Note: This survey was done in 2014.


Features Jobs/Rendering

Set number of render app licenses Example: The companyhas 40 machines, but only 10 Nuke, 20 Maya and 15 Cinema4D licenses. Therefore the manager should not send a Nuke job to all machines at thesame time.
Set number of plugin licenses Example: The company has only 10Sapphire for Nuke plugin licenses.
Auto-recognition if licenses are in use. Example: An artist usesNuke on a workstation, so the farm does not have the 20 licenses thathave been setup. It will fail after 19 Nuke jobs are started and needsto recognize the fail as license reduction. Not as a crash. The manager will render on max 19Clients from now on.
Artist checkout of render licenses. Example: The farm uses all 20 Nuke licenses. An artist cancheckout a Nuke license and a Client will automatically aborted to freeone license. From now on the farm will use max 19 Nuke licenses.
Job render order - Priority: a per job priority setting The job render order is the order in which jobs are send to Clients. If there would be no render order setting available, then the managerwould render "first in - first out". The priority is the simplest setting to set which job should berendered first.
Job render order - Average by priority: all jobs withsamepriority get same amount of clients
Job render order - Average by user: each user(or project if available)getsthe same amount of clients
Job render order - Preferred jobs: Jobs ofuser/project/renderer have a higher/preferred priority on Client/pool X.
A jobstops after a few frames have been rendered and waits for an userapproval. The job will not continue to render until it was approved by an artist.
A jobstops after all frames have been rendered and waits foran user approval. The job will not continue to until it was approved by anartist. A job would continue to do some post-processing with all frames (ifpost-processing is available in the manager like copy to an Avid)
Abilityto choose a custom (predefined) command linefor a job before any frame is rendered. This is not apre-frame commandline. It is a pre-job commandline. For example one Client has to generates a big cache file for the wholescene. After this cache file is created, the frames can be rendered.
Ability to choose a custom (predefined) command lineafter all frames are rendered. For example move all frames to an Avid or crop all EXR files.
Local Scene Caching. The scene which should be renderedis cached on the local machine. Therefore the scene does not have to beread from the network again for the next frame.
Local file caching based on a list/file send with thejob. For example textures are used for more than one job. The Client keepsthe files in sync as long as they are in the texture list of any jobthe Client gets.
Auto-create videos/quicktimes for a job after it wasrendered.
The manager will render the frames with a higher framestep first, then it renders all frames. For example it renders every 10th or 50th frame beforerendering allframes. Or the render manager render the middle frame, then all middleframes of each half, then the middle center of eachquarter, …
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	16	3	6	11	6	2	5	8	8

Error handling

It is notified if the render application crashes.
A render is aborted after a “Max frametime” or “Task timeout” per frame
Renderer froze: The renderer is still running, but itfroze or executes a loop on the last image tile. It does notfinish theframe and runs forever. (This is not the “Max Frame time” or“Task Timeout”. Example: After some time the renderer got uses onecore only. The Client recognizes this and aborts the render app.)
Check for error messages in render logs
Check if the filesrendered/simulated exist after rendering
Can the rendered image be loaded or is the image broken?
Is a render tile missing inside the rendered image? Sometimes a renderer renders an image, but one tile of the image isbroken/black. This is not a tile produced by the managers "Tile Frame" feature.
Remove a Client from job after x crashes/errors
Disable Job after x  crashes/errors
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	9	0	6	9	6	0	3	6	7

Features Notifications

Workstation Popup -  job was finished
Workstation Popup -  job was disabled because of crashes
Email notification – job finished
Email notification – job was disabled because of crashes
Email notification – Client/client thatshould run 24/7 disappeared (power failure, your application  crashed, bluescreen,…)
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	4	0	2	5	4	0	0	2	5

Features Control/Managejobs
Note: This is a short selection of settings that could besend for a job.
"Change only single existing job " means that you change one job in your queue, but it will not affect all other jobs.
E.g. Changing the Maya commandline for all Maya jobs to change the verbose level.
It has to be a settings for that one job, available via an UI.

Changeonly single existing job - render priority
Changeonly single existing job - client/Client assignment
Changeonly single existing job - job dependencies (I do not wantthat job X is still waiting for Y)
Changeonly single existing job - the managers job settings - some (settings you set at submission like task timeout or required memory)
Changeonly single existing job - the managers job settings - all (settings you set at submission like task timeout or requiredmemory)
Changeonly single existing job - frame range
Changeonly single existing job - image size
Changeonly single existing job - renderers verbose level
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	8	3	4	8	8	5	4	8	8

Features View

While rendering – view renderer logfile
While rendering – view CPU usage of Clientssystem
While rendering – view Memory usage ofClients system
While rendering – view CPU usage of rendereronly
While rendering – view Memory usage ofrenderer only
After job finished – view renderer logfile
After job finished – view old CPU usage ofrenderer at render time
After job finished – view old Memory usage ofrenderer at render time
View the rendered frames of a job via an integrated image viewer
Re-render broken/deleted frames (The artist does not need to write down all broken frames and he does not have to re-submit anything)
Frame Table - Which frame was rendered by which client
Frame Table - What was the render time for each frame
Frame Table - What was the memory usage per frame
Cost calculation via Ghz x h
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	14	3	8	11	7	7	8	9	12

Features Pipeline/Customization

User Management  (user X is not allowed tomanage/view jobs of user Y)
User Group Management (users can be added to groups andrights can be assigned per group)
Old jobs Database: Deleted jobs are exported into adatabase. Artists/producers can check jobs from last month/year for the rendertime.
Access jobs via python
Access jobs via C++
Access jobs via Node.js
Access jobs via RESTful API
Accessjobs via MySQL, SQLite
Submission UI can be modified [Y]= Simple re-arrangement via mouse [C]= Some elements can be hidden/shown via config file [S]= user interface is scripted	C		S	Y	S	S	S	S	C
Manage UI  (view job list, control jobs) canbe modified [Y]= Simple re-arrangement via mouse [C]= Some elements can be hidden/shown via config file [S]= user interface is scripted	Y		S	Y	Y	S	Y,S		Y
Implement custom (python) job commands into thejob/Client overview application (e.g. execute python script that reads selected job settings)
Implement custom (python) client commands intothe job/Client overview application (e.g. execute remote session to selected machine or a custom file copy)
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	6	0	6	7	7	4	1	4	3

Features Statistics/Reports
Note: This is just a selection of stats that you could be interested in as render wrangler.

View farm utilization from last week to analyse howmuch idle time % the Clients/clients had.
Jobs are not in queue any more - Get number of framesrendered last October
Jobs are done (still in queue or exported)  -Get number of frames rendered yesterday
The producer needs the average render time/frame andnumber of frames of jobs X-Y from last week. (to calculate costs andcheck if you can meet the deadline)
Analyse how many machines have been idle due to renderlicense limitation last week. E.g. you have 10 Nuke licenses but you had enough Nuke jobs to renderon 20 machines all the time.
Sum Out-Of-The-Box features	1	0	1	5	5	0	4	0	2