Rendering


  • Delete last image on renderer issue
    There is a new render config option "BrokenImageLine= " to delete last saved frame if a this predefined message is found in the render log.
    Currently used in r_Arnold.inc only.

  • New folder /render_apps/_config_inhouse
    There is a new folder [RR]render_apps\_config_inhouse
    There is absolutely no difference between [RR]render_apps\_config and [RR]render_apps\_config_inhouse.
    _config_inhouse overrides any file with the same name in _config.  
    The only reason for [RR]render_apps\_config_inhouse is to tidy up your RR installation.
    _config has 300 files and it is hard to see/remember which files you have changed or added.

  • REZ package support





Client


  • Linux Bash/Mac Zsh
    Changing the interpreter from the default csh to bash/zsh is possible within the Per Client Config now.

  • Core affinity using physical cores for "reserve cores for artist logged in" (Windows only)
    If you have enabled "reserve cores for artist logged in", then the RR8 behavior was:
           - Tell the renderer to use less cores.
           - If the machine was logged out and you logged it, the renderer continued to use all cores until the frame segment was done.
           - Windows was distributing the render threads randomly onto all cores; differently every second.
    RR 9 has an improved functionality:
           - Tell Windows to keep the first x cores free. If you have enabled hyperthreading, then a physical core is kept free.
           - This works as well if you login and the renderer had used all cores before.

  • Client UI: Per job thread status line with ETA/progress information

  • Client UI: TCP traffic

  • Clear local exe/plugin cache after 3 months

  • New process lister to speedup process checking.
    Available as separate service process as well (works even if client is not runnnig as admin)

  • Background client shuts down if "app override mode" recognized.
    Instead of having a background service running disable and the application mode client running both at the same time, 
    the background client shuts down. Automatically restarted by the service if the app mode client is closed.

  • Summary of the network traffic In/Out/Average of the day in the app log file.

  • PS test and Ghz information
    • The ProcessorSpeed (PS) test was improved for machines with many cores 
      and closer aligned to Benchmarks of Arnold, VRay and Blender.
    • The summed Ghz of a machine uses the actual Ghz while rendering on all cores
      It is not the base Ghz of the CPU, not the "max turbo" of one core 
      and it works with mixed Efficency/Performance core CPUs.
      (Note: Not available for OSX as you are not allowed to read the info without sudo)

    • Side-Note: 
      We can provide you with a Benchmark suite for Arnold/VRay/Blender that exports all information into a table.
      It will probably be available in our public git repository soon (as soon as we got clearance for the renderer packages).
      https://github.com/BinaryAlchemy/RoyalRender-OpenExtensions.git
    • Other side-note:
      On our few dual-boot machines Blender was significantly faster on Linux, VRay was slightly faster (Arnold was the same).
      We would appreciate it if you can help us verifying this speed difference.
      If you happen to have some dual machines (you can use Ubuntu on USB to run Linux without installing it for a test)



Cloud



  • New cloud provider: Google Compute Engine

  • Cloud provider Python Plug-in API

  • Azure: Support for Spot VMs (set max. price for cost control)

  • Google: Support for GCE preemptible VM instances

  • New ready-to-use VM images (CentOS 7.9/Windows Server 2019 Datacenter)

  • Cloud settings dialog moved to rrCloudManager for faster and easier configuration

  • Show VM pricing for better cost control

  • Optimized provider configuration process