How to use Blender in vSwarm

If you have a simple job, just follow the instructions under "Standard Job" below.

Multifile rendering for particles, fluids and cloth

The multifile version supports packed files for rendering. This allows you to include your baked files and submit it to the clients.

Steps to start a multifile job:

1. Bake your particles/fluid/cloth locally
2. Test your baking by previewing it
3. Create a zip file containing your .blend file and the directory containing your baked physics. This directory is located in the same dir as your blend file, contains a lot of files and has the same name as your blend file.
4. Follow the instructions for standard jobs below, but upload your .zip file instead of your .blend file
5. Tell me if there are any problems

A short tutorial for fluids can be found here: AppBlenderFluid

Blender 2.52

This is the build the client software runs:  http://www.graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=1112

Troubleshooting

In case you experience any errors this maybe helpful: WccTroubleshooting

Standard Jobs

Only the internal renderer is supported so far. Single frame scenes may be rendered, but this is not very useful as they are not splitted atm. Keep the frame timeout in mind when rendering frames. Main usage are animations with a lot of frames.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Make sure your animation meets the requirements
   1. Minimum RAM for clients is 256MB, so your animation should use a maximum of about 200MB. If the animation requires more RAM, you can start the job but will likely have failed frames you must restart.
   2. Maximum processing time is 60 minutes for frames. So make sure your frames finish within this time on a not too new computer. If one of your frames runs on an older computer and takes longer than 60 mins it will be aborted. Then just restart these frames.
2. Set up your Blender file
   1. Select the camera for rendering as active camera
   2. In the render panel set the resolution you would like to use for rendering
   3. Set the options for your output format, e. g. JPEG compression or EXR bit depth
   4. Set "xparts" and "yparts" in the render panel to about 5. This helps to utilize multi core CPUs better if one or more parts take a longer time to render. And it allows the client to track the frame progress more exactly.
   5. Pack all your textures and other stuff into the file
   6. Select "compress" from the file menu
   7. Save the file to your HDD
3. Upload your file to the vSwarm Server by using one of these methods:
   1. FTP: This is the best choice. It allows you to resume interrupted uploads and does not have a file size limit. You can find your login data for FTP at the bottom of the  Manage files page.
   2. For small files it is possible to use the  web upload. The size limit is 10MB per file and if anything goes wrong you have to start this again.
4. After you have uploaded your file  create the job in the vSwarm by submitting the following fields:
   1. Job name: A name to recognize this job
   2. Application: Select the Blender version you would like to use
   3. Filename: Select the file you just uploaded
   4. Start frame: number of the first frame to render (e. g. 1)
   5. End frame: last frame to render (e. g. 3000)
   6. File Format: Select the output format you would like to get your results in. If the format has any options these are read from the blender file.
5. Wait for your job to finish. If any frames have errors you can inspect the blender output in the work units view and restart them.
6. Download your result data. If you have rendered more than a few frames you must use FTP to download your files. Memorize the job id from the Web Control Center and login to the FTP server. Change to the directory "results" and then download all files in the directory of your job.
7. Combine all frames to a movie with the application of your choice. I use Virtual Dub for this step. Just open the first image, Virtual Dub will search all other frames.