Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame
To: softimage
Subject: Fwd: very slow skip frame
Hi,
we are experiencing huge slowdown
when we have active frame skip in
render pass. Normally in simple
scene frame skip occurs
immediately but for unknown reason
our specific scenes takes up
to10mins to skip one existing
frame. If you play the scene frame
changes almost immediately, there
is not any slow cache reading or
similar thing.
Have anybody idea what it can be?
Thank you.
AD
Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame
In an effort to narrow down the problem, try rendering using xsibatch.exe from the command line. If the scene renders normally, then it indicates something in the GUI is likely causing the issue. If the scene continues to take a long time to skip frames, then the cause is likely in the scene itself. The first thing to do is flush out any junk or stuff that doesn't need to be in the scene as that's usually the cause of these types of issues. go through with a fine-toothed comb and inspect everything from materials, image sources/clips, construction history on objects, FCurves with redundant keys, etc... To diagnose the issue further, trying writing and installing events which fire before and after each frame so you know exactly how much time is being spent at each step of the process as it's possible the time is being spent at the end of the previous frame not the beginning of the next frame. that would be important to know so you know where to look for the problem. The events can be simple LogMessage() statements wrapped in a plugin. If the scene contains simulation, there is a possibility the scene has to recompute the simulation starting from the first frame (or the most recent computed frame). To test it would require some observation as issues like this are usually cumulative. That is, not noticeable early in the render as to compute a few frames is usually quick, but as more frames are rendered the delay grows longer and longer as more frames need to be computed to reach the result on the current frame. I would also check to see if you're using something that generates a lot of data in memory or is recursive in nature and needs to be recomputed/flushed with each frame. For example, any displacement mapping? The mesh in the scene is probably really simple, but when the render begins each frame the mesh needs to be subdivided to meet the request. Depending on the request that could be really intensive. Check your geometry approximation settings if displacement is active. Hair? Guide hairs need to be multiplied into real hairs. That can be really intense. Heavy amounts of subdivision in your subdivision surfaces? Any objects with large construction history still active? Is the scene really large or have a large number of textures flooding texture memory? If so, you may be seeing the cost of moving things in an out of memory (swapping). Render passes can do this to if wholesale changes are applied to objects in overrides. Double check your mental ray settings as some things like photon based rendering require a lot of work before the frame begins rendering (eg; global illumination, displacment, hair generation, ...). There's no guarantee the renderer will reuse the caches built up from the render regions from interactive manipulation. Therefore, to check the scene interactively, try doing a preview instead of a region. When finished, flush your caches to double check. Matt Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 11:11:30 +0100 From: Ales Dlabac adla...@gmail.com Subject: Fwd: very slow skip frame To: softimage softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Hi, we are experiencing huge slowdown when we have active frame skip in render pass. Normally in simple scene frame skip occurs immediately but for unknown reason our specific scenes takes up to10mins to skip one existing frame. If you play the scene frame changes almost immediately, there is not any slow cache reading or similar thing. Have anybody idea what it can be? Thank you. AD
Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame
Yes you are right with difference between viewport skip and render skip what we are dealing with is the rendering skip. it's is happening on renderfarm and as well as in local GUI session. There's no simulation just non simulated ice tree, our findings so far showing us that if we delete part of the scene objects than it will gain some speed back but doesn't matter which part. In other words there isn't particular object which is causing the slowdown only amount of objects. We are using Arnold and we tried to replace some geometry with ass standins, this helped a little. We also suspected udims textures from confusing XSI as not existing texture paths but with no luck. Regarding network traffic overload even if we removed all external resources like textures from scene it didn't help. Removing overrides from partitions had biggest performance gain so far. We keep searching. On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 1:37 PM, pete...@skynet.be wrote: just a few stabs in the dark: is this on renderfarm / using a rendermanager? is there any simulations (not just ice, also syflex...) ? if so, any chance that the caches aren’t working and it’s simulating – on each machine? lot’s of huge textures or other data from a shared server that isn’t up to the task? how is the pre-render time? there is a big difference between skipping frames in the viewport and skipping frames while rendering – which is: rendering. so any render related slowness could be misinterpreted as frame skipping slowness? when rendering with skip frames, machines have to verify if each frame exists, or at least the placeholder 10kb file – normally that’s not a big deal but with heavy load on server (many people doing 3d, compositing, with textures and caches on the same server) things that are usually fast can become a hindrance – such as finding a 10kb file while someone else is copypasting 2TB of data. a rendermanager on a separate server than the fileserver(s) can help in distributing the rendertasks without needing to verify if data exists on the server ... *From:* Ales Dlabac adla...@gmail.com *Sent:* Wednesday, March 25, 2015 11:11 AM *To:* softimage softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Fwd: very slow skip frame Hi, we are experiencing huge slowdown when we have active frame skip in render pass. Normally in simple scene frame skip occurs immediately but for unknown reason our specific scenes takes up to10mins to skip one existing frame. If you play the scene frame changes almost immediately, there is not any slow cache reading or similar thing. Have anybody idea what it can be? Thank you. AD
Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame
You say it also does it through the
GUI, so what does the verbose (in high detail) say,
you could also make all assets local (copy external files),
render, and check "Sysintenals Process Monitor" what is being or
being-tried to be accessed, and what transfer activity is
hapenning/not hapenning
You could also try ::
Delete one half, render, then reload and delete the other half and
render again see if there is a difference
- Or incrementally delete elements by type/complexity (starting
with stuff with ice trees, rigs and such) see if theres a
"step-up" in frame skipping.
- Also the ususal Importing in a new scene almost goes
without saying.
Then call us in the morning :)
(to let us know your findings)
On 03/26/15 4:16, Ales Dlabac wrote:
Yes you are right with difference between viewport skip
and render skip what we are dealing with is the rendering
skip.
it's is happening on renderfarm and as well as in local GUI
session. There's no simulation just non simulated ice tree,
our findings so far showing us that if we delete part of the
scene objects than it will gain some speed back but doesn't
matter which part.
In other words there isn't particular object which is causing
the slowdown only amount of objects. We are using Arnold and
we tried to replace some geometry with ass standins, this
helped a little. We also suspected udims textures from
confusing XSI as not existing texture paths but with no luck.
Regarding network traffic overload even if we removed all
external resources like textures from scene it didn't help.
Removing overrides from partitions had biggest performance
gain so far. We keep searching.
On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 1:37 PM, pete...@skynet.be
wrote:
just a few stabs in the dark:
is this on renderfarm / using a rendermanager?
is there any simulations (not just ice, also
syflex...) ?
if so, any chance that the caches aren’t working
and it’s simulating – on each machine?
lot’s of huge textures or other data from a
shared server that isn’t up to the task?
how is the pre-render time?
there is a big difference between skipping frames
in the viewport and skipping frames while rendering
– which is: rendering. so any render related
slowness could be misinterpreted as frame skipping
slowness?
when rendering with skip frames, machines have to
verify if each frame exists, or at least the
placeholder 10kb file – normally that’s not a big
deal but with heavy load on server (many people
doing 3d, compositing, with textures and caches on
the same server) things that are usually fast can
become a hindrance – such as finding a 10kb file
while someone else is copypasting 2TB of data. a
rendermanager on a separate server than the
fileserver(s) can help in distributing the
rendertasks without needing to verify if data exists
on the server
...
From: Ales Dlabac
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2015
11:11 AM
To: softimage
Subject: Fwd: very slow skip frame
Hi,
we are experiencing huge slowdown
when we have active frame skip in
r
Fwd: very slow skip frame
Hi, we are experiencing huge slowdown when we have active frame skip in render pass. Normally in simple scene frame skip occurs immediately but for unknown reason our specific scenes takes up to10mins to skip one existing frame. If you play the scene frame changes almost immediately, there is not any slow cache reading or similar thing. Have anybody idea what it can be? Thank you. AD
Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame
just a few stabs in the dark: is this on renderfarm / using a rendermanager? is there any simulations (not just ice, also syflex...) ? if so, any chance that the caches aren’t working and it’s simulating – on each machine? lot’s of huge textures or other data from a shared server that isn’t up to the task? how is the pre-render time? there is a big difference between skipping frames in the viewport and skipping frames while rendering – which is: rendering. so any render related slowness could be misinterpreted as frame skipping slowness? when rendering with skip frames, machines have to verify if each frame exists, or at least the placeholder 10kb file – normally that’s not a big deal but with heavy load on server (many people doing 3d, compositing, with textures and caches on the same server) things that are usually fast can become a hindrance – such as finding a 10kb file while someone else is copypasting 2TB of data. a rendermanager on a separate server than the fileserver(s) can help in distributing the rendertasks without needing to verify if data exists on the server ... From: Ales Dlabac Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 11:11 AM To: softimage Subject: Fwd: very slow skip frame Hi, we are experiencing huge slowdown when we have active frame skip in render pass. Normally in simple scene frame skip occurs immediately but for unknown reason our specific scenes takes up to10mins to skip one existing frame. If you play the scene frame changes almost immediately, there is not any slow cache reading or similar thing. Have anybody idea what it can be? Thank you. AD
