Agent version 2.29 was just released today, and it comes with two often-requested features:
- Real-time Estimated Render Completion Time
- Command line job submission
These are both game-changers in the animation industry. We’ll elaborate a bit on each below:
Estimated Completion
The queue viewer now displays a generalized render completion time for each job that has had one or more portions complete. This estimate is based on the average running time of every job slice that has completed to the present time, the Power level of the job, and the Farm Load status if any portion of the red graph is illuminated. It is kept up to date as the job runs, just like the Cost Expected field. It also serves as an indication of whether or not a job is actively scheduled for rendering, as the field is empty when there are no CPU’s allocated to a job due to high Farm Load or multiple jobs in your queue with inadequate Power levels to allow simultaneous execution. Please keep in mind this is an estimate, and only an estimate. No one and no thing can accurately guess exact render completion time.
Command Line Job Submission
You read that right, you can now submit render jobs to Pixel Plow using a command line application! This allows for much easier batch rendering of multiple jobs, integration with your in-house render farm management software, and it opens the door for us to build in-app plug-ins to make submitting a render job even easier than it is now.
We hope you enjoy and make use of these two great new features. Also new in the 2.29 agent, we have support for rendering Arnold .ass files (kicking .ass). Farm-side, we support more new plug-ins for 3D Studio Max, have enhanced our handling of scenes using Vue plug-ins, and have addressed numerous other small bugs. Keep those render jobs coming!
Render Endlessly
