@thorn, why?
Do you replace the oil and tires while you’re driving down the highway?
@thorn, we’re both aware that that analogy doesn’t provide me with any actionable information.
I thought my original statement was self-evident, so that’s why i threw in the analogy.
But to restate it in detail:
I have no expectations that I can continue to work in the application doing other things, while it is simultaneously rendering.
Because: What exactly am i going to be doing, working on the scene, that isn’t going to be affecting the render?
Further, Rendering is a time-consuming operation, and needs to be done with the most amount of system resources available, while also completing without any software or system. I do not want the render to fail, and then have to start searching around in folders to see what DID complete, then restart the job at some mid-way point. And hope it completes again.
I don’t browse the internet, watch youtube videos, or play games while I’m rendering. I step away from the computer, and let it complete the task.
You have stated that your renders complete, if left alone. You’ve not indicated why you cannot leave it alone.
@thorn, you’ve assumed I can’t. Instead, I merely have no reason to, for no scene I render is so complex that it takes more than perhaps 30 minutes. Consequently, I don’t need to dedicate all of my system’s resources to it.
I noticed this issue when I was trying to modify some GUI preferences whilst rendering something quite basic. It wouldn’t take me more than 5 minutes to render, but/so I had no reason to wait.
Then let’s go with “won’t”.
Have you tried opening the file in another instance of Blender to carry on editing? I am pretty sure that Linux does save some resources (and yes I also surf the web while rendering).
Not all renders are “final”.
@DNorman, embarassingly, I hadn’t thought of that. Do you happen to know whether preferences modified in one instance shall (immediately) appear in the other? I fear corrupting the preference store, but I presume that this has been aforeconsidered by the development team.
I find that amongst multi-instance software, whether the last modified preferences are retained is occasionally dependent upon which instance is closed last, whereas amongst alternatives, is dependent upon whichever last modified them. This becomes more complex when multiple instances have been utilized.
If you don’t, no worries — I presume there’s some documentation somewhere about this. Thanks anyway.
…Again, inaccurate, for I shall, should no reasonable alternative exist. I’ve explicitly stated this. Your discourse appears strangely antagonistic.
@DNorman, I’ve since ascertained that it also prevents me closing the window, of both the renderer and editor, although that effect inconsistently reproduces. I’ve had cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:42’s automatic BR wizard (gnome-abrt-1.4.3-4) report this downstream to bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2383156, and I may report upstream later, when I’ve perf’d it.
I’ve confirmed that this doesn’t reproduce when rendering images (solely animations), and does reproduce even in a blank project (although the duration unresponsive is extended in a specific .blend of mine).
I hope you get to the bottom of this, if your scene is not using all your GPU ram it would indeed be good to be able to carry on in another instance.
I just checked with an animation in Eevee (not too complex but with loads of moving mechanical stuff) and I can render animation and work on the model (in a different instance of blender) + write this and have the forum open.
I even ran the animation in the second instance in material preview mode and it kept on rendering in the first instance. (scene has 459,132 edges) textures are mostly procedural with a few images.
I also went into edit mode of the second instance with all the objects selected and the animation running selected a chunk of verts and moved them around and it all went well (the first instance kept on rendering the final animation).
I am sure there is a limit in which Blender will stall but I did not hit it, it will of course depend on the complexity of your scene.
Sorry I did not read this question when you posted, normally by default preferences (from the preferences menu) are auto saved (if not you can set it in the bottom left icon – three lines.
But they are saved when you close Blender so you have to close Blender for them to be registered.
The new Instance does not immediately inherit changes even if you close the first instance it remains with the preferences that were present when you opened it. I do not think they communicate in any way.