"Chris B" <c_b### [at] btconnectcomnospam> wrote:

> Not what I would have expected from the documentation.
>

Oh! Dear. I should read questions properly.
You are right, I can see this being a problem.

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I've found a relatively easy work-around.  All you need to do is declare 
you're own variable within the .pov file which stores the total number 
of frames in the animation.  Then you simply call that variable, instead 
of "final_frame".  It gets around the bug in the Subset commands, but is 
yet another variable I have to remember to change as I alter the 
animations...

thanx for your help guy's

Bryan

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Bryan Heit <bjh### [at] NOSPAMucalgaryca> wrote:
> I'm using povray for windows, version 3.6, 32-bit.  I've started getting
> into some very large animations (1500+ frames per scene).  As I result
> I've been having splitting my animations into chunks and rendering each
> chunk on a different computer.

I have seen problems in the log files as well, like "rendering frame 400 of
50"
But i had no actual problems with it.

I think i had exactly the same situation: rendering lot's of frames on
multiple comuters. I wrote a povray file that when run, generates
dos/windows batch files, each with a povray render commend for a single
frame, like: +SF195 +EF196

it's here:
http://news.povray.org/povray.text.scene-files/thread/%3Cweb.43ee7ee69367b201a8399d8d0%40news.povray.org%3E/

all you need a shared folder on the windows network that can be used form
all PC's.

on the "master" i run a batchfile that repeatedly runs the master.pov. it
keeps track of the status of all render nodes using a text file. if it
detects that a node as completed it's frame, a new render command for that
node is generated.
Each node repeatedly copies its render commands from the shared folder, runs
them (i.e: starting povray) and returning the resulting image to the shared
folder.
The nice thing is that all computers are finished at the same time, even if
the used computers are very different and/or some parts of the animation
render faster than other parts.
It works upto 10 pc's (shared folder limit of WinXP) but it's unlimited if
the shared folder is on a win98 or windows server computer.

later i made a special version of master.pov, called copy.pov. instead of
sending render commands, it makes "copy povray files form shared
directory"-commands, effectively updating the povray-code on each node.

It also calculates the average render time per frame, and displays some
stats and the expected ETA, so you know when everything will be rendered.
I think the ETA calculation uses a get_time function that is only available
in the megapov version, so you may need to disable that part of the code.

have a look. If you try it and have any problem with it, let me know.

jaap.

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Jaap wrote:
> I think i had exactly the same situation: rendering lot's of frames on
> multiple comuters. I wrote a povray file that when run, generates
> dos/windows batch files, each with a povray render commend for a single
> frame, like: +SF195 +EF196

Looks like it would work, except that many of the computers I'm using 
are not networked together (or even connected to a network in some 
cases).  A lot of the computers I am using are ones at work - I set them 
up to run overnight and collect the rendered frames in the AM.

Bryan

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