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Rendering strategies | index...
Different Rendering Terminology & Strategies in Softimage | XSI:
BATCH: Batch is essentially another license of XSI that allows you to render only. Each License of Batch supports both processors on a dual proc. machine.
With each Batch license, you have the ability to invoke 2 additional machines (or up to 4 additional processors, for a total of 6 proc's per Batch license) to help on any given frame.
If you have purchased a BATCH license, when you go to install, there is no need to configure STANDALONE RENDERING. This is for .mi files and BATCH UNIVERSAL.
BATCH UNIVERSAL: A more expensive, heavier license of XSI as described in Batch, but allows rendering .mi scene files as well. Effectively acts as a standalone version of mental ray, allowing you to render .mi files created in other applications like Maya, 3DSMax, etc. Batch Universal also allows additional Satellite rendering tokens, whereas Batch does not. In the below example no. 2, if you were using Batch Universal, rather than 6 processors on a frame, you would have 2 more per license of BU. If all you intend to do is render XSI files, there's no need to pay the extra $1,000 for Batch Universal. It would be nice to have the additional Satellite tokens for interactive rendering, but you need to weigh that vs. the cost.
Batch Universal licenses may be put to work on a Batch assignment. That is to say, if you're Managing your rendering in Batch Serve (see below), a slave will show in the list of clients as available to help render.
XSI has 3 different rendering strategies that I have discovered so far:
1) SATELLITE RENDERING: A machine with an XSI license goes out and looks for additional help to render any given frame. Whether it's your workstation utilizing your full XSI license, or a Batch license on a rendering node.
2) "BATCH" RENDERING: Very much like ScreamerNet in LW. You drag a scene file onto the Batch Rendering alias on the desktop and it just renders the range of frames spec'd in the scene file. It's not "smart," like LW's ScreamerNet (if you can call ScreamerNet smart at all...) in that it doesn't have a central point of command in the UI allowing launching of jobs and such... So if you're using 2 Batch licenses, you might save two versions of the scene file-one with even frames, one with odd frames, etc. Batch has command controls inside that allow various options during rendering.
Here's the cool part: if you have a machine using a license of Batch, you can have that machine go out and find up to 4 extra processors worth of help on that frame. So in effect, per license of Batch, you can have up to 6 processors worth of mental ray working on any given frame while network rendering. In other words, Satellite doesn't just help with screen redraws on the machine you're working on: it actually helps render frames in Batch, too.
To do this: install XSI on each machine you intend to use as a rendering slave. Do not install the SLAVE version of the software on the disk, but the full version. As per tech support, it's always better to install the full version on the machine you're using as a rendering slave.
Open the User Tools file, just as you would do on your workstation (Start/All Programs/Softimage Products/Softimage XSI/User Tools and configure this file just as you did the workstation. Put the machine name, a colon, then the port number you identified during installation for satellite rendering. Save and quit.
Once this is done, when the license of Batch is called on, it will go to User Tools, look at UT list and identify who else is on the network is available to help.
3) BATCH SERVE: Batch Serve is the web-based tool which allows control of the render que. BatchServe uses Batch rendering licenses- (see above). The jury is out whether SI will continue to support BatchServe under v5. It does not work with v5 scenes. This is unfortunate. It took a good bit of brain damage to get it installed on the network (Apache, PHP, MySQL, ODBC drivers, the application itself...) but it was free.
Lobby to keep it alive on the basis that it's added value to XSI. No other tool (from what I know) offers a free web-based management tool as "part of the package." This softens the blow slightly of the high mr pricing, but SI has a long way to go before their rendering strategy is competitively priced.
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