Rendering Animation On Another Computer

[MCP]

Hi,

I use Cinema 4d on an iMac but use Octane on a PC. This is fine for stills but is it possible to render an animation this way using the C4D exporter?

I can't run Octane on my iMac because I can't install a CUDA GPU and I don't have C4D for the PC. Also, a Cubix expander for the Mac is out of the question at the moment.

The computers are both running on the same network.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[[gk]]

It's possible

You have to change the script so that everything is looking at network paths and so on.
Then you can ship renders from Mac to PC and render octane material on the other computer.
If you dont know how to script, ask someone to help you.

Also worth to note, Scripting can help you use multiple nodes in a octane render farm for animation, this is actually pritty trivial to setup.

[bepeg4d]

It's possible

You have to change the script so that everything is looking at network paths and so on.
Then you can ship renders from Mac to PC and render octane material on the other computer.
If you dont know how to script, ask someone to help you.

Also worth to note, Scripting can help you use multiple nodes in a octane render farm for animation, this is actually pritty trivial to setup.

wow, really interesting!!!
please [gk] can you elaborate a bit more?

ciao beppe

[[gk]]

There is nothing more to say I think.
Dig into it or ask a scripter for your currect Host app to help you implement the features.

[abstrax]

Sorry, I've got no idea how to invoke an application on a PC from a Mac. If someone can enlighten me maybe I can then implement something. Without the ability to invoke an application on the PC and to keep track of it's running state I don't see a way how you can render an animation on the PC, exported from the Mac.

The only possibility I know of, is to update C4D. Licenses of the current version can be used on both platforms, Macs and PCs.

Cheers,
Marcus

[[gk]]

Cant you boot Cinema up from a commandline and auto run scripts on startup with flag to initiate post script, post script that will load issued cinema native format file, process it through a costumized export script and brute force uneven numbers or 3rds frame numbers depending on how many boxes you want to use?

Perhaps the Mac/PC rig is rather complicated over a straight OS farm now that I come to think of it.

[[gk]]

Worth to note that the easiest farm you can build is a bruteforce pipe. This requires zero script interaction but enables you to render multiple frames simultaniously.

Box1: host app installed and octane licensed installed.
Box2: host app installed and octane licensed installed.
Box3: host app installed and octane licensed installed.

Boxes have ghosted paths for scenes relative to OS drive name naturally..

Box1 is master box you start to dress scene in, when done ship project folder to box2,box3
Initiate sequence on every 3rd frame on box1 starting at frame 1
Initiate sequence on every 3rd frame on box2 starting at frame 2
Initiate sequence on every 3rd frame on box3 starting at frame 3
etc etc..

Provided intergrity on Paths everything works and will render in parallel.

Its actually not much of a job to boot host app on 3 boxes load scene and initiate sequences.

Render to a shared folder and import to your prefered post tool.

( this would also be my layout if I would automate it from within the master host app on box1. On that account you could extend it so a value of initiated frames would be added to a log that the nodes could read and check what frame it could/should grab in the timeline, thus starting and adding..etc )

[abstrax]

Cant you boot Cinema up from a commandline and auto run scripts on startup with flag to initiate post script, post script that will load issued cinema native format file, process it through a costumized export script and brute force uneven numbers or 3rds frame numbers depending on how many boxes you want to use?

Perhaps the Mac/PC rig is rather complicated over a straight OS farm now that I come to think of it.

No, unfortunately all of that is not possible with C4d. But you gave me another idea: We just need the possibility to export all frames into separate OBJ/MTL files and a then a long bash/batch script (depending on the platform) that basically calls Octane for each export with the according command line parameters (of which the camera arguments are the tricky ones). I think someone requested that already a while ago, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, at the moment there is one important detail that has to be changed: All paths in .ocs files are absolute. It's already on my to-do list to make them relative. This way you can then easily port an Octane scene from A to B.

Cheers,
Marcus

[[gk]]

Alright

I jsut gave it a go, Im using 3dsmax here and I can boot multiple versions of max over network with a ShellLaunch @"\\path" ""
Anyways...
Im sure KilaD would like to do this provided he has more than 1 box.

[[gk]]

oh wait? So there isnt a current Cinema 4D script working already?
never mind...

I should learn to read/think