ManFriday's Render Queue (the old one from 2019) [Commercial]

ManFriday

I am very happy to announce that my first Daz product has been released today, the Render Queue. Queue up your renders, sleep while you work!

The plugin allows you to render many scenes in sequence without having to sit next to your computer all night to start the next render when the previous is done.

When you are done working on a scene in Daz Studio, you can add it to the Render Queue, set a target image file name, and work on the next scene. When you are done with your day's work, you can open the Render Queue again and press "OK, render the queue", and it will create renders for all the scene files you have added to the queue.

You can go to sleep after starting the renders. Render Queue will process all the scene files you have given to it, restart Daz Studio after each scene to make sure it doesn't run out of memory, and keep a log how long each render has taken. It can even automatically shut down the computer after all renders have finished.

The next morning, you can look at the render queue again to see how everything went.

Please note that at this time the product is Windows only. A Mac version may be added at a later time.

 

Update 2022: This is for the old Render Queue from 2019. There is a separate thread for the new Render Queue 3 at https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/602541/released-manfriday-s-render-queue-3-commercial. Thank you!

 

benniewoodell

Hi ManFriday, 

This looks like something I really need to help speed things up, my question is though does this work for image sequences to do animation, or is this strictly for still renders? 

Thank you!

Bennie

ManFriday

Renders only at this time.

It can do multiple cameras per scene though. You can switch a scene to "All visible cameras" mode, and then it will generate multiple renders for every scene (see attachment).

I want to do sequences, animations and also multiple presets per scene next.

benniewoodell

Awesome, yeah, if you can get it working next to do animations, that would be the most amazing thing in the world. Right now I can't tell you how many times I start a render in the morning before going to work, or when I go to sleep at night, I come back like 14 hours later and the shot finished like six hours earlier and I've lost so much time. This would help get so much more done when it works with animation. Please keep me posted on that, but even without doing animation, this is something I've been looking for for awhile! 

L'Adair

The ability to shut the computer down once the queue is done is my favorite feature.

I've been rendering overnight for years. I use Progressive Rendering settings that only stop the render at the specified number of samples, and I set the number high enough it's still rendering when I get up the next day. My reasoning has been, if the computer's on anyway, it might as well continue to render. Of course, my monthly electric bill takes a hit. I suspect this product will pay for itself in the first couple of months, if not sooner.

Thank you so much for including the auto-shutoff.

 

ManFriday

You're very welcome, I'm glad you like it!

Jason Galterio

A couple of questions that I don't see answers for:

1. Does this render Iray, Delight, or both?

2. Does it handle different Render Settings? What I mean is are the Render Settings stored in the plug in and used for each render? Or does the plug in use the last used Render Settings saved in the scene file?

Sfariah D

Can it work with scripted 3delight such as that line renderer plugin?  I assume it works with windows 10?

ManFriday

It renders Iray only, not 3Delight.

It uses the Render Settings saved in the scene file. For each scene, the resulting render should be the same as if you had opened the scene and pressed "Render" yourself and saved the image.

It works fine with Windows 10.

Hurdy3D

There is an Batch Render plugin in the other shop. This one allows to render specific frames of a file, e.g.  5, 7, 23.

can this product do the same?

And does this product has some additional features which the other batch rendere doesn‘t have, expecpt for shutting down the computer?

Jason Galterio

ManFriday said:

It renders Iray only, not 3Delight.

It uses the Render Settings saved in the scene file. For each scene, the resulting render should be the same as if you had opened the scene and pressed "Render" yourself and saved the image.

It works fine with Windows 10.

Thanks!

ManFriday

Here are some bits from the included README that didn't make it to the product description. Apologies, it's my first product. :-)

What is different from other batch render scripts you may know?

1. This restarts Daz after every render to make sure we don't run out of memory after many scenes. It is thus possible to feed dozens of scenes to the Render Queue.
2. We wait ten seconds after loading each scene before starting the render to allow the scene to settle, e.g. for smoothing modifiers. (You can change the number of seconds in the settings.)
3. You can open and close the queue dialog as many times as you would like before starting the renders, adding more scenes and changing the order in which scenes will be processed.
4. For each scene in the queue, you can set the target filename of the rendered image BEFORE the queue is processed.
5. You can render each scene with the camera that was active when you last saved the scene. Alternatively, you can automatically render through all visible cameras of a scene: hide the cameras you don't want to create renders for, save the scene, and this will create multiple renders for the scene, with the camera name appended to the target file name you have specified for the scene.
6. You can add the currently open scene to the queue. This allows for a new workflow: work on your scene, save the scene file where you normally save your scenes, then open the render queue dialog, press "Add current scene". Save and close the queue dialog without starting the queue, and open the next scene. Then, when all the scenes have been saved and added to the queue, start the queue.
7. You can cancel each render if you think it has enough iterations, and the render queue will still keep going (unless you cancel the entire render queue in its progress window as well).
8. There is a progress window while the queue is being processed to show you what's going on and how far you are along in the queue.
9. After rendering each scene, the scene is kept in the queue but marked "Rendered" with the time it took to render each camera so you can look up what happened hours later, when all the scenes and cameras have been processed.

NOTE 1: At this time, the plugin works on Windows only.

NOTE 2: This is Iray only.

Also, as I said earlier, this cannot presently render individual frames of an animation, it will always render the one frame that the scene was saved with. I will add animations later.

missuskisses

Does this work if there are error messages upon opening a scene, such as duplicate formula errors?

ManFriday

I'm sorry, no. I haven't found a way to suppress these yet.

FenixPhoenix

This may be a dumb question, but I must ask: does the queue save each render before shutting Daz Studio? Can we set a path for each render? Or does it create a folder and puts them all in there?

Blind Owl

This looks very useful. Good idea to shut down & restart DS between renders, but I don't see an answer to the question that occurs to me: can I do the same thing when I'm building the queue? That is, can I work on a scene, add it to the queue, shut down & restart DS, then move on to another scene and add that to the same queue?

ManFriday

No worries! Yes, it saves each render. The cycle is 1) load scene, 2) render scene, 3) save image, 4) if there's more in the queue, restart Daz Studio and go back to 1. After the last scene, optionally shut down the computer.

And yes, you can set any directory and file name you like for each render. Except for "All visible cameras" mode (see above), in which case there's several renders per scene: then the images for all cameras of one scene get written to the same directory, with the camera name appended to the file name you have specified.

ManFriday

Blind Owl said:

This looks very useful. Good idea to shut down & restart DS between renders, but I don't see an answer to the question that occurs to me: can I do the same thing when I'm building the queue? That is, can I work on a scene, add it to the queue, shut down & restart DS, then move on to another scene and add that to the same queue?

Yes, the queue is remembered between restarts of Daz Studio. In fact the items in the queue are never removed unless you remove them manually, which allows you to look at the results and how long each render took the next morning.

This was really the reason why I started working on the thing. I wanted to work on a scene and then kind of save it away, then work on the next scene, and then before I go to bed, have it do all the renders without me having to sit by the computer. So yes, you can build the queue, close the queue again, add another scene, close the queue again, and then fire off the queue later.

Leana

Too bad it doesn't work for 3DL too as this is what I mainly use, but it looks like a great product for people who use Iray :)

Blind Owl

ManFriday said:

Blind Owl said:

This looks very useful. Good idea to shut down & restart DS between renders, but I don't see an answer to the question that occurs to me: can I do the same thing when I'm building the queue? That is, can I work on a scene, add it to the queue, shut down & restart DS, then move on to another scene and add that to the same queue?

Yes, the queue is remembered between restarts of Daz Studio. In fact the items in the queue are never removed unless you remove them manually, which allows you to look at the results and how long each render took the next morning.

This was really the reason why I started working on the thing. I wanted to work on a scene and then kind of save it away, then work on the next scene, and then before I go to bed, have it do all the renders without me having to sit by the computer. So yes, you can build the queue, close the queue again, add another scene, close the queue again, and then fire off the queue later.

Excellent. It's in the cart, thanks for the prompt answer.

FenixPhoenix

ManFriday said:

No worries! Yes, it saves each render. The cycle is 1) load scene, 2) render scene, 3) save image, 4) if there's more in the queue, restart Daz Studio and go back to 1. After the last scene, optionally shut down the computer.

And yes, you can set any directory and file name you like for each render. Except for "All visible cameras" mode (see above), in which case there's several renders per scene: then the images for all cameras of one scene get written to the same directory, with the camera name appended to the file name you have specified.

Thank you for the answer! This is going to be so useful! No more, only one render a night!

Zev0

I love it:) So useful

Sfariah D

I am thinking of getting it but if I do I cannot afford the free gift card thing.  I have to decide between two cheap items to get a ten dollar gift card or this cool item.

gnvaneindhoven

Seems really useful. I'll still use the old batch render for now at least untill I finish my current project (don't like switching during projects to avoid wierd stuff).

If you could get animations to work I'd be really happy! I really miss that in the old batch render script. (don't forget the option to render a subset of frames if it takes multiple days). Anyways great work and nice features.

old-dog

Sadly Iray only is a deal killer.   Not sure I understand why that limitation exists, as the setup menus for rendering are, similar.. or simpler for 3Delight.  

I want to get more than a render or two a night and may have dozens of scenes to build and check for each POV. Iray is sufficiently resource hungry to leave me with unfinished renders after several hours on a 1060 with 6 GB and I can't afford or justify the sort of rig that might do better.  I can get a decent 3Delight render in under 5 minutes on my Zen, quality better than an Iray version after 5 hours. With 6 GB of ram most scenes do not fit without a lot of extra work  

As much as I like NVidia, and I do, the resources required to get speed, and to get enough speed to do animation of any sort, is entirely beyond reason for my requirements. 

I used to write software for a living, and I know there are compromises available that would change this sort of outcome. NVidia could offer better speed. I love the Iray quality, the renders are superb, but the engine does not suit my workflow or objectives.  

Ati

How easy is it to stop the render queue? Let's say I put in 100 scenes, start the queue, but have to stop the whole thing after 10 renders. How do I do that? (Please tell me it's not by stopping the remaining 90 renders one by one. :))

ManFriday

Ati said:

How easy is it to stop the render queue? Let's say I put in 100 scenes, start the queue, but have to stop the whole thing after 10 renders. How do I do that? (Please tell me it's not by stopping the remaining 90 renders one by one. :))

You can cancel the entire queue in its big progress dialog. You can then resume the renders later or edit the queue and remove some scenes or clear eveything. No problem!

Ati

ManFriday said:

Ati said:

How easy is it to stop the render queue? Let's say I put in 100 scenes, start the queue, but have to stop the whole thing after 10 renders. How do I do that? (Please tell me it's not by stopping the remaining 90 renders one by one. :))

You can cancel the entire queue in its big progress dialog. You can then resume the renders later or edit the queue and remove some scenes or clear eveything. No problem!

Sounds great! Thank you for the info.

Gazukull

So... I am getting this thing where when it loads the new scene and then I have two instances of Daz running the same render.  I can cancel one and then it finished just one.  But it is definately loading two instances and trying to render both.

davidt3009

I installed this product through the Daz Install Manager.  Ok dumb question, how do I launch the product?  I can't find it in My Products or Scripts.  Thanks, looking forward to trying it out.

L'Adair

@old-dog, Check your PMs. I sent you a message.