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Is anybody else having issues with the reliability of batch rendering working in maya?

across multiple scenes, it seems very much like a crapshoot as to whether or not batch rendering will start--as well, you can't tell if it's doing anything or not unless you use a third party software to verify that your GPU's are running at load.

Originally I'd start a batch render, see that it says "Percentage of rendering done:..." message thinking it's working, and walk away...only to come back and see that it's only been rendering at 10% gpu load the entire time. So now, I start a batch and always wait to check GPU-Z to make sure sure it's actually rendering at full load. Even this is a crap shoot sometimes, for completely unknown reasons (I'll have plenty of VRAM space, No error messages, Maya will say its rendering but the GPU load will never go past 10%, until I restart maya and restart the render). I am running 2x 2080ti and have PLENTY of VRAM compared to scene size, according to gpu-z, so that's not the issue.

Is this sporadic behavior common for others? This has happened across various scenes for me.

Beyond that, Maya batch seems woefully slow compared to Standalone (is it exporting the scene for every single frame instead of exporting it all at the beginning, or something? maybe I have some settings wrong?)

on a project last night I had the same problem that I regularly run into was happening repeatedly:

Maya would say that a batch render started. Showed the Rendering percentage at 0 and looking at GPU Z, the gpu's definitely weren't rendering. Sometimes restarting maya would fix the problem. Sometimes I had to restart my entire computer.

In another scenario, it would render a bunch of frames, then the gpus would just stop rendering for no reason. The only way to notice this was that GPU Z showed the gpus running at a low percentage, or notice that frames in the output folder quit populating, as Maya itself said it was still rendering.

It almost seems like it's a VRAM issue, although GPU Z shows I am only using like 6gb on my 11gb cards. Although, it's hard to pin it to that because I can cancel a stalled batch render and immediately render a single frame in maya's render view perfectly fine. If it were VRAM that single frame shouldn't be able to render.

Any idea what could cause this? Is this a plugin issue? a core engine issue? Its really hard to figure anything out since there's not even an error message, as Maya shows everything working correctly.

itsallgoode9 wrote:Is anybody else having issues with the reliability of batch rendering working in maya?

across multiple scenes, it seems very much like a crapshoot as to whether or not batch rendering will start--as well, you can't tell if it's doing anything or not unless you use a third party software to verify that your GPU's are running at load.

Originally I'd start a batch render, see that it says "Percentage of rendering done:..." message thinking it's working, and walk away...only to come back and see that it's only been rendering at 10% gpu load the entire time. So now, I start a batch and always wait to check GPU-Z to make sure sure it's actually rendering at full load. Even this is a crap shoot sometimes, for completely unknown reasons (I'll have plenty of VRAM space, No error messages, Maya will say its rendering but the GPU load will never go past 10%, until I restart maya and restart the render). I am running 2x 2080ti and have PLENTY of VRAM compared to scene size, according to gpu-z, so that's not the issue.

Is this sporadic behavior common for others? This has happened across various scenes for me.

Beyond that, Maya batch seems woefully slow compared to Standalone (is it exporting the scene for every single frame instead of exporting it all at the beginning, or something? maybe I have some settings wrong?)

Hey Itsallgoode9,

Would it be possible to share your scene via PM?
Sorry, the issue could be anything GPU overheat, engine crash, insufficient power supply on the GPUs etc..

Is it GUI Batch render or Command line?

cheers

BK wrote:

itsallgoode9 wrote:Is anybody else having issues with the reliability of batch rendering working in maya?

across multiple scenes, it seems very much like a crapshoot as to whether or not batch rendering will start--as well, you can't tell if it's doing anything or not unless you use a third party software to verify that your GPU's are running at load.

Originally I'd start a batch render, see that it says "Percentage of rendering done:..." message thinking it's working, and walk away...only to come back and see that it's only been rendering at 10% gpu load the entire time. So now, I start a batch and always wait to check GPU-Z to make sure sure it's actually rendering at full load. Even this is a crap shoot sometimes, for completely unknown reasons (I'll have plenty of VRAM space, No error messages, Maya will say its rendering but the GPU load will never go past 10%, until I restart maya and restart the render). I am running 2x 2080ti and have PLENTY of VRAM compared to scene size, according to gpu-z, so that's not the issue.

Is this sporadic behavior common for others? This has happened across various scenes for me.

Beyond that, Maya batch seems woefully slow compared to Standalone (is it exporting the scene for every single frame instead of exporting it all at the beginning, or something? maybe I have some settings wrong?)

Hey Itsallgoode9,

Would it be possible to share your scene via PM?
Sorry, the issue could be anything GPU overheat, engine crash, insufficient power supply on the GPUs etc..

Is it GUI Batch render or Command line?

cheers

Thanks BK, i'll send the scene over today. it's a GUI batch. Next time it does this I'll immediately try command line and see if that acts differently.

Until recently I haven't done much animation rendering so that's why I'm so clueless as to what's causing this. all the hardware is fine. GPU temps are in the 60's under load, I have a 1200w power supply for two 2080ti's--Nothing else, outside of octane in maya on the system is acting particularity weird. FWIW I mentioned this to my coworker and he said he sometimes had the same issue in C4D.

itsallgoode9 wrote:

BK wrote:

itsallgoode9 wrote:Is anybody else having issues with the reliability of batch rendering working in maya?

across multiple scenes, it seems very much like a crapshoot as to whether or not batch rendering will start--as well, you can't tell if it's doing anything or not unless you use a third party software to verify that your GPU's are running at load.

Originally I'd start a batch render, see that it says "Percentage of rendering done:..." message thinking it's working, and walk away...only to come back and see that it's only been rendering at 10% gpu load the entire time. So now, I start a batch and always wait to check GPU-Z to make sure sure it's actually rendering at full load. Even this is a crap shoot sometimes, for completely unknown reasons (I'll have plenty of VRAM space, No error messages, Maya will say its rendering but the GPU load will never go past 10%, until I restart maya and restart the render). I am running 2x 2080ti and have PLENTY of VRAM compared to scene size, according to gpu-z, so that's not the issue.

Is this sporadic behavior common for others? This has happened across various scenes for me.

Beyond that, Maya batch seems woefully slow compared to Standalone (is it exporting the scene for every single frame instead of exporting it all at the beginning, or something? maybe I have some settings wrong?)

Hey Itsallgoode9,

Would it be possible to share your scene via PM?
Sorry, the issue could be anything GPU overheat, engine crash, insufficient power supply on the GPUs etc..

Is it GUI Batch render or Command line?

cheers

Thanks BK, i'll send the scene over today. it's a GUI batch. Next time it does this I'll immediately try command line and see if that acts differently.

Until recently I haven't done much animation rendering so that's why I'm so clueless as to what's causing this. all the hardware is fine. GPU temps are in the 60's under load, I have a 1200w power supply for two 2080ti's--Nothing else, outside of octane in maya on the system is acting particularity weird. FWIW I mentioned this to my coworker and he said he sometimes had the same issue in C4D.

Hi Itsallgoode9,

Sorry for the late reply and thanks for letting us know all the hardware is running fine.
Does the Batch render just sit and wait or crashes? Were you able to check the Octane Engine log dialog?

If something same issue happening on c4d that could be our engine but we don't know until we get to replicate it.

Please let me know when the scene is ready.

Thank you!!

just sent you the scene file. It took me a while to replicate it, because like i mentioend it doesn't happen all the time.

To get it to fail eventually, I started and stopped the batch render a few times. After the 4th or 5th time is when it failed. It's something I definitely notice more after I've been working for a while and opening an closing files alot.

As you can see in the video, Maya says "render Started", There are some errors in the Octane log but those are always there, and GPU-z shows the previous batch render worked fine (notice the up and down usage spikes between frames vs the completely flat line). Plenty of VRAM avilable and Temps/Power look fine.

The only difference between the working and failed render was that I canceled the batch and restarted it--no settings were changed between the two. I sent you a DM with the scene.

itsallgoode9 wrote:just sent you the scene file. It took me a while to replicate it, because like i mentioend it doesn't happen all the time.

To get it to fail eventually, I started and stopped the batch render a few times. After the 4th or 5th time is when it failed. It's something I definitely notice more after I've been working for a while and opening an closing files alot.

As you can see in the video, Maya says "render Started", There are some errors in the Octane log but those are always there, and GPU-z shows the previous batch render worked fine (notice the up and down usage spikes between frames vs the completely flat line). Plenty of VRAM avilable and Temps/Power look fine.

The only difference between the working and failed render was that I canceled the batch and restarted it--no settings were changed between the two. I sent you a DM with the scene.

NotWOrkingRender.mp4

Hi itsallgoode9,

Thank you for the video. I am unable to find your PM or the file.

From the log windows, it seems the temp folder can not be located due to the environment variables path.
We can see the temp folder path as L: drive, could you please also PM us the dump file?

cheers