what do I get with a houdini license ?

[MrGAG]

Hello everyone,

I guess this question has already been asked, but I need a straight answer (because my boss is finally ok to include houdini in our pipeline !! yeahh !!):

How many network computers can I work with ?

Also, I don't really understand what hbatch is doing ... is it just a command line version of houdini ?

Cheers

[beeemtee]

hi,

it's described at:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=385&Itemid=190

hbatch is the command line version of houdini. you can do what ever you can with hscript (and python). in practice it's best for generating ifd-s or running simulations without locking up a workstation. it's also very handy when you want to distribute these tasks to headless machines accross your network. you can try it in apprentice, just type

hbatch myScene.hip

in a command line.

cheers

bmt

[symek]

Hello everyone,

I guess this question has already been asked, but I need a straight answer (because my boss is finally ok to include houdini in our pipeline !! yeahh !!):

How many network computers can I work with ?

Also, I don't really understand what hbatch is doing ... is it just a command line version of houdini ?

Cheers

Along with Escape/Master license, you get unlimited licenses for Mantra rendering, what is a killer offer. In practice this implies additional purchase of hbatch licenses, since it's hard to feed, say 30 render nodes with ifd files based on a single Houdini workstation. Still this is really good offer.

[MrGAG]

thank you guys

Along with Escape/Master license, you get unlimited licenses for Mantra rendering, what is a killer offer. In practice this implies additional purchase of hbatch licenses, since it's hard to feed, say 30 render nodes with ifd files based on a single Houdini workstation. Still this is really good offer.

we have 10 render nodes, so I guess 1 hbatch license would be enough for me.

am I right ?

[symek]

thank you guys

we have 10 render nodes, so I guess 1 hbatch license would be enough for me.

am I right ?

This mostly depends on an average complexity of your scenes and/or users base . Heavy scenes can take ages to create ifds, thus your nodes will wait longer to start rendering. There are also different tasks for hbatch like distributed sims, baking geometry, post-processing images etc. So one hbatch is pretty under optimal even for a small farm. On the other hand number of users is also important factor for astimating hbatch needs. If your're alone, single license could be fine. In other case, you should consider additional licenses (at least one per user). Of course one hbatch per node is perfect scenario .

[Elias]

So if I understand correctly. A node on the farm needs to fed with IFD's, I could not submit a hip file and get images back?

[melazoma]

So if I understand correctly. A node on the farm needs to fed with IFD's, I could not submit a hip file and get images back?

Not exactly. It depends on which program(s) you run on the node on the farm and how you run it.

Case 1:

Generate the ifd files from a hip file in either houdini (interactive) or hbatch. The ifd generation process can also be run on a server node using hbatch.

Server node is assigned a mantra rendering task, in which the "mantra" program needs to be given an ifd file. In this case, the process only uses a mantra render token during the render.

This is generally easier to manage from a render farm wrangling perspective because you can assign 1 frame of ifd per server node, which can make load-balancing (manually or automatically) and error recovery easier.

Case 2:

Skip ifd generation. Server node is assigned a hbatch task, in which hbatch is given a hip file and instructed to render 1 or several ROP nodes.

Images are rendered directly as if using an interactive houdini session without the graphical UI. In this case, the process uses a hbatch license and a mantra render token during the render.

While this allows you to render images directly, hbatch (essentially houdini itself) has to evaluate the node network(s) leading up to the render ROP, so the complexity of your networks may impact your total progress time of your render.

[Elias]

Yeah case 1 sounds better to me too.

Could free Houdini licenses also be used as hbatch licenses on the farm? So if people leave work at 5PM, an additional 10-20 IFD generating nodes would become available on the farm? The interactive licenses would of course not be available to the farm during the workday, unless someone is sick and don't need a license.

[melazoma]

Yeah case 1 sounds better to me too.

Could free Houdini licenses also be used as hbatch licenses on the farm? So if people leave work at 5PM, an additional 10-20 IFD generating nodes would become available on the farm? The interactive licenses would of course not be available to the farm during the workday, unless someone is sick and don't need a license.

Yes, free (as in not being used) Houdini (FX/non-FX) licenses can also be used as hbatch licenses on the farm.

Also note that while Houdini (non-FX) licenses are unable to create or change any DOP/POP/Houdini FX-specific nodes in GUI mode, when used as a hbatch license, it can be used to perform any tasks Houdini FX is capable of including DOP/POP sims.

So by day a Houdini license is a seat for the junior artist, and by night it doubles as a full-blown sim/render license running heavy-load processes which you usually don't want to run in the GUI anyways. Quite the value if you ask me.

[CiaranM]

Don't forget you can run as many instances of hbatch as possible on a single machine and it will consume just a single license. You should take advantage of that since you have a small renderfarm. Also, try to reduce your render scenes to contain only delayed-load procedurals as much as possible. This will make IFD generation on a single machine trivial. Sure, you'll spend time baking out the geometry beforehand, but the IFD generation will fly after that.