Features

The Renderer System

RenderPal V2 features a highly advanced and powerful system for creating interfaces to renderers (which are simply referred to as "renderers" in RenderPal V2). Every aspect of a renderer, no matter if it is your own creation or one of ours, can be defined: from its supported parameters to how its commandline should be compiled, writing and working with renderers has never been this comfortable and flexible - and best of all, there is no need to do this by hand (i.e., by digging through numerous cryptic text files): renderers can be created and edited using a very comfortable, easy to use graphical editor, directly from with RenderPal V2.

Renderer components overview

Every renderer consists of the following components, which can all be freely edited:

Versioning

Every renderer can have several different versions. A version basically extends the core renderer, modifying or further extending its functionality. This not only offers greater flexibility when writing renderers, but also is useful when you use different versions of a renderer in your render farm - especially since executables can be configured for every version.

Render sets

A render set is the base of any net job; it consists of one or more scene files to be rendered, as well as various render settings that can be set on the fly. These act as overrides to the original settings made in the scene, so you can render your files with different scenes without touching or altering them.

Frame splitting

Frame splitting is the key to render animations across a network. RenderPal V2 lets you divide an animation into smaller chunks which will then be rendered by the various clients.

Image slicing

Rendering large images (4096x4096 or even larger) can be troublesome, so RenderPal V2 allows you to slice down such images into smaller pieces, which will then be rendered by individual clients.

Extended splitting

Renderers can define additional parameters than can be used for splitting (like multiple cameras or render layers).

Automatic frame checking

Unfortunately, images do not always get rendered properly. To counter this problem, RenderPal V2 offers the ability to automatically check for missing frames, so that they can be automatically resubmitted. The initial net job will not be finished until all missing frames have been rendered successfully.

Full control

Net jobs offer numerous options that let you define how a job should be dispatched. This includes the selection of specific pools and clients which should work on the job, an advanced priority system, multiple net job dependencies, automatic chunk resubmission if rendering times are too high or too low and more.

Net Job events

One of the most powerful features of RenderPal V2 are its net job events, which allow you to execute a program, a system command or even a Python script on certain net job events (like when a chunk has been rendered and so on).

Parallel renderings

RenderPal V2 can perform parallel renderings on a single client. Even though most renderers these days support multi-threaded rendering, some will still only utilze a single CPU core. With todays multi-core computers, this can be a true waste of resources. This is why RenderPal V2 can perform parallel renderings on a single client, even if the renderer itself doesn't support it.

Failsafe rendering

Renderings can fail due to many reasons. RenderPal V2 offers several features to ensure that your renderings will always be finished. This includes output filtering, return-code verification and automatic frame checking. And if a certain chunk just keeps on failing, the maximum render attempts limit will stop clients from picking it up again and again.

Reporting

Everything that happens during rendering, ranging from finished jobs to errors that occurred will be added to the history of the corresponding net job chunk. Thanks to the powerful output filters feature, errors - as well as other pieces of information which might be helpful when taking care of net jobs - will be filtered from the renderer’s output and sent to the server.

Intelligent dispatching

RenderPal V2 offers several methods of how the various chunks of your net jobs are dispatched across your render farm. The methods include simple sequential dispatching, grouping together net jobs of the same priority and balanced dispatching, which will distribute the available clients depending on the net jobs' priorities. Each client pool can be configured independently from all other pools, allowing you to combine the various methods to fit your needs.

Chunk dispatching control

RenderPal V2 allows you to specify different dispatching orders for the chunks of your net jobs, ranging from simple "from start to end" rendering to more complex distribution schemes which give you a more and more detailed overview of your sequences while progressing. And if this still is not enough, it is also possible to give individual chunks different priorities.

Client pools

All render clients are organized into various, user-defined pools (groups of clients). These pools are not just organization units, but also offer numerous features on its own, like scheduling, automatic shutdown of idle clients and different dispatch modes, which determine how the chunks of their assigned net jobs should be divided among the clients.

Remote client configuration

In a render farm consisting of 250 or more clients, nobody wants to manually configure each and every client. Due to this, RenderPal V2 offers easy remote configuration of clients, which allows you to easily configure all your clients from a single workstation.

Automatic client recognition

Clients can send so-called heartbeats to the server (or a broadcast address), so that the RenderPal V2 Server will automatically know about their existence. Clients found in this way can then be automatically assigned to a client pool and will thus be immediately ready for rendering without any user interaction. Multiple IP ranges can be defined for automatic pool assignment, enabling fully automated management of your clients.

System control

Clients can be automatically shut down when they are no longer used, or turned on via Wake-on-LAN if the server requires them for rendering. This can save a lot of energy and money.

Remote Controller

The RenderPal V2 Remote Controller is used to monitor and control your render farm from any workstation, even over the internet. Users can log into the Server and manage the render farm in any way. From submitting new net jobs to modifying the client pools, it can all be done remotely. The user management allows you to create user accounts which will be used to log into the server. Each account can have its own permissions and pool access, allowing for a very precise user control.

Full overview

The main view of RenderPal V2, the server tab, offers a detailed overview of your entire farm, including all clients, net jobs and their associated chunks.

View filters

Having all pools, clients and net jobs visible at a time can often be hindering, so RenderPal V2 offers view filters to restrict the amount of shown items to only those that match certain user-defined criteria.

Client control

Users can control and monitor clients in many ways from their remote workstations. This includes on the fly configuration, retrieval of event and output logs or job control.

Automatic updates

In RenderPal V2, it is no longer necessary to update any component manually. Instead, all you have to do is to add a new update in the update management and RenderPal V2 will do the rest. All clients and remote controllers will be automatically updated.

User-created updates

While most updates will come directly from us, it is also possible to create your own updates, which can, for example, be used to deploy new custom renderers or some Python scripts. Since the updater itself utilizes Python, you can do much more with it than just deploying new files.

Path maps

One of the biggest burden when working with mixed platforms are their different paths. All systems have their own path conventions, and using UNC is not always the best choice. This is why RenderPal V2 offers so-called path maps, which allow you to map an incoming path to something else. They can be defined globally, per pool or per client and drastically ease working with multiple operating systems.

Database support

RenderPal V2 stores all its data in a database (currently SQLite). This not only makes data access extremely efficient and data loss nearly impossible, but it is also possible for users to query the database to create their own statistics or even integrate the data into their website.

Autostart

Both the RenderPal V2 Server and Client can be configured to be automatically started on system startup (even without the need of a user to log in). Under Windows, it is also possible to let RenderPal V2 recreate your network mappings.

Email notifications

RenderPal V2 can automatically send emails about various events, like finished or erroneous net jobs. It is even possible to periodically send status reports.

Submitter scripts

We have written submitter scripts for several renderers and compositing applications. These offer a simple and easy-to-use graphical interface that can be used from within the renderer to submit new jobs to the RenderPal V2 Server.