Hi dmeyer,
Thanks for your inquiry!
The maya jobtype is a more integrated piece of software, in that it is driven
by perl and mel scripts. The biggest advantage of it over the batch method is that
it implements what we call the dynamic frame allocation.
To illustrate that, consider a 100-frame render job. If you specify to use 5 subjobs
(AKA "CPUs") to work on the 100 frames, the "batch" approach will essentially
pre-partition the 20 frames each, 1-20, 21-40,...,81-100, so that each subjob gets to
work on a 20-frame sequence. With the dynamic approach of the jobtype, we
don't pre-partition the frame range. Instead, each of the 5 subjobs start
running, load the scene file, and then when they're done initializing, they start
asking for the next available frame from the supervisor. They get a frame, render it,
and then when done with a frame, ask for the next available frame, ... and so on.
This allows faster machines to work on more frames, and also has the added benefit
of not losing an entire chunk of, say 20, frames, should something go wrong
with one of the subjobs.
Having said that, if you're satisfied with the "batch" method and it's been
working great for you, then you don't necessarily have to use the non-batch
jobtype. The jobtype is more involved in it's implementation, and can sometimes
be more difficult to troubleshoot when there are problems.
The batch method is a lot more simplistic, but also very effective. I'd say
give the maya jobtype a try if it sounds interesting, but you can always
fall back to the batch method.
