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HOWTO: First steps

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Rabit edited this page Nov 30, 2020 · 6 revisions

Here you will see how to run the BlendNet addon on your Blender 2.8.

Video reference

You can check the video for BlendNet v0.2 which describes how to get your first render and the whole path from scratch.

Requirements

You should have installed Blender >= 2.8 (2.80, 2.81, 2.82, 2.83, 2.90, etc...)

Download BlendNet

To support our work you can buy it on BlenderMarket or just transfer some money to our wallets https://www.state-of-the-art.io/about/

Also you can find BlendNet in the official GitHub repository: https://github.com/state-of-the-art/BlendNet - to easily install it, follow the next steps:

  1. Go to BlendNet GitHub releases page: https://github.com/state-of-the-art/BlendNet/releases
  2. Select the required version and click on Source code assets link (zip or tag.gz)
  3. Save the archive somewhere

Install BlendNet addon

You just downloaded the required files - it's time to install the Addon and get all the profit.

  1. Open Blender

  2. Go to menu Edit --> Preferences...

  3. In preferences select Add-ons tab

  4. Click on button Install...:

    Preferences - Install addon

  5. In the opened file window navigate the downloaded BlendNet zip file and open on it

  6. Blender will show you that addon is installed

  7. Now you need to activate it by click on checkbox:

    Preferences - Enabling addon

  8. If you are on the fresh installation - you will probably see this picture:

    Preferences - Info and settings

  9. And there the basic installation is completed, now you need to choose...

Choose provider

You need to choose the provider to allow BlendNet to use the proper resources. Those providers setup are quite different, so please check the additional documents:

NOTE: Ideally all the components of BlendNet (Addon, Manager and Agent) should use the same version, otherwise it could lead to weird communication issues.

General step-by-step

These steps are here to show the practices which will help with understanding how BlendNet is working in general. Those should not change much over the time, but expect some improvements in the latest versions.

Run the Manager

  1. Open Render tab

  2. Switch Engine to "Cycles" and you will see BlendNet Render panel

    Render - Change the engine

  3. Open BlendNet Agents (0) panel

  4. For Agents type select "n1-standard-1" type - it's your first time, so it's a good to start:

    Render - Agents type config

  5. Click on plus button right on Manager panel - manager will go to start now, it will take ~2 min:

    Render - Agents type config

The same button, but with "X" icon you could use to stop the Manager and it's Agents.

Save project

You need to save the project somewhere - BlendNet will use the project directory to store temp files and results.

  1. From menu File select Save As and save the project somewhere
  2. If you want to store the results in the project - go to Context and change Output Path to "//out/" for example to store render in the "project dir/out" folder.

Run the first render task

Now when project is saved and Manager is Active you can actually run the task.

  1. Ensure the Manager got the "Active" state - that means Addon is connected with Manager properly:

    Render - Manager active

  2. Click on button Run Image Task to send the current frame and samples to Manager:

    Render - Run image task

  3. Check that the task is now available in the Manager task list:

    Render - Task running

Right after publishing the task - BlendNet Manager is working on it: scheduling agents and running the execution:

GCP - started manager and agents

Open Task Preview

BlendNet can render multiple tasks at once - so the usual render window is acting slightly different: The render process is just a preview of what's happening on the Manager - you can cancel updating the preview, but BlendNet will continue to execute tasks until they will be completed even if the Blender will be closed.

  1. Select this task in the Manager task list and click on Task Preview button:

    Render - Task Preview window

  2. Depends on your render settings - it will open Image View window with the BlendNet Preview process

  3. If the agents is already started - you will see the preview.

    Render - Task Preview window results

  4. When status bar will reach 100% and task will be marked as "COMPLETED" - preview will download the render and store it in the output directory.

    Render - Task Preview completed

Running another task

  1. Just click on the Run Image Task again:

    Render - Task Preview new task

  2. Don't cancel the preview and just click on the new task - the preview will be changed:

    Render - Task Preview switch task

You can have a number of pending tasks in the list and switch between them when Preview is open - it will automatically switch between previews of the selected tasks.

In the end

When all the tasks are completed - manager waiting for 5 minutes and stopping the agents to save your money.

GCP - stopped agents

The Manager will continue to work until you will stop it - so don't forget to shut id down by clicking on X button on the Manager panel.

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