I've hit my first glitch in this process. Years ago I did something similar by
having a script call povray.exe for each frame to render. povray.exe would not
exit until the render of the frame was complete. After povray.exe returned the
script could pick the next frame to render and continue. The current
pvengine32/64.exe program runs asynchronously and returns immediately so the
script can't tell when the render is finished. Also, once pvengine is open you
can't call it again with another .ini file to start another frame.

Any ideas?

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hi,

"Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> I've hit my first glitch in this process. Years ago I did something similar by
> having a script call povray.exe for each frame to render. povray.exe would not
> exit until the render of the frame was complete. After povray.exe returned the
> script could pick the next frame to render and continue. The current
> pvengine32/64.exe program runs asynchronously and returns immediately so the
> script can't tell when the render is finished. Also, once pvengine is open you
> can't call it again with another .ini file to start another frame.
>
> Any ideas?

on a *nix-like box, your script could, for instance, use 'ps' to see whether
POV-Ray is still running.  maybe the Windows Ubuntu sub-system thing provides
such tools?


regards, jr.

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"jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> hi,
>
> "Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > I've hit my first glitch in this process. Years ago I did something similar by
> > having a script call povray.exe for each frame to render. povray.exe would not
> > exit until the render of the frame was complete. After povray.exe returned the
> > script could pick the next frame to render and continue. The current
> > pvengine32/64.exe program runs asynchronously and returns immediately so the
> > script can't tell when the render is finished. Also, once pvengine is open you
> > can't call it again with another .ini file to start another frame.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> on a *nix-like box, your script could, for instance, use 'ps' to see whether
> POV-Ray is still running.  maybe the Windows Ubuntu sub-system thing provides
> such tools?
>
>
> regards, jr.

Unfortunately the pvengine never terminates unless the user manually close it.

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hi,

"Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > "Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > > ...
> > > Any ideas?
> >
> > on a *nix-like box, your script could, for instance, use 'ps' to see whether
> > POV-Ray is still running.  maybe the Windows Ubuntu sub-system thing provides
> > such tools?
> >
> > regards, jr.
>
> Unfortunately the pvengine never terminates unless the user manually close it.

not even when your ini file contains 'pause_when_done = off' ?


regards, jr.

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"Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> Unfortunately the pvengine never terminates unless the user manually close it.

Can you use something like:

Post_Scene_Command=taskkill /f pvengine32/64.exe

in your .ini?

http://wiki.povray.org/content/Reference:Shell_Command_Options#Shell_Command_Sequencing

https://techieinspire.com/how-to-start-and-end-or-kill-process-using-dos-command-prompt/

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Am 1/30/20 12:53 PM, also sprach Steve Anger:
> "jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> hi,
>>
>> "Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>>> I've hit my first glitch in this process. Years ago I did something similar by
>>> having a script call povray.exe for each frame to render. povray.exe would not
>>> exit until the render of the frame was complete. After povray.exe returned the
>>> script could pick the next frame to render and continue. The current
>>> pvengine32/64.exe program runs asynchronously and returns immediately so the
>>> script can't tell when the render is finished. Also, once pvengine is open you
>>> can't call it again with another .ini file to start another frame.
>>>
>>> Any ideas?
>>
>> on a *nix-like box, your script could, for instance, use 'ps' to see whether
>> POV-Ray is still running.  maybe the Windows Ubuntu sub-system thing provides
>> such tools?
>>
>>
>> regards, jr.
> 
> Unfortunately the pvengine never terminates unless the user manually close it.
> 
> 
> 

I have povconsole.exe which does what you want.  A gui-less version that 
I drive from my renderfarm.  It's a little old since I switched my farm 
to all linux and haven't needed to update it.
http://www.buckosoft.com/povclipse2/povray/

-- 
dik
Rendered 49,882,521,600 of 49,882,521,600 pixels (100%)

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Dick Balaska <dic### [at] buckosoftcom> wrote:

> I have povconsole.exe which does what you want.  A gui-less version that
> I drive from my renderfarm.  It's a little old since I switched my farm
> to all linux and haven't needed to update it.
> http://www.buckosoft.com/povclipse2/povray/
>
> --
> dik
> Rendered 49,882,521,600 of 49,882,521,600 pixels (100%)

Was there an official source release for that or was it a version you customized
yourself? I need to use povray-3.8.0 since it corrects a rendering bug that
existed in the older versions. If you have the source I could update it with the
latest code.

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Am 1/31/20 9:31 AM, also sprach Steve Anger:
> Dick Balaska <dic### [at] buckosoftcom> wrote:
> 
>> I have povconsole.exe which does what you want.  A gui-less version that
>> I drive from my renderfarm.  It's a little old since I switched my farm
>> to all linux and haven't needed to update it.
>> http://www.buckosoft.com/povclipse2/povray/
>>
>> --
>> dik
>> Rendered 49,882,521,600 of 49,882,521,600 pixels (100%)
> 
> Was there an official source release for that or was it a version you customized
> yourself? I need to use povray-3.8.0 since it corrects a rendering bug that
> existed in the older versions. If you have the source I could update it with the
> latest code.
> 
> 
> 

It is the official source.

 From memory, so I'm likely wrong:
In VS2015 load povray.sln.  Enable subproject Console, disable 
subproject Gui.
Build it.
It will complain that you need to #define _CONSOLE somewhere, and tell 
you where. (Hint: in my copy it's at
windows/povconfig/syspovconfig.h:54:// _CONSOLE must be defined when 
building the console version of POVWIN.
windows/povconfig/syspovconfig.h:56:// #define _CONSOLE
)
So do that and rebuild.

et voilà!

-- 
dik
Rendered 49,882,521,600 of 49,882,521,600 pixels (100%)

Post a reply to this message

> It is the official source.
>
>  From memory, so I'm likely wrong:
> In VS2015 load povray.sln.  Enable subproject Console, disable
> subproject Gui.
> Build it.
> It will complain that you need to #define _CONSOLE somewhere, and tell
> you where. (Hint: in my copy it's at
> windows/povconfig/syspovconfig.h:54:// _CONSOLE must be defined when
> building the console version of POVWIN.
> windows/povconfig/syspovconfig.h:56:// #define _CONSOLE
> )
> So do that and rebuild.
>
> et voilà!
>
> --
> dik
> Rendered 49,882,521,600 of 49,882,521,600 pixels (100%)

Sounds great. Thanks!

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"Steve Anger" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Before I get too far I thought I'd check if someone else has set something like
> this up already.

Hi Steve, sorry for my late reply, but perhaps it is of any interest for you:

I'm running POV-Ray with the help of the Slurm Workload manager on Linux
machines (Google- or Amazon-cloud), see the two YouTube videos:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lligATtAWs ,
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI8EPsuRrsU ,

and a bit of documentation on GitHub, Inc.:

* https://github.com/bullet-physics-playground/demo-povay-slurm#readme


Hth. Kind regards, Koppi

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