Hello all,

I am becoming increasingly confused as to what type of platforms I can use with HQueue. I have a HUGE potential farm available to me and many many HBatch licenses. All of the computers, save 1, are Windows based. The one other computer is my Linux machine and that runs the license server and HQueue.

I am hearing conflicting reports that I cannot use ANY of the Windows machines as clients to run HBatch in the context of using HQueue. For example, Here are different statements made on the subject:

From SideFX.com Forums: A SFX developer says, “To set up a local renderfarm, you can install HQueue on a sever and then use the ”Local Farm" tab of the Hqueue rop to submit jobs to it. Linux HQueue servers are currently supported and we're adding support for Mac and Windows servers. HQueue clients (the other machines in the farm) can be running Linux, Mac, or Windows.

From SideFX.com Customer Support: “Unfortunately, in Houdini10.0, both server and clients have to run linux…”

So, the questions become the following:

Is there anyone here that, in as clear a language as possible, can clear up whether or not I can use HBatch running on Windows machines to receive jobs from HQueue for a distributed simulation? If not can you provide some insight as to why?

Is there anyone here that, in as clear a language as possible, can clear up whether or not I can use HBatch running on Windows machines to receive jobs from HQueue for a distributed render? If not can you provide some insight as to why?

I really do appreciate anyone who would spend their time answering this. I would hate to not be able to build this farm with the resources that I have available to me. Thank you in advance.

NOTE: This was posted at odforce for over 5 days and no one was able to answer the question so I cross posted it here.

David

I am sorry I missed your post on OdForce.

Hqueue and distributed rendering is still considered to be beta in H10.0 with only support for Linux. It's release has been delayed and is now tied to the next major release of Houdini where there should be support for Linux, Windows and the Mac.

The next major release is currently in Alpha. Please contact your Side Effects rep and cc myself (jeff at sidefx.com).

Thank you Jeff. It was really starting to bug me not having a clearly defined answer to that. It's good news that the next release is in Alpha and that the Windows platform is being considered for HQueue.

Now that I know that there is no way to utilize my resources via HQueue can I utilize the technique you use in the fluid simulation entry in your OSB for my Windows machines?

Yes I believe you can bootstrap the distribution of sims but it's all manual and no hqueue to manage things at this point in time.

On windows you can use the chsell supplied by Houdini or install and configure cygwin or use python. Use the correct version of Python to match Houdini's which I believe is 2.5.1 but launch Houdini and check/confirm the python shell as that's always a good thing to do.

Jeff,

So, this is basically what's going on here:

1.) I cannot use HQueue to fire Distributed Simulation Jobs to any Windows machine running HBatch.

2.) I cannot use HQueue to fire Distributed Rendering Jobs to any Windows machine. Is Distributed Rendering the same as firing a render to a render farm? It would seem so but it is best not to assume.

Is the above basically correct? If it is then could you tell me if I can use Alfred to fire Distributed Rendering to a Mantra farm that is windows based? All the stuff I have read says that I can but documentation on exactly how to do so is sketchy at best. Can you point me to some fairly complete documentation on this?

I know the following is a long shot but could a modification be made that allows Alfred to schedule Distributed Simulation jobs to windows machines running HBatch? For that matter is there any existing 3rd party job scheduler that can be used in place of HQueue to fire Distributed Simulations to Windows based machines?

Thank you for your thoughts on this.

David

Distribute Simulation is different than firing a render to a render farm.
It is used to divide your fluid simulations between machines at simulation stage (not at the rendering stage), allowing you to do simulations that would have been otherwise too computationally expensive or too slow for one machine.
For the Distribute Simulation to work properly, it needs the machines to sync up and trade information on their calculations. For that reason, you cannot use Alfred to distribute a sim. You will need Hqueue or to follow Jeff's instructions on the Old School Blog.

Now, if you wish to submit “normal” renders to the farm, you can use any queueing software you wish, and submit to windows, Linux or OSX

YAY! Silvina!

It's David here at TTU. I thought I'd give you a bit of a break and ask some clarifying questions here at the forums.

I didn't think Alfred could be cannibalized in such a way but I needed to ask. I have Alfred and 233 RMan nodes so at least I can begin from that standpoint. Hope you had a good Easter Silvina. Have a great day.

David

Hi David,
I have a 4 year-old at home. Working at SESI is my break!!

I hear ya. My wife and I have a 6 month old at home. Working with SESI is my break.