Loki Renderer 0.6

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loki_renderBlenderArtists user samuraidanieru (Daniel Petersen) has released a new version of the batch renderer, Loki Render Farm 0.6!

Check out the BlenderArtists thread here.

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    • http://www.animator.co.nr Lancer

      I have used this renderfarm (earlier versions) and it’s really nice. We were troubleshooting making this work over my particular LAN setup (Ubuntu has a nasty way of dropping ethernet LAN if it also has wireless – had to put this troubleshooting on hold as I got busy, but will be keen to see how the new Loki handles the issues). It’s an incredibly efficient idea to have a file you just fling into one computer’s shared directory along with Blender files and just have the clients run from the shared directory of that first computer, e.g. apart from ability to run mono apps, there’s no install needed for client machines! A fantastic project and very simple solution for anyone wanting to set up several client machines as a renderfarm.

    • Elcrapocrew

      This is really cool! I wonder…with some tweaking could an idea like this be turned into a distributed computing project such as folding@home? Imagine…a site where you could drop a blend file off and get an email when the community got finished helping you render it! Loki@home! THAT would be truly awesome !

    • http://loki-render.berlios.de/ danieru

      Hey Lancer,
      Yes, I remember troubleshooting the network problem; I’m glad it ended up working for you;-) This version has some big improvements from 0.5.x. All the network file handling is now taken care of by Loki, so no more network shares needed; just download and run, that’s it! I also added tile rendering, and I moved to Java which almost everybody has or can easily get these days. (Mono is nice, but I think Java is easier for most, and the API is nicer to work with, IMO) Also, the particular problem you had should no longer be an issue because of the way Java is handling the network connections. Thanks for the kudos!

    • http://www.agmlabs.com blenderguy2008

      This is really good. I tested and works very well with low system resources increasing the speed of the render task. Also the report generated is brilliant, it seems like Respower reports. Great Job 5/5 !

    • Musicaljelly

      @Elcrapocrew: A similar project already exists, BURP (http://www.burp.boinc.dk), although it’s still in its infancy and currently undergoing massive improvements. Worked quite nicely though :D

      Loki’s been wonderful to me so far, finally allowing me to put my brother’s computer to use while he’s sleeping ;D

    • Musicaljelly

      Loki has been wonderful to me for as long as I’ve used it. It finally allowed me to put my brother’s computer to work while he’s sleeping ;D

      @Elcrapocrew: Check out BURP! (http://www.burp.boinc.dk)

    • http://www.DreadKnight666.com Dread Knight

      It looks kickass! :-)

    • Skwerm

      I loaded it up on a couple Windows machines and *thought* everything was working. But I submitted a 150-frame animation where the camera moves the entire duration. I ended up with 150 identical Targa files!

      I tested Loki twice, thinking I might have screwed something up the first time. Same result. I then rendered the scene directly out of Blender and the rendered frames were correct. I then put the scene on ResPower and it rendered correctly there, too.

      There’s something weird going on, because the debug command line code for each frame looks correct; the -f numbers correspond with each frame. Both the Grunt and the Server/Grunt machine rendered the same frame over and over, though. Even weirder was the fact that the frame it was rendering was not the first or last frame of the sequence; it was once from about 1/3 of the way through.

      The blend has multiple scenes and several cameras, so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. It was rendering from the active scene and active camera.

      This looks like a wonderful system with its ease of setup and use. But this glitch needs to be squashed. :-)

    • http://loki-render.berlios.de/ danieru

      Hey Skwerm,
      Wow, that’s really strange! Could you provide some more details on the loki-render forums, like some screenshots, output details, render settings, blend file? Does it happen w/ all your blend files, or just this one? I’ll be happy to try and help you figure it out.

    • http://www.agmlabs.com blenderguy2008

      here again, I see some problems trying to render an animation using Composite-vector Blur. The program freezes and I have to unloaded from memory. I guess since vector blur uses the previous rendered frame and it is still being rendered by a grunt then the problem begins….I see the task detail report and it shows the master is rendering: lets say frame 100 when frame 99 is still running on the grunt….there it freezes. Is it just me?…………….still lovely program just a tip for further versions!

    • http://www.agmlabs.com blenderguy2008

      well I made other test….VECTOR BLUR does the work good. The hanging comes from having an output node to a directory, if you want to separate the frames into different folders.

    • http://loki-render.berlios.de/ danieru

      thanks for the solution blenderguy2008. FYI. Just finished 0.6.2 which includes support for particles, cloth, and softbody, and also has grunt command line mode: useful for large farm startup automation and don’t need a GUI. Cheers!