News archive

This page contains all archived release announcements of previous RenderPal V2 versions.

This maintenance release brings quite a number of new handy features and improvements:

To make the integration of RenderPal V2 into custom rendering pipelines easier, we added the ability to control net jobs and client pools using the console remote controller; we also added switches to block or to restrict the job to certain clients. The console remote controller received many new switches (like specifying a net job color), especially for the new features introduced in this version.

RenderPal V2 now allows you to easily execute any arbitrary commands remotely on client machines; this is especially useful to perform silent installations on your nodes.

Other improvements include a minimum dispatching delay for each net job, the ability to treat unfinished jobs as done when checking for net job dependencies and improvements to output filters and several API additions in the renderer system.

We also fixed a good bunch of bugs in this version; the submitter scripts for Maya and After Effects have received some fixes as well.

Changelog: Link

This maintenance release fixes incompatibilities with Asian (and other) Windows versions. Also, the performance of the dispatcher has been improved significantly, especially if the net job queue contains a large number of jobs.

Changelog: Link

The fifth point release of RenderPal V2 brings great new additions, many improvements and important bug fixes:

RenderPal V2 2.5 now offers a new license management system: For every renderer and its versions, you can now specify how many licenses are available and which pools and clients own a license. This avoids having new jobs sent to clients even if there currently is no free license slot available, eliminating common license problems.

In RenderPal V2 2.5, it is no longer only possible to create individual user accounts, but to also create entire user groups. Every account can now belong to such a group, making creating and managing accounts faster and easier.

In order to get information about the various objects in RenderPal V2, you had to directly query its database in previous versions. With this new point release, the console remote controller can be used to query data from the server, including net jobs and their chunks, pools and clients. This data, which comes in the XML format, can then be used, for example, to put statistics about your render farm on a website or to evaluate rendering times to calculate the costs of a job.

There are also several improvements for net jobs, like net job tags (which can be used for quick filtering) and net job coloring, as well as the ability to execute post-net job events either on success or on failure.

If you ever encountered a renderer that has crashed but stayed open (showing only a common crash dialog), this new version has the answer: RenderPal V2 can now monitor the CPU usage of rendering clients; if the usage drops below a certain threshold over a period of time, the chunk in question will be cancelled so that it can be picked up again, ensuring an uninterupted rendering flow.

We also dramatically improved the speed of the net job chunk list (and client list as well), which makes working with large net jobs much smoother. Deleting net jobs has also been made significantly faster.

Other important improvements include: The Linux and MacOSX clients will now report their CPU and memory usage; the console RC now supports multiple net job presets; the Python integration has been further improved and quite a lot more. See the full release notes and the changelog below for more details.

We have also created a small, leightweight Python library to wrap the console remote controller, called PyQuery, which can be found in the downloads sections. The submitter scripts for Maya and 3dsMax have been updated as well.

Release notes: Link
Changelog: Link

This new update for RenderPal V2 brings many improvements and convenience enhancements, as well as several smaller bug fixes:

The dispatcher will now take into account clients that are already being woken up in other pools. This results in far less "excessive" clients being requested, and so your render farm will run even more efficiently.

Another nice enhancement is the ability to select multiple clients in the main client list. Now it is possible to perform an operation (like shutting down the clients or disconnecting them) on more than one client at the same time.

Last but not least, the remote controller will now only download the renderer definitions from the server when necessary and will otherwise use its locally stored version, greatly reducing login times and network traffic (especially when using the console RC).

There are also many other smaller improvements as well as several bug fixes in this release; use the link below for a full changelog.

Changelog: Link

RenderPal V2 2.4.6 is a maintenance release which includes several important bug fixes, especially in the automatic frame checking; it also fixes a crash related to the Ethernet adapters enumeration. Updating to this version is highly recommended.

Changelog: Link

RenderPal V2 2.4.5 brings quite a number of improvements and smaller new features, as well as a few important bug fixes (like losing the global path map when shutting down the server, possible client crashes and job cancelling issues).

The new renderer system received several improvements, like the ability to edit standard parameters, parameter dependency and extended quote options for list parameters. Many renderers have also been updated to make use of these new features (or to fix some bugs). The renderer system API has also been updated.

The configuration of renderer executables on clients (both remotely and locally) has been vastly improved: it is now possible to comfortably configure multiple renderers and versions at once (as long as they belong to the same group or renderer). To get an idea of the new renderer configuration, take a look at our screenshot section!

There are numerous other, smaller improvements and additions, like a new, optimized time left estimation algorithm, better waking up of clients (only clients that will actually receive a job will be woken up), the ability to set the timeout and reason for manual shutdowns and reboots and path map entries with the same in-path, as long as their OS differs.

Changelog: Link

RenderPal V2 2.4.1 is a new maintenance release, which brings various bug fixes and a few smaller improvements. No new features were added.

Changelog: Link

The fourth point release of RenderPal V2 is a true milestone: it brings a totally new, highly advanced renderer system, as well as plenty of other new features and improvements.

The most important new feature is the new renderer system. Every aspect of a renderer can now be defined, from its supported parameters to how the passed commandline should be compiled. All this is done through an easy to use graphical editor built right into RenderPal V2, there is no need to edit any source files by hand. To get an overview of what this new system has to offer, read the Release notes for this new version.

Chunk reporting has also been greatly improved in this release. The history of a net job chunk is now a true event log, showing all events of a chunk - from errors that occurred while rendering to other pieces of information that might be helpful when taking care of net jobs.

When editing multiple net jobs, it is now possible to select the setting groups which should be applied, leaving all other groups untouched. This way, you can, for example, only edit the frame splitting settings of those net jobs without changing any other value.

It is now possible to use placeholders for the image directory path when using automatic frame checking. These include any parameters that can also be used for splitting: the scene name, the current camera or render layer and so on; RenderPal V2 will then replace these by their corresponding values. If the renderer uses a directory hierarchy when outputting images, this feature ensures that the frame checker will always look in the right place for them.

This version also introduces the possibility to set a maximum number of render attempts for net job chunks. If this maximum is reached, the chunk will no longer be picked up for rendering. This way, ”bad chunks” can be spotted with ease, and the render farm will not try to render a chunk that will fail anyway again and again.

There are also numerous smaller additions and improvements (and several important bug fixes), like OS-specific path map entries, flood protection for renderer output, improved automatic net job cleanup, many Python improvements, new options how the GUI should be minimized and much more. You will also notice many user interface improvements, especially when using themes under Windows.

Release notes: Link
Changelog: Link

This maintenance release for RenderPal V2 2.3 fixes various bugs and brings several smaller new features and improvements, like the ability to pause clients, cancelling of a client reboot/shutdown and text filtering in the event log. Also, Nuke is now included with RenderPal V2 (was only available as a separate download previously).

Changelog: Link

The third point release of RenderPal V2 brings many major new features and improvements:

Most notable is the introduction of net job presets, which can be used to store several net job settings for later reuse. These presets can also be used in conjunction with the console remote controller, so they are an ideal addition for advanced pipeline integration.

We made many improvements to the frame checking. Manual frame checking can now be performed on single net job chunks, as well as on net jobs which are still pending, which wasn't possible previously. Also, most frame checking settings are now made automatically, making its configuration even easier.

To further automate automatic shutdown of unused clients in a render farm, it is now possible to specify a schedule for automatic idle clients shutdown activation. During these scheduled times, the automatic idle clients shutdown will be automatically activated for the corresponding pool.

The entire networking code of RenderPal V2 has been rewritten, which results in a huge traffic reduction, as well as improved performance. We also vastly improved the connection handling, leading to far less unnecessary connections made.

There are also numerous smaller additions and improvements (and some bug fixes, of course), like VNC integration, new console remote controller features like importing render sets and net job presets, a net job column to show the total CPU time of a net job and much more.

Release notes: Link
Changelog: Link

The second point release of RenderPal V2 brings several major new features and changes. The most important change in this version is the ability to assign a client to multiple pools at a time. Often requested, this has finally been added! Another major change is the new database support of RenderPal V2. From now on, all data is stored in a database (currently SQLite), which can also be queried by external applications. Last but not least, it is now possible to specify different chunk dispatching orders for each net job, as well as assign different priorities to individual chunks. There are also numerous other smaller changes and bug fixes in this release, so be sure to check out the release notes and changelog.

Release notes: Link
Changelog: Link


We have also created a new submitter script for Fusion. The complete submitter script package can be separately downloaded here.

This maintenance release fixes a bunch of bugs and brings a few, smaller changes. No new features were added.

Changelog: Link

The first point release of RenderPal V2 brings several major new features, including parallel renderings on a single client, a completely new custom renderer management, extended automatic pool assignment (with multiple IP ranges support), multiple net job dependencies, automatic and manual Wake-on-LAN for clients, as well as support for several new renderers (V-Ray for Maya, 3Delight, SiTex Air, Combustion, Digital Fusion and Houdini). Many other aspects of RenderPal V2 have been improved as well, and several bugs have been fixed. Full release notes and a changelog can be found below.

Release notes: Link
Changelog: Link


We have also added the first bunch of submitter scripts for various renderers, allowing artists to submit new net jobs to RenderPal V2 directly from within their renderer or compositing application. They can be separately downloaded here.

Our user forum now contains a section for custom renderers, where you can share your own renderers with other users. You will also find additional factory presets that are not included in the RenderPal V2 package.

RenderPal V2 2.0.1 is a maintenance release that fixes some Cinema 4D and RenderMan for Maya related bugs, and brings a few smaller improvements.

Starting with this new release, RenderPal V2 is now compatible with Wine, the popular Windows emulator for Linux and Macintosh. All graphical (Windows) components of RenderPal V2 can now be used under Linux and MacOSX. Wine support is still in an early, experimental stage; we have also opened a Wine section in our user forum for any Wine related questions.

Release notes: n/a
Changelog: Link