Blendigo 2.0.6.1

[WytRaven]

So what's the avenue for recovery in the instance of a crash after X number of hours? At least with autosaving igi's there was a point to continue from. Due to the nature of this render engine and therefore the long render times it can be easily 8 hours between times when I am actually checking the render (and therefore manually saving i guess).

Perhaps the autosaving of igi's could be made a "system" thing, hidden from the user to simply jump to the rescue in case of a crash. I'm think something similar to say MS Office auto-recover.

Just a thought as I am a little concerned about completely manual saving being the only option is all.

[benn]

@wytraven yeah i was thinking that as i wrote that. I'll have to see what nick thinks. We definitely need some kind of autosave - but i thought it'd make more sense to have it set via the GUI (which controls network rendering, scheduling in the future, etc) than per-plugin.

I may of course - be totally off base with this one.

[ROUBAL]

The autosave feature must include the igi scene as well as the current png image (the one that was updated every x minutes in the autosave folder in previous versions).

To be sure that there is something usable in case of computer or render crash is very important, but the ability of copying the last render in png format from the autosave folder is also useful : It allows to work on a composition with a medium quality image that will be replaced later in the final project by the high quality image when we will decide to stop the rendering. This also allows to show a preview of the project to your clients while the high quality image is still rendering.

[suvakas]

Saving or not saving igi should stay optional, cause they are relatively large in size. It could be turned on by default, but there should be a way to turn it off.

@ROUBAL
You can already save manually at any time during the rendering so no need to copy png's around from autosave folder at all.

[Doug Armand]

but i thought it'd make more sense to have it set via the GUI (which controls network rendering, scheduling in the future, etc) than per-plugin.

I may of course - be totally off base with this one.

I agree with you Benn that it seem the best avenue to provide these kind of options, autosave etc, only on the GUI for consistencies sake. Also makes it easier to control programmatically and leaves the exporter developers less work so they can concentrate on what really needs to be done at their end - all this from a non-programmer of course

[ROUBAL]

You can already save manually at any time during the rendering so no need to copy png's around from autosave folder at all.

@suvakas : You are right on this point. I had forgotten that, but it remains true that In case of crash, you will not be able to save manually from the GUI! so saving automatically the png image each x seconds appears like an absolute necessity for me.

[suvakas]

@suvakas : You are right on this point. I had forgotten that, but it remains true that In case of crash, you will not be able to save manually from the GUI! so saving automatically the png image each x seconds appears like an absolute necessity for me.

True. And it's still working fine here. Don't know why it's not working for Blender users anymore. But i guess it will be sorted out with the next builds.

[WytRaven]

I personally don't see the point of auto saving a png as you can't resume from a png. The igi you can resume from. If it were made an indigo hidden system feature then you would only need 1 igi to be saved just to handle crash situations.

eg. the GUI could transparently auto save a file called autosave.igi whenever you start a render, just overwriting the same file with a new one each time a new scene is rendered. Indigo itself could maintain a flag in the registry (mac equivalent?) that it clears on startup and sets on exit to indicate a clean close and also the path of the last rendered scene. If indigo starts and checks the flag finding it cleared it knows it's crashed and can prompt the user to ask if they want to "recover" and resume using the stored path of the last scene plus the autosave.igi.

Am I making sense?

[fused]

Yes, very much.

+1

[suvakas]

Only one autosave igi?
Good thinking WytRaven. That's a great idea.

[Doug Armand]

I personally don't see the point of auto saving a png as you can't resume from a png. The igi you can resume from. If it were made an indigo hidden system feature then you would only need 1 igi to be saved just to handle crash situations.

No I want to be able to save the .igi file as a seperate named file not just as a temp file for Indigo own use to resume after a crash. I am often rendering more than one project on the go and as such I store my own named .igi with all the rest of the files for a particular render/project so I can resume them as I need to.

This is pro software for experienced users and as such shouldn't hide options from us. I have no problem if there are preset defaults but please let us select the what, when and where.

[SmartDen]

actually we should go back to the aold save model with autosave option and an optioanl igi saving. it worked good, so why change it?

agree with you Benn that it seem the best avenue to provide these kind of options, autosave etc, only on the GUI for consistencies sake. Also makes it easier to control programmatically and leaves the exporter developers less work

it is not so much work to add a button in GUI but it makes exporter much handy

[WytRaven]

My God am I speaking Swahili or something? This has nothing to do with built in saving functionality of the GUI. I am talking about an automatic, but user transparent, auto recovery feature...

In other words you can still save the image at any time you like, in whatever format you want, to wherever you want from the normal GUI save image function and you can also resume using the normal method using whatever files you saved if you choose to. ie nothing changes in the current interface. BUT replacing the current save-every-x-seconds system which is causing much headache for some users with a hidden version of the same thing that saves your ass in the case of a crash.

Suvakas if you have issue with only a single autosave.igi being used then how about 2 being used in a round robin fashion (a la double buffered screen drawing technique) so if a crash occurs during a write of autosave1.igi then autosave2.igi is resumed from or vice versa whichever the case may be...but I would have thought that was an obvious extrapolation of the original idea that is really for the developer to sort out during desgin/implementation. I wasn't aware that idea expression required complete concept and design documents before sharing these days...

The only scenario I can think of that causes issue with this concept and would require some thought on handling is multiple instances of indigo and therefore multiple renders running at once. I don't do that myself but I know some users do like to run multiple renders simultaneously. Possibly a problem with network rendering which I have no experience with and so can't comment on at all.

As for whoever made the "igi's are too big" comment. If 2 igis of any realistic size are too big for your system to handle then you should be seriously considering your hard drive situation.

Anyway I can only hope that Ben understands what I am suggesting as in the end he and ono are the only ones that need to.

Geez and here I was hoping to avoid arguments again...seems impossible these days.

The one thing I don't like about the latest blendigo is that the igs being exported is no longer under user control. In other words you used to be able to turn off auto start and it would prompt for a save location (allowing subsequent xml editing with ease) whereas now the igs is getting saved to a temp folder somewhere and I find that anoying. I would definitely like to have manual .igs saving restored as an option. So in that case I half agree with SmartDen's last comment.

[Doug Armand]

The only scenario I can think of that causes issue with this concept and would require some thought on handling is multiple instances of indigo and therefore multiple renders running at once. I don't do that myself but I know some users do like to run multiple renders simultaneously. Possibly a problem with network rendering which I have no experience with and so can't comment on at all.

That is exactly what I do - run multiple copies of Indigo at low res size renders while I check out different materials, lighting, etc. All on a solo system - no network rendering involved.

I just don't see what the problem is of having the GUI offer the save options. Options that be changed on the fly. The End user then has total control - either leave the defaults and just render or select just what options the user wants. Don't see what the problem is here. Have a automatic recovery option if you want - but if I can set my own named .igi file to save every xx seconds I personally don't need it.

As I said earlier I am just an end user but from past experience I would prefer not to have the software designer choose whats best for me. Benn tried this, with the best intentions of course , in hiding the Blendigo script after export, doing so because he 'thought' it would help workflow, which for some users it didn't - me included.

Just give us end users a billion check boxes and then we can flood the forum with questions of 'what does this do'?

[WytRaven]

Just give us end users a billion check boxes and then we can flood the forum with questions of 'what does this do'?

Watch out Doug! You'll make ne0 cry with comments like that