creative use of batch render

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rhenson
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creative use of batch render

Post by rhenson »

Hi,

when I do some animations in Moho, I´m rendering the particular file, and edit it afterwards in a video application. I´m, never using the batch renderer. But other people wrote they absolutley need to render in the batch mode. I´m wondering why. So could you please give me some creative examples of batch rendering ?
Thank you.
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7feet
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Post by 7feet »

Well, one quick example would be to do a simulation of the standard movie "coverage" shooting situation (or maybe TV 3 camera setups. Animate your whole scene. Then change the camera positions, establishing shot, medium shot, closeups on the various characters, cutaways, maybe a tracking shot for the hell of it, and save each camera setup as a different file. Drop them all in the batch renderer, go to lunch, and come back and edit the finished scene together.

Another example is where you have it all planned and timed out, and each file represents a separate shot in the sequence. And you're basically done But there's 75 files, and you just realized that it really sucks that 2 of the characters have shirts that are just too similar in color. Damn, gotta change that. So you grumble for 45 minutes as you open all the files and change the appropriate style you've associated with that one guy's shirt (Styles are great). When yer done griping and saving, drop them in the batch render and come back tommorow.

Hey, maybe you've got a bunch of things that you rendered out as SWFs and threw up on the web, and some guy from Comedy Central wants to put them on TV, but you really want to be able to include all the cool shape and layer effects in Moho that Flash just won't do, as well as the variable lines that make SWF's so unwieldy. Re-render the whole pile as big ol' AVI's and send him a dvd.

I could probably come up with sample situation for a while, but you get the idea.

--Brian
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kdiddy13
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Post by kdiddy13 »

You don't even need to be very creative to come up with why it's useful. Rendering takes computer time, so I don't typically don't do it until I need to or can wait to (because then I can't animate). The best time to do it is when I'm away from the computer (mostly while I'm sleeping :shock: ). And since I don't render the rest of the time I'm at the computer, I'll end up with a bunch of shots that need rendering. And while setting off a render then coming back and checking on it and starting another (or running a bunch all at once) is always an option, it isn't a very good option (I've done it with 3d projects whent he batch renderer wasn't co-operating). You loose time while the computer is waiting for you to come back, you loose sleep as you try to monitor it, etc.

Basically, batch rendering is like having a render production assistant for free. It really helps when you're working on projects with bunches of shots that take time to render and re-render.

What I'd really like to see is a stand-alone batch renderer that can have shots added to it and managed (frames to render if not default, priority, order, etc.) while it's running. That would be great in a studio environment and it would free up a minimal touch of memory and space if you didn't need to load in the Moho interface.
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Last edited by kdiddy13 on Mon Mar 07, 2011 4:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lost Marble
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Post by Lost Marble »

kdiddy13 wrote:What I'd really like to see is a stand-alone batch renderer that can have shots added to it and managed (frames to render if not default, priority, order, etc.) while it's running. That would be great in a studio environment and it would free up a minimal touch of memory and space if you didn't need to load in the Moho interface.
Actually, our plan for some future update was to proide a command-line rendering mode. It would be as simple as something like this (exact syntax to be determined):

moho -r scene01.moho -o scene01.mov

We were planning not to include a list of files, management, order, priority, etc. For a studio environment, it seemed best to let the studio decide how to handle these things. Letting the studio include the command line renderer in a batch script, Python program, etc. seems like the most flexible way to get it to work the way the studio wants it to.
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kdiddy13
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Post by kdiddy13 »

Actually, our plan for some future update was to proide a command-line rendering mode.
That would be perfect! Then creating whatever front end you wanted for it would be a pretty simple task (and best left to the user who needs it). OOoooh. I that would be great!
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