3DsMax always shuts down between each frame.

[drandolph]

This seems like a huge waste of time to have a worker render 1 frame then close down 3DsMax then open again and render the next frame. Is there any way to reduce this? I have a project that is taking a local slow old xeon system 2 seconds a frame rendering locally and the same project sent to 4 dual quad nehalium machines averages out to 5-6 seconds a frame.

Is there any way to have a job submitted that will make each worker render a series of frames straight without closing the file each time?

[Scot Brew]

PROCESS RUNNING MULTIPLE FRAMES AT A TIME:
Assuming you are using the "3dsMax BatchRender" jobtype or any other jobtype that runs a command over a range of files, there is an easy way to have the Worker run on multiple frames in the same process.

Specify the "Execution" mode to be "Chunks with n frames" and then fill in the field to the right of it with the number of frames you want each process to render at a time.

The running process will launch 3dsMax, load the scene, render the specified # of frames, and then exit.

ALTERNATIVE USING "DYNAMIC ALLOCATION" JOBTYPES:
If you use the 3dsMax, Maya, or XSI jobtypes, then the "dynamic allocation" code automatically will only launch the application once and then communicate with the supervisor to render specific frames until all are complete.  Since it is handled automatically, there is no need to specify the "Execution" mode for these "dynamic allocation" jobtypes.  This "dynamic allocation" feature is unique to Qube and designed to maximize throughput. 

[drandolph]

thanks for the chunks with n information that is making it work the way i was hoping but i was curious about the dynamic allocation code you were talking about? Thats not built into the 3dsmax job is it? How do i get started with turning on dynamic allocation?

Trying to make it as simple as possible for the client to submit jobs..