Using Rendition on a Render Farm

As well as being a valuable workflow tool for artists, Holomatix Rendition is also used to produce final production image sequences. This sort of bulk rendering task is often performed on a dedicated renderfarm.  There are two ways in which Rendition jobs can be distributed to a renderfarm: using your existing Render Job Management Software, or using the built in Watch Folder functionality. 

 Using Rendition with Render Management Software

Rendition may be invoked from the command line and supports a variety of command-line parameters, used to control its behaviour. This allows it to be used with any Render Management tool that allows job execution via a command-line. Details of Rendition's command-line syntax can be found here.

Deadline by Frantic Films

Frantic Film's Deadline 3.0 SP1 and above ships with built-in support for Rendition.

Smedge by Uberware

Uberware's Smedge 2.4 and above ships with built-in support for Rendition.

If you'd like to see a Rendition plug-in for your favorite render farm management software, either get developing, or contact us if you'd like some help.

Watch Folder

 Rendition also implements  'Watch Folder' functionality, which allows multiple machines or an unmanaged render farm to collaborate to automatically render all frames from one or more .mi files placed within the designated watch folder. Output frames are placed in myScene.mi-output and separate frames are rendered in parallel by as many machines have watch folder mode enabled. Watch Folder can be accessed through Window->Watch Folder. mi files are rendered in alphabetical order and subfolders within the designated watch folder are also examined, allowing ad-hoc job prioritization to be enforced.