ManFriday's Render Queue (the old one from 2019) [Commercial]

Loony

Hey... I bought it now (cuz I really need to increase my Render output) but. HOW do i use it xD....

Where is the Plugin?

There did I place my Meshgrabber into my toolbar, but there is no Render Queque, in my Content Lib in Scripts is it not too.

I used this time really the DIM, thought its just better for ManFriday's products.

 

Please help me quick, so I can test it and learn how to work with it^^.

Edit: I used now F1 to read the PDF.

 

Edit found it, I NEVER click on the "Render" menue :D I have Render Settings as Panel :)

 

That did sadly not work as button on Top, is it possible to make it as button somehow?

Illidanstorm

it should be there when you click on the render button @Loony

 

Loony

Yah got it there.

But I wish it would be in the Render Settings, but well I assume I will train my brain to go there.

 

barbult

ManFriday said:

barbult said:

katjesarts said:

Honestly, I am quite disappointed. When I bought the product I thought that it would help my workflow. The opposite is the case. The only thing I get is frustration and wasted rescources.

First, I got issues with re-opening DAZ Studio after rendering the first or sometimes second pic. I changed the settings and it seemed to work.

Now it renders all the pictures, but is only saving the last picture out of three. It happened yesterday during the day and the same happened over night. This issue happened out of nowhere

@katjesarts One problem I have seen is that if your scene file name has a period in it, Render Queue truncates the saved image name at that point and appends the camera name (if you have chosen to do that). So if you have scenes named Scene 1.1.duf, Scene 1.2.duf, Scene 1.3.duf, you might end up with them all being named Scene 1_camera_name and overwriting each other. Could that be what is happening to you? Perhaps @ManFriday could make the file name parsing algorithm  more robust to avoid that problem. 

Oh that's an interesting observation. Maybe i got something wrong with dots in the filename. Does the problem go away if you don't use dots but something else like dashes? I'll have a look too. 

Dots are the only thing I've noticed a problem with, because they are the delimiter between the filename and extension.

Richard Haseltine

Rob suggests using https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qfileinfo.html#completeBaseName rather than https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qfileinfo.html#baseName (in the plug-in code, I assume, to address the symptoms barbult is reproting).

baseldayvion

Hey, is it possible to open the render queue main window via my own script? I basically wanna run the entry in the menu bar via script.

Loony

I use now the first time the Plugin over night, I hope it runs good!

One thing did annoy me now at the start, the window for th queque did in the Taskbar always blinked up in orange, like "you got a new message". An alarm system.

Do we really need that? :/

notsram_827a4d215e

ManFriday said:

Anyone else having issues with the queue not advancing in 4.12.1?  The queue will load, render one scene, shut down Daz, then nothing...

I've been having this issue too, as well as many other problems. I LOATHE this update... Anyway, are you using the script that allows you to run more than one instance of Daz? The render queue doesn't appear to work properly with that. I've found that if you run Daz from the script, it'll do one render from the queue, then restart Daz BUT load the vanilla version of Daz rather than the scripted one, along with whatever renders you had queued up from the last time you used that version of Daz.. As these renders have already been completed, it never continues beyond the first render, as it thinks the queue is finished.

Make sure you're running the unscripted version of Daz when you set up your render queue and it seems to work more often than not.

*edit* This 'update' is driving me insane. No matter how many times I allow the render process through my firewall, restaring Daz through the render queue throws up a load of warnings and prompts for confirmation. Presumably as it's creating a new process each time...

I can confirm that problem. I'm investigating and will release an update if necessary.

Great to hear that. I absolutely love this utility. Huge timesaver!

Well, here is how that went. A few days ago I wanted to render a few scenes overnight and like you described, the queue rendered one image, restarted Daz Studio and then didn't load the second scene. Then I changed the settings to what you can see in the attached screenshot, and I have been unable to reproduce the problem since -- I've had it render 30 scenes in three overnight sessions without problems.

Now, maybe I've made some changes in my code since the release that have had an impact on this, but could you give that a try? The most important one is a long delay in the last slider ("delay in batch script before starting daz studio again"). Feedback would be much appreciated.

I have one theory what might have gone wrong here and maybe on your system too. One thing that will definitely confuse the Render Queue is if you use multiple instances, both under the old Daz Studio behavior and under the new 4.12.1+ behavior with the -instanceName command line arguments. If that doesn't ring a bell, just make sure that only one dazstudio.exe is running when you start the Render Queue. If you do use the new command line arguments, you should use the Render Queue only in the first instance (started without -instanceName). The Render Queue stores its queue (the list of scenes that you see in its dialog) in the Daz Studio application settings, and those are now kept separate between instances. That means that if you configure the Render Queue in an instance other than the first and then it restarts Daz Studio, the newly started copy will not see the queue settings because they have been stored in the settings of the other instance.

One thing I have in mind after further testing is to add checks to the Render Queue that no other copy of Daz Studio is running and that no -instance command line argument is currently being used. I think I have also found a way of properly waiting for Daz Studio to shut down, however long it takes, instead of relying on dumb timeouts.

For the record, I have two Daz Studio program icons on my Windows taskbar, one without any command line arguments that I used most of the time (and for the Render Queue), and another one that I use when I temporarily need a second instance for quickly looking into an other scene. For that second icon I use -instanceName # -copyAppSettings . -copySessionUI . -cleanOnExit true which I have found to work best a while ago.

Long story short, could you try the attached Render Queue settings, make sure you have only one instance active and see if the problem goes away? It would also be helpful if you could post your exact Daz Studio version number as see in "Help" -> "About Daz Studio". The current Public Build seems to be 4.12.2.6, the stable build 4.12.1.117. Both of these should exhibit the new instancing behavior. Thank you!

 

Sorry for the slow response!

I'd love to be able to help out, but I was having so many other issues with the new version that I contacted Daz support and asked for a rollback. So I've gone back to using 4.12.0.86 for the past week with no problems whatsoever. I no longer have the new version installed on my computer as I have no intention of using it again unless I absolutely have to upgrade.

If it helps any, the version I was having issues with was 4.12.1.117 Pro. The render queue does appear to work correctly with that, but ONLY if you use the installed version of Studio and have 'kill Daz Studio' selected in the render queue settings. If you use one of the scripted versions, then it seems to pick up the queue last associated with that version. As all the files in the queue are marked as complete, it then considers the queue to be finished. If you don't have kill selected, then it always finishes the first render, and simply stops. The kill option was causing a lot of problems with my Antivirus (Kaspersky). It kept asking for confirmation. But after perhaps 15 or 20 instances of me allowing it through, it stopped asking and everything was fine thereafter.

Sorry again that I can't be of more help. This is one of the most useful utilities I've ever bought!

Loony

notsram_827a4d215e said:

[...]

Sorry again that I can't be of more help. This is one of the most useful utilities I've ever bought!

In my eyes is the most useful Meshgrabber :P

 

ManFriday

Loony said:

I use now the first time the Plugin over night, I hope it runs good!

One thing did annoy me now at the start, the window for th queque did in the Taskbar always blinked up in orange, like "you got a new message". An alarm system.

Do we really need that? :/

Turn off "Keep this window on top" in the Render Queue progress window when the queue is running. :-)

ManFriday

Richard Haseltine said:

Rob suggests using https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qfileinfo.html#completeBaseName rather than https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qfileinfo.html#baseName (in the plug-in code, I assume, to address the symptoms barbult is reproting).

Good point. Thank you!

Loony

I did disable that but it is still blinking, btw... some thing is confusing me, AFTER the last render does the last render image stay open with the button "cancel", like its not done, why does that not close when the project is done?

Can you please correct that? that the last image also closes, when the queque is complete? would be nice :)

 

notsram_827a4d215e

Loony said:

notsram_827a4d215e said:

[...]

Sorry again that I can't be of more help. This is one of the most useful utilities I've ever bought!

In my eyes is the most useful Meshgrabber :P

 

Oh, Meshgrabber is great. But being able to set off a queue of renders at bedtime and wake up the next morning to find them all done? Can't beat that (IMO) :)

Loony

My RTX2070 is broken atm, so I can not really work, I will use now the time to create scenes and when I get a new graphiccard in some weeks, cahn I use this nice script to render them all :)

So it will help me, BUT without meshgrabber could I not make so much great things!

 

Loony

ManFriday said:

Loony said:

I use now the first time the Plugin over night, I hope it runs good!

One thing did annoy me now at the start, the window for th queque did in the Taskbar always blinked up in orange, like "you got a new message". An alarm system.

Do we really need that? :/

Turn off "Keep this window on top" in the Render Queue progress window when the queue is running. :-)

I managed now to make a video.

I show it you, if I switch to a other window its blinking.

See here the Video:

 

I just checked in fullscreen my last render and even there did that Window popped up to grab my attention that the render starts in a few seconds -_- I have not checked the box "keep always on top", but its still doing that :(

Loony

Its not perfect closing the software.

 

Loony

I get that problem now again ;(

Had 12 images in a row, and just checked, Image 2 did run over 2hours :O...

and sometimes this ↑ does happen because it does not correct close the last instance and can't use the full power, my third image did I cancel, because it runned on 100% CPU, because the GPU ram did never erase, because the instances don't close.

Please @ManFriday fix this :(

Thats how it works on GPU, compared to ~2:30H running on CPU, because of not correct working Render Queque.

SAME scene, just 1 clothes item removed. (I could make spotrenders, but spotrenders have to be done manual, so I just did sent all scenes as full render in the line )

---

1: Scene correct rendered.

2: Scene 1 did not close correct, Scene 2 started and then it realized it can't complete it on GPU and the image crashed, half visible image.

3: Scene 1+2 are still NOT closed! So the GPU is still filled, it used CPU -_- (I watched a movie and did hope to see 7-8images done...)

4: I canceld it after 9minutes, because I wanna now stop it. Result after pressing cancel, the Script did accepted that the render is done, BUT.... Daz studio had again the "crash" screen and did NOT close.

its now 2:56am and I am afraid if it will be able to render it alone over night -.-..... I really think about if I will Refund the script, it have one Job, and this does not work.

 

 

HTStudios

I know its been brought up before, but I would like to add my voice to the following feature request- an update or expansion (I would pay up to $20) to use Render Queue with image series renders.  My work is becoming more and more animation based and if I could save my animations 4 times with a different camera in each save file it would save me 3 nights of rendering.  Is this not possible for some reason?

Loony

MORE problems -_-....

My rendering ended now 2x like this instead of finishing it and then shut down my PC...

 

DoctorJellybean

Loony said:

Its not perfect closing the software.

 

I'm having the same issue, and DS can't start again as only one instance is allowed and the error dialog can't be closed by Render Queue.

Loony

yeah, I stopped using the software anymore... cuz I dont get any help here... I could ask support for refund, but... would feel wrong :(

edit: @DoctorJellybean I got just today Harry Potter JellyBeans xD and just saw your name :)

The Inner Circle

I am currently using this with the latest Daz. Idid a 43 camera scene render in batch over a 6 hour time frame all without issue. The screipt restarted Daz for me between every render flawlessly.

I think it is a little unfair to assume the iuuses you are having with Daz crashing is all caused by Manfriday's app without investigating further. What did the log say if anything. Have you alterred the shutdown parameters ?

Just curious as this asset has always work very well for me.

David.. 

ManFriday

I'm sorry for the tardy reply, I've been very busy programming new things. :-)

To all those who are having problems with the Render Queue not restarting Daz Studio correctly, can you try clicking on "Queue settings" (button at the bottom left in the Render Queue dialog) and use the settings as shown in the attached screenshot? The important one is raising the last "Delay in batch script before starting Daz Studio again".

If that also doesn't work, can you try "Kill DazStudio.exe process"?

The reason that the Render Queue doesn't work correctly any more is that Daz blocked multiple instances of Daz Studio from running in parallel by default. Sometimes Daz Studio can take a long time to shut down and will still be running in the background even though you can no longer see the window. If the Render Queue then tries to start Daz Studio too quickly, it just stops working.

Thank you all for your patience!

Loony

I think I used the kill script button already, the delay time can I try to increase.

will need a whilte to rspond, because I need first a reason to render in queque again^^...

DoctorJellybean

My problem seems to be that when Render Queue terminates DS, it causes a DS crash. When DS crash, an error dialog appears. This needs to be closed (by clicking Ok), before DS can start again.

Loony

Exactly thats here the problem too, but maybe the longer delay can help.

ManFriday

DoctorJellybean said:

My problem seems to be that when Render Queue terminates DS, it causes a DS crash. When DS crash, an error dialog appears. This needs to be closed (by clicking Ok), before DS can start again.

Does the crash happen with both the "polite" and "kill" options?

I'm sorry if I ask these basic questions but i just helped another user last week who got the standard render queue to work with the kill option. The crash is also new to me -- this might also be caused by another plugin. Maybe you could try disabling other plugins to see if the crash goes away. 
once I have more information I'm happy to post a new beta here and push out a new release with better defaults. 
Thank you all for testing!

DoctorJellybean

ManFriday said:

DoctorJellybean said:

My problem seems to be that when Render Queue terminates DS, it causes a DS crash. When DS crash, an error dialog appears. This needs to be closed (by clicking Ok), before DS can start again.

Does the crash happen with both the "polite" and "kill" options?

I'm sorry if I ask these basic questions but i just helped another user last week who got the standard render queue to work with the kill option. The crash is also new to me -- this might also be caused by another plugin. Maybe you could try disabling other plugins to see if the crash goes away. 
once I have more information I'm happy to post a new beta here and push out a new release with better defaults. 
Thank you all for testing!

Yes. I usually use the killprocess option as it can take some time for DS to close in certain cases. Where I use the normal shutdown, I've set the restart delay to the maximum (240). As for plugins, I only have the standard DS plugins installed. Oh, and your Mesh Grabber.

I'm willing to try the new beta :)

Mart1n71

For what it's worth, I'm using Render Queue in the current Beta and have zero problems with crashing or not restarting. I have the bottom slider cranked all the way up to 240 and although Daz takes forever to clear when I close it normally, I've not had a problem with render queue at all.

barbult

ManFriday said:

barbult said:

katjesarts said:

Honestly, I am quite disappointed. When I bought the product I thought that it would help my workflow. The opposite is the case. The only thing I get is frustration and wasted rescources.

First, I got issues with re-opening DAZ Studio after rendering the first or sometimes second pic. I changed the settings and it seemed to work.

Now it renders all the pictures, but is only saving the last picture out of three. It happened yesterday during the day and the same happened over night. This issue happened out of nowhere

@katjesarts One problem I have seen is that if your scene file name has a period in it, Render Queue truncates the saved image name at that point and appends the camera name (if you have chosen to do that). So if you have scenes named Scene 1.1.duf, Scene 1.2.duf, Scene 1.3.duf, you might end up with them all being named Scene 1_camera_name and overwriting each other. Could that be what is happening to you? Perhaps @ManFriday could make the file name parsing algorithm  more robust to avoid that problem. 

Oh that's an interesting observation. Maybe i got something wrong with dots in the filename. Does the problem go away if you don't use dots but something else like dashes? I'll have a look too. 

This problem with dots in the filename just bit me again. Was this never fixed?