Hi Zalamander!
I’m a complete coding ignorant… so… what do you mean? It’s possible but hard to code?
Both of these things are easy to code, but it’s still a bunch of work.
But it’s worth it…
Bart told me that it’s against Blendernation policy to post this kind of requests there, so I thinking of creating a new post here with a more appealing tittle and maybe also at blender.org forums to try to get someone to help with it…
Who knows… maybe someone will take this task…
Well, it’s not worth it to me. What is it worth, anyway? What would I actually get in return for my invested time? You should ask yourself that before requesting things.
Of course threads requesting things (and promising nothing in return) aren’t really desirable. If every little thing somebody wanted deserved its own thread, there would be a subforum for it. Really, where in the world can you just show up, ask for something, and expect it to be delivered at no cost? That’s not how things work, you must bring in something on your own part.
I totally understand your point Zalamander.
But keep in mind that this is not a “personal” addon request.
People are always complaining about cycles render times. This addon would be useful to ALL animators in the community. Not only to myself.
And I did my part. I had the idea, talk to Brecht about it and test the addon Markus did.
The only problem is that I don’t know programing.
Of course, without the knowhow, an idea is only an idea.
Every one of us owe to the community… this is a way to pay it back. That’s what’s Blender is all about.
But keep in mind that this is not a “personal” addon request.
People are always complaining about cycles render times. This addon would be useful to ALL animators in the community. Not only to myself.
It’s useful for all animators who render against a large proportion of empty background. Really, if this is wanted by so many people, at some point, somebody capable will want it for themselves and develop it (and hopefully share it). That’s how things work.
And I did my part. I had the idea, talk to Brecht about it and test the addon Markus did.
The only problem is that I don’t know programing.
Well, you have to admit that is a very small part compared to the time it takes to develop a feature. At this point you’re also competing against the interest of all other users who also want features, features, features…
I was only hinting at this before, but I’ll put it bluntly now: If you want things to happen on your behalf, you need to wave around some dollars.
Every one of us owe to the community… this is a way to pay it back. That’s what’s Blender is all about.
I don’t agree with this. I don’t believe I owe the community anything.
Don’t post a new thread here. This thread is more than adequate for your request. Zalamander has pretty much explained what’s necessary to get this done. It takes but one interested and enterprising Python hacker to take it from there and button things down. You just need to be patient. If you are impatient, there are great tutorials online for Python and linear algebra.
Thank you for your input Fweeb.
I will be patient… and will (slooooowly) start learning Python (at least will try to…).
This is the first time I ear about linear algebra… can you point me some good place to start? Thanks.
@Utopia780 & Markus Ebke: thanks for this interesting thread and for the script.
I was thinking the script may be used to render a single image among a cluster of computers.
For instance with 4 computers you divide the image in 4 (or 8, 16, … if the processor aren’t the same), then render the 4 images, then combine them.
You have (a little?) overhead due to saving your blend file then starting blender and opening file then recombining the image.
Building is made n time but no more time needed than 1 time.
Rendering is scalable.
For the benchmarks I think you may be close to the best times without the limitation of GPU memory.
Hi BoFZeVampire!
That would be great. Just don’t know how to do it…
The idea is great though.
Hi Utopia780,
I am not a specialist at all of networks, but I think you can buy an Ethernet hub (or just connect the computers via Ethernet ?), then connect the PCs, then install ‘Virtual Network Computing’ software, (search on the net or see http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/08/09/setting-up-a-render-farm/ step only step 2, step 1 is if you want to build a render farm, step 3 does not work see comments), then create the script that launch blender * n and combine the final image.
Thank you, Markus! Your script has already saved me 4+ hours and I installed it 30 mins ago. Cool, man!
It’s great to see that, from time to time, someone else tries this great addon by Markus with great results.
Thank’s again Markus!