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Is there any way to batch render things with OcDS? I use my only computer for rendering and would like to be able to queue it up to render multiple different scenes during the night.

linvanchene wrote:

DrHemulen wrote:Is there any way to batch render things with OcDS? I use my only computer for rendering and would like to be able to queue it up to render multiple different scenes during the night.

As far as I know there is currently no way to batch render in OcDS.

I am not quite sure about the other plugins. It may be that in some other plugins you will be able to batch render if the native software provides allready a tool to queue several scenes for render.

The basic issue once gain seems to be that native 3Delight in DS also has no batch rendering. So if there is no batch rendering tool provided from the DAZ side this means the plugin developer would need to do all that work coding batch rendering.

But just in theory once the whole .ORBX file format is fully functional one might be able to send any scenes created in any octane render plugin to any other octane render version that has batch rendering.

- - -

The big guestions are when will we see batch rendering in OctaneRender standalone?
When will the OctaneRender Cloud Edition finally be ready to rent multiple GPU to render over night?

I mean at least the OctaneRender Could edition should come along with batch rendering?
I cannot imagine they expect anyone to actually sit next to the workstation and monitor the rendering process and then hit render again for the next scene? Especially if we pay for every minute we rent those GPU one might expect that would all work in the most time efficent way?

But since the announcemnt in March 2013 there really is not all that much information available what their exact plans are with the cloud rendering service.

IF all those puzzle pieces work together one day we may be able to:

- Set up a scene in DAZ studio
- Export to OctaneRender standalone or OctaneRender cloud edition
- Queue multiple scenes in a batchrender tool
- leave the workstation for the night or a few days
- return once all the rendering is done

- - -

The big guestions are when will we see batch rendering in OctaneRender standalone?
'Scuse me gentlemen, we already have this?

As linvanchene correctly stated, DS and with this OcDS are not able to batch render a queue of different scenes, just an animation of one scene.
BUT: Octane standalone is very well capable of doing so.
It can be called from a .bat file which is basically a text file.
So the worflow is:
Export a scene from DS to .obj No need for orbx format.*
Create an octane scene using said scene, setup of materials, cameras and so on, save as octane file
Repeat for other scenes
Write a batch file calling the different scenes
Start batch, go to sleep

I used this workflow successfully before OcDS was available, and maybe will start again doing so with Octane 2.0...

*In case you have a static scene with moving or changing objects you can export multiple different .obj files and recombine them in Octane.
I think there is also a way to do so in the batch file itself, but this I haven't tested yet.

The only quirk I found is that you have to delete unwanted parts of the scene temporarily before exporting to obj.

It sounds complicated in the beginning, but once you figured out everything and have setup your workflow it's pretty fast.
And you can save your own materials...

I'm sort of doing batch files, using animation. My intent is to produce one very large render, broken into sections then stitched together. I don't know if this is of use to you.
I found the clue here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/34137/
Essentially, one creates as many 'section cameras' as needed to cover the scene, then add a blank camera called 'Camera Main.' Then add one frame for each of the 'section cameras' to this 'Camera Main' using the script mentioned in that page - resulting in an animation with key frames for each section.
Octane's Daz plugin then renders each section. I use PTGui to stitch. Clunky but works.