Setting up rendering time

[Miguel Tano Adanes]

Hi all. I think that another usefull improvement of nXt could be the possibility to set up the rendering time and/or time to start and time to end. This is now possible only by using the farm, although the only parametre to end the rendering process is the # of passes. Rather than number of passes, I often prefer to launch a render nightime, but I want to be able to use the machine again in the next morning. For this, it is impossible to guess the passes!

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Time constraints for the Batch processor would be pretty easy, with or without the farm.  For single-frame farm images time constraints will only work with the hybrid and path tracer engines.  What's your specific application?

[Miguel Tano Adanes]

Hi Roy, thanks for answering. What I would like to do is to be able to seti the time for a render to start/end and/or the duration. Don't know if in a single render or in a batch process (sometimes this is better... don't know). Let's say: render A will start at 8 pm of the day X and will end at 8 am of the day X+3 (or: start at 8pm of the 2103.01.15 and will end at 8am of the 2013.01.17). Or render B will start at 8pm of the day Y and will last 72 hours. In these cases, no matter how many passes, because they can be summed into the image editor, but YES I will have the machine ready to work at a certain time in the morning.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

If you're just talking about a single rendering running in the interactive product, why can't you just stop it when you get to work in the morning?

This other stuff could work easily for the farm.  Specifying a start time will definitely be render farm only-- that's already there.  Specifying a duration can be done for the type of jobs mentioned above. (If you want to have a single machine work on a single frame for a specified time you can start a batch farm job with one task.)  If you want to have multiple machines work on a rendering for a set time you'll need to use the Path Tracer or Hybrid engines.

I can also add a duration to the general Batch processor.

[Miguel Tano Adanes]

Mmmm... you're right! I've never thought to start a farm job with just one machine. Anyway, duration of the job would be apreciated. Thanks Roy.