>>>>
>>>>> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably
it
>>>> would
>>>> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the
>>>> Amazon
>>>> EC2 Compute Cloud.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if
anyone had
>>>>>>
>>>>> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Phil.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Philip Spicer
>>>>>> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
>>>>>> National Centre for Computer Animation
>>>>>> Bournemouth University - UK
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is
addressed and
>>>>>>
>>>>> may contain confidential information. If you have received this
email
>>>> in
>>>> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not
be
>>>> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
>>>>
>>>>> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and
do
>>>>>>
>>>>> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its
>>>> subsidiary
>>>> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University
or
>>>> its
>>>> subsidiary companies via email.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>>>>>
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> C. Barghiel
>>>>> Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> No, I am not on Facebook.
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
--
Michael O'Brien FX Lead
Pixar mobrien at pixar.com

5:33 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 8:58 PM, Michael K. O'Brien <mobrien at
pixar.com>wrote:
Hola~
>-- On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 08:25:18PM +0100, Lars van der Bijl wrote:
> but surely this is not the way task get submitted to hqueue?
>
> I understand the method that houdini uses to create it dependency tree
for
> local render. but how will it turn this into a tree of separate task to
> utilise the farm most efficiently?
That's what we do.
We take the output of the hscript render command and turn it into a
parallel
job graph to alfred. We added two hdk nodes "In Parallel" and "In
Serial"
that
take up-stream rops and splits the render request into parallel or serial
requests. Frame Dependency might be able to take the place of In Serial,
but
don't think In Parallel. We use frame container, pre-post, and fetch quite
a
bit as well.
This lets us run a simulation on a single farm machine, but the post
processing of the simulation results in parallel, for example.
The only non-houdini thing we do is to tag ROPs with parms that determine
machine, memory, mpi, etc... Those parms are eval-ed by the script that
takes
the render output when generating an alfred script so alfred knows what
sort
of profile to schedule on.
We also have a sop file-cache otl that can one-click send stuff to the
farm.
This allows the user to iterate quickly, inline, and then create a true ROP
dependency graph using Fetch's.
It's been great. We offload nearly all non-trivial computation from the
user's
workstation, which let's them multitask between shots on a single machine.
that is interesting. we have simular functionality with our current
implementation but we ended up writing own traversal.
giving us the same control with a "cache" rop/sop that can be submitted on
chained.
we have our setting on a otl rop. i've implemented a simulare system as you
describe before and found it difficult to promise backward compatibility. of
course as i was developing it these parameters where in flux but ones the
setting settle down it worked fine. having a otl at leased means i don't
have to bug the artist to update there parms on there rops.
i'll have to have a other look at the hscript render.
> also something that bugs me in how subnets always get handeld as a
"bucket"
> of task where everything that has no output connector gets rendered. this
> works perfectly in theory but it means that you cant split things out
> easily.
Yeah, we hit this for a long time. Subnets don't handle as bucket, but
otl's
do. If you have a subnet, you can specify which inputs depend on up-stream
graphs.
We just stopped using ROP otl's and moved to toolbar buttons that generate
a
subnet with a ROP graph in it. This allows us to specify which rops should
depend on up-stream connections and also let's users muck with the graph
easily (which we found they were doing quite a bit of in the otl case). So
far, that's been going well.
MO
my grievance was with downstream how it's harder to specify which output
should be chosen from within a subnet or a otl. both otl and subnet have
input pegs (if you set the otls to have inputs of course).
however the move away from otls is intriguing though. do you have your own
tools to add stuff to the toolbar or are you using the default xml file? i
have found this difficult to manage using the default xmls and ended up
writing tools
to create the toolbars dynamically using python. mainly because of our
software install system which made it harder to define paths for icon's
before hand.
> stream one for local render. stream two for farm rendering. granted you
can
> do it with a switch. set it to a invalid input. stopping the traversal.
>
> it also means that it's harder to use houdini's traversal to create a
> dependency tree. or am I missing something?
>
> Lars
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Mark Alexander <malexander at sidefx.com
>wrote:
>
> > You can generate a dependency tree from a ROP network using:
> >
> > render -p -I -f <start_fr> <end_fr> <output_rop>
> >
> > -p will print the results instead of rendering
> >
> > -I will process all of frame 1 first, then frame 2, etc. instead of the
> > entire range of each ROP at once
> >
> > -f specifies the frame range.
> >
> > The output is in the format:
> >
> > <renderid> [ <dependencies> ] <ROPname> <frame>
> >
> > So, for a ROP named out, which depends on A and B (its inputs),
rendering
> > frames 1 and 2 would look like:
> >
> > 1 [ ] A 1
> > 2 [ ] B 1
> > 3 [ 1 2 ] out 1
> > 4 [ ] A 2
> > 5 [ ] B 2
> > 6 [ 4 5 ] out 2
> >
> > So, render job 3 is rendering 'out' at frame 1, but is dependent on
render
> > jobs 1 and 2.
> >
> > By default each frame depends on the corresponding frame number in the
> > inputs, but special ROPs such as Batch and Frame Dependency can alter
the
> > frames that an output frame is dependent on. The Frame Container ROP
can
> > restrict these frame dependency alterations, and the Pre Post ROP can
> > execute pre and post render ROPs, similar to using the pre and post
render
> > scripts.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > M.
> >
> >
> > On 04/28/2011 02:31 PM, Peter Bowmar wrote:
> >
> >> Yes, dependencies for a render queue are an essential feature.
> >>
> >> On 28 April 2011 10:58, Lars van der Bijl<com48com at gmail.com>
wrote:
> >>
> >>> also looking at dependencies.
> >>>
> >>> is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops?
one
> >>> of
> >>> the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but
not
> >>> of
> >>> a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me
off and
its
> >>> still
> >>> hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that
create
> >>> dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
> >>>
> >>> here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
> >>>
> >>> this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final
image.
> >>> (2
> >>> sets of images actually).
> >>>
> >>> is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue?
I'd
> >>> love
> >>> to read up on it.
> >>>
> >>> Lars
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar<pbowmar at
gmail.com>
wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi Cristin,
> >>>>
> >>>> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using
HQueue.
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>>
> >>>> Peter B
> >>>>
> >>>> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel<cb at sidefx.com>
wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hi Phil,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are
actively
> >>>>> using
> >>>>>
> >>>> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
> >>>> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based
and
> >>>> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of
jobs,
> >>>> in
> >>>> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cristin
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are
looking for
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year.
Preferably
it
> >>>> would
> >>>> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the
> >>>> Amazon
> >>>> EC2 Compute Cloud.
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if
anyone
had
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Kind regards,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Phil.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Philip Spicer
> >>>>>> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> >>>>>> National Centre for Computer Animation
> >>>>>> Bournemouth University - UK
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is
addressed
and
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> may contain confidential information. If you have received
this
email
> >>>> in
> >>>> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must
not be
> >>>> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
> >>>>
> >>>>> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and
do
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or
its
> >>>> subsidiary
> >>>> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the
University or
> >>>> its
> >>>> subsidiary companies via email.
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> >>>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> >>>>>>
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ---
> >>>>> C. Barghiel
> >>>>> Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> >>>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> >>>>>
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> No, I am not on Facebook.
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> >>>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> >>>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> >>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> >>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> > Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> > https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
--
Michael O'Brien FX
Lead
Pixar
mobrien at pixar.com
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list

6:34 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hola~
--
Michael O'Brien FX Lead
Pixar mobrien at pixar.com
-- On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 10:33:08PM +0100, Lars van der Bijl wrote:
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 8:58 PM, Michael K. O'Brien <mobrien at
pixar.com>wrote:
> Hola~
>
> >-- On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 08:25:18PM +0100, Lars van der Bijl wrote:
> > but surely this is not the way task get submitted to hqueue?
> >
> > I understand the method that houdini uses to create it dependency tree
> for
> > local render. but how will it turn this into a tree of separate task to
> > utilise the farm most efficiently?
>
> That's what we do.
>
> We take the output of the hscript render command and turn it into a
> parallel
> job graph to alfred. We added two hdk nodes "In Parallel" and "In
Serial"
> that
> take up-stream rops and splits the render request into parallel or serial
> requests. Frame Dependency might be able to take the place of In Serial,
> but
> don't think In Parallel. We use frame container, pre-post, and fetch quite
> a
> bit as well.
>
> This lets us run a simulation on a single farm machine, but the post
> processing of the simulation results in parallel, for example.
>
> The only non-houdini thing we do is to tag ROPs with parms that determine
> machine, memory, mpi, etc... Those parms are eval-ed by the script that
> takes
> the render output when generating an alfred script so alfred knows what
> sort
> of profile to schedule on.
>
> We also have a sop file-cache otl that can one-click send stuff to the
> farm.
> This allows the user to iterate quickly, inline, and then create a true ROP
> dependency graph using Fetch's.
>
> It's been great. We offload nearly all non-trivial computation from the
> user's
> workstation, which let's them multitask between shots on a single machine.
>
>
that is interesting. we have simular functionality with our current
implementation but we ended up writing own traversal.
giving us the same control with a "cache" rop/sop that can be submitted on
chained.
Yeah, I know a couple of studios that ended up writing traversal code. I
really didn't want to own that, and like the switch, fetch, pre/post, and
frame container. I really want to let SideFX do cool things there and have it
just work, and not feel like I need to update our traversal code everytime a
new ROP comes out.
We do a large number of things this way including simulation, geometry
caching, asset creation, building, rendering using our interal tools,
installing, etc... The typical graph for an interactive session is usually
fairly contained, but for an fx rig can get to be huge.
For example, the asset creation has a shader export, geometry export, model
export (like a template), and a build step. The user often wants to iterate on
the shader export + build (happens once per render request), or maybe the
geometry export (geom is per frame, build is once per request). As an otl,
users ended up doing things like tweaking dependencies and tagging just the
geometry rop with high-memory and proc requirements for the farm.
we have our setting on a otl rop. i've implemented a simulare system as you
describe before and found it difficult to promise backward compatibility. of
course as i was developing it these parameters where in flux but ones the
setting settle down it worked fine. having a otl at leased means i don't
have to bug the artist to update there parms on there rops.
i'll have to have a other look at the hscript render.
>
> > also something that bugs me in how subnets always get handeld as a
> "bucket"
> > of task where everything that has no output connector gets rendered. this
> > works perfectly in theory but it means that you cant split things out
> > easily.
>
> Yeah, we hit this for a long time. Subnets don't handle as bucket, but
> otl's
> do. If you have a subnet, you can specify which inputs depend on up-stream
> graphs.
>
> We just stopped using ROP otl's and moved to toolbar buttons that generate
> a
> subnet with a ROP graph in it. This allows us to specify which rops should
> depend on up-stream connections and also let's users muck with the graph
> easily (which we found they were doing quite a bit of in the otl case). So
> far, that's been going well.
>
> MO
>
>
my grievance was with downstream how it's harder to specify which output
should be chosen from within a subnet or a otl. both otl and subnet have
input pegs (if you set the otls to have inputs of course).
We have our rops setup to not require input (0 min) which means you don't get
input pegs.
We author the ROP graphs bottom up, which is the reverse from most of the
other graphs in Houdini, so we always have one output point for downstream
nodes to correctly wire in.
however the move away from otls is intriguing though. do you have
your own
tools to add stuff to the toolbar or are you using the default xml file? i
Just the default xml files. We have a source/inst split. So, you point Houdini
at your source tree, use Houdini to edit, then build it out to inst. You can
also just edit using vim as well.
It's a bit clunky the first time, but doesn't really slow me down compared to
writing the Python code to build the network.
MO
have found this difficult to manage using the default xmls and ended
up
writing tools
to create the toolbars dynamically using python. mainly because of our
software install system which made it harder to define paths for icon's
before hand.
(snip) 8<----

11:03 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:34:58 -0700, "Michael K. O'Brien"
<mobrien at pixar.com> wrote:
Yeah, I know a couple of studios that ended up writing traversal
code. I
really didn't want to own that, and like the switch, fetch, pre/post,
and
frame container. I really want to let SideFX do cool things there and
have
it
just work, and not feel like I need to update our traversal code
everytime
a
new ROP comes out.
<like />
--
Georg Duemlein
http://rdg.preset.de

8:47 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
I am not sure if I am missing something here.
But apart that all the stuff related to a big pipeline like what Mike
was explaining to make a basic dependency graph for a ROPs network is
just a matter of going through the network connection using the
bottom-up method. You can create all the dependencies from there and
to select what job is serial and what could be run in parallel there
is a very handy parameter in all ROPs: Initialize Simulation OPs, jut
set it to on for those tasks that requires simulations and then have
to be run in serial mode.
Using this method is not to hard to write an Alfred script.
So I can see that Pau definitely gave up with Alfred at Realise, good old times!
Cheers!
2011/4/28 Lars van der Bijl <com48com at gmail.com>:
also looking at dependencies.
is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops? one of
the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but not of
a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and its still
hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that create
dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final image. (2
sets of images actually).
is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue? I'd love
to read up on it.
Lars
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar <pbowmar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Cristin,
>
> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter B
>
> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel <cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
> > Hi Phil,
> >
> > I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using
> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs, in
> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
> >
> > Cristin
> >
> > On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would
> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon
> EC2 Compute Cloud.
> >>
> >> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
> >>
> >> Kind regards,
> >>
> >> Phil.
> >>
> >> Philip Spicer
> >> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> >> National Centre for Computer Animation
> >> Bournemouth University - UK
> >>
> >> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and
> may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in
> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be
> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
> >> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
> subsidiary companies via email.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> >> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> >> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >
> > ---
> > C. Barghiel
> > Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> > Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> > https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> No, I am not on Facebook.
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
--
Un saludo
Best Regards
Pablo Gim?nez

2:26 a.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hola~
-----Original Message-----
From: sidefx-houdini-list-bounces at sidefx.com [mailto:sidefx-houdini-
list-bounces at sidefx.com] On Behalf Of Pablo Gim?nez
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 5:47 PM
To: sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
Subject: Re: [Sidefx-houdini-list] Rendering Solutions... Any
suggestions
I am not sure if I am missing something here.
But apart that all the stuff related to a big pipeline like what Mike
was explaining to make a basic dependency graph for a ROPs network is
just a matter of going through the network connection using the
bottom-up method. You can create all the dependencies from there and
to select what job is serial and what could be run in parallel there
is a very handy parameter in all ROPs: Initialize Simulation OPs, jut
set it to on for those tasks that requires simulations and then have
to be run in serial mode.
Sort of. Frame Dep, Switch, Fetch, and Wedge all break this paradigm.
Prepost is a specialization of it.
Oh, and be weary of the Initialize Simulation Ops as it will rebake your
simulation for every render request. So, if you run:
render -f 2 100 /out/simulationROP
It's good. If you run:
render -f 2 2 /out/simulationROP
render -f 3 3 /out/simulationROP
render -f 4 4 /out/simulationROP
...
render -f 100 100 /out/simulationROP
The sim will run 2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, ..., 2-100. If you turn off "Initialize
Simulation OPs", the sim will run 2, 3, 4, ..., 100 as you would expect.
This bit us. We run a for loop with single frame render commands so we can
update status and kick off children tasks that are frame dependent (so we
can see simulation results mid sim).
MO
Using this method is not to hard to write an Alfred script.
So I can see that Pau definitely gave up with Alfred at Realise, good
old times!
Cheers!
2011/4/28 Lars van der Bijl <com48com at gmail.com>:
> also looking at dependencies.
>
> is there a easy way of creating a dependency tree from a set of rops?
one of
> the nice parts of the grid being that it has the concept of task but
not of
> a "Job" (a collection of tasks). now initially this put me off and
its still
> hard to visuals a collection of tasks for users but it means that
create
> dependencies between task is incredibly easy to do.
>
> here is a screen shot of a job we are doing now.
>
> this correlates 1 to 1 with a rop network. from pre-sim to final
image. (2
> sets of images actually).
>
> is there any documentation on doing something similar with hqueue?
I'd love
> to read up on it.
>
> Lars
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Peter Bowmar <pbowmar at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>> Hi Cristin,
>>
>> Curious, what's the largest farm that you know of using HQueue.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Peter B
>>
>> On 28 April 2011 09:59, Cristin Barghiel <cb at sidefx.com> wrote:
>> > Hi Phil,
>> >
>> > I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are
actively using
>> it and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with
>> Houdini-native rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and
>> architected to be open, it can handle rendering jobs - any kind of
jobs, in
>> fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
>> >
>> > Cristin
>> >
>> > On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for
>> alternative Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably
it would
>> be something we could lease on site, or we would lease time on the
Amazon
>> EC2 Compute Cloud.
>> >>
>> >> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone
had
>> suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>> >>
>> >> Kind regards,
>> >>
>> >> Phil.
>> >>
>> >> Philip Spicer
>> >> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
>> >> National Centre for Computer Animation
>> >> Bournemouth University - UK
>> >>
>> >> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is
addressed and
>> may contain confidential information. If you have received this
email in
>> error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must
not be
>> copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
>> >> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do
>> not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its
subsidiary
>> companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the
University or its
>> subsidiary companies via email.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> >> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> >> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>> >
>> > ---
>> > C. Barghiel
>> > Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> > Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> > https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> No, I am not on Facebook.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
>
--
Un saludo
Best Regards
Pablo Gim?nez
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list

3:42 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
The 'render -p' command now works correctly as of 11.0.646 or
11.0.647, so you should no longer need to manually traverse the tree
to work around 'render -p' not working.
-- Antoine
On Apr 28, 2011, at 5:47 PM, Pablo Gim?nez wrote:
I am not sure if I am missing something here.
But apart that all the stuff related to a big pipeline like what Mike
was explaining to make a basic dependency graph for a ROPs network is
just a matter of going through the network connection using the
bottom-up method. You can create all the dependencies from there and
to select what job is serial and what could be run in parallel there
is a very handy parameter in all ROPs: Initialize Simulation OPs, jut
set it to on for those tasks that requires simulations and then have
to be run in serial mode.
Using this method is not to hard to write an Alfred script.
So I can see that Pau definitely gave up with Alfred at Realise,
good old times!
Cheers!

2:01 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hi Everyone,
Many thanks for all the responses. It is a great help and will aid our discussions
immensely.
Kind regards,
Phil.
Philip Spicer
Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
National Centre for Computer Animation
Bournemouth University - UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
On 28 Apr 2011, at 17:59, Cristin Barghiel wrote:
Hi Phil,
I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using it and
supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with Houdini-native rendering and
simulation. As it's python-based and architected to be open, it can handle rendering
jobs - any kind of jobs, in fact - from packages other than Houdini as well.
Cristin
On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for alternative Render
Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would be something we could lease on
site, or we would lease time on the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud.
>
> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had suggestions or
information about what solution works best.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Phil.
>
> Philip Spicer
> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> National Centre for Computer Animation
> Bournemouth University - UK
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>
>
>
>
> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain
confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the
sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any
other person. otter
> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any
contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
---
C. Barghiel
Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list

2:14 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
+1 for SGE.
It's been fantastic for us here. Over 250,000 frames rendered since last daemon
restart.
Cheers,
G
--
Gene Dreitser
Loki Visual Effects
www.lokivfx.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Phil Spicer <PSpicer at bournemouth.ac.uk>
To: "sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com" <sidefx-houdini-list at
sidefx.com>
Sent: Thu, April 28, 2011 2:01:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Sidefx-houdini-list] Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hi Everyone,
Many thanks for all the responses. It is a great help and will aid our
discussions immensely.
Kind regards,
Phil.
Philip Spicer
Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
National Centre for Computer Animation
Bournemouth University - UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
On 28 Apr 2011, at 17:59, Cristin Barghiel wrote:
Hi Phil,
I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using it
and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with Houdini-native
rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and architected to be open, it
can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs, in fact - from packages other than
Houdini as well.
Cristin
On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for alternative
>Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would be something we
>could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud.
>
> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
>suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Phil.
>
> Philip Spicer
> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
> National Centre for Computer Animation
> Bournemouth University - UK
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>
>
>
>
> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may
>contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error,
>please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied,
>distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not
>necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
>companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
>subsidiary companies via email.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
---
C. Barghiel
Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list

2:26 p.m.
New subject: Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
There is also something worth mentioning - a ready to work, free and
open source render farm manager Afanasy
http://cgru.sourceforge.net/afanasy/doc/index.html
I've heard good things about it.
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Gene Dreitser <keyframe at rogers.com> wrote:
+1 for SGE.
It's been fantastic for us here. ?Over 250,000 frames rendered since last daemon
restart.
Cheers,
G
?--
Gene Dreitser
Loki Visual Effects
www.lokivfx.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Phil Spicer <PSpicer at bournemouth.ac.uk>
To: "sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com" <sidefx-houdini-list at
sidefx.com>
Sent: Thu, April 28, 2011 2:01:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Sidefx-houdini-list] Rendering Solutions... Any suggestions
Hi Everyone,
Many thanks for all the responses. It is a great help and will aid our
discussions immensely.
Kind regards,
Phil.
Philip Spicer
Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
National Centre for Computer Animation
Bournemouth University - UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
On 28 Apr 2011, at 17:59, Cristin Barghiel wrote:
> Hi Phil,
>
> I encourage you to take a look at Houdini's HQueue. We are actively using it
>and supporting it, and it's already wired to work well with Houdini-native
>rendering and simulation. As it's python-based and architected to be open, it
>can handle rendering jobs - any kind of jobs, in fact - from packages other than
>Houdini as well.
>
> Cristin
>
> On 2011-04-28, at 4:51 AM, Phil Spicer wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Our RenderFarm here at the NCCA has died, and we are looking for alternative
>>Render Solutions for the next academic year. Preferably it would be something we
>>could lease on site, or we would lease time on the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud.
>>
>> I was wondering what people were using in Industry, and if anyone had
>>suggestions or information about what solution works best.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Phil.
>>
>> Philip Spicer
>> Programme Coordinator - MA Digital Effects
>> National Centre for Computer Animation
>> Bournemouth University - UK
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/user/NCCADigitalFX
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may
>>contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error,
>>please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied,
>>distributed or disclosed to any other person. otter
>> Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not
>>necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary
>>companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its
>>subsidiary companies via email.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
>> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
>> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
> ---
> C. Barghiel
> Side Effects Software www.sidefx.com 416-504-9876
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
> Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
> https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
>
>
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list
_______________________________________________
Sidefx-houdini-list mailing list
Sidefx-houdini-list at sidefx.com
https://lists.sidefx.com:443/mailman/listinfo/sidefx-houdini-list