Neocortix Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use Neocortix Cloud Services Scalable Compute to run a distributed batch rendering job, using Blender.

First, please follow the steps in the tutorial Setting Up For Batch Jobs. After completion of the initial setup, you will have a directory with examples,

~/ncsexamples

In the subdirectory

~/ncsexamples/batchMode

you will find the runBatchBlender.py command. This script will create a set of instances running on mobile devices. In the default example provided, 6 frames of the

SpinningCube.blend

animation are to be rendered (

startFrame = 0, endFrame = 5

), and since

autoscaleInit = 2

, 12 instances will be initially created.

blendFilePath = 'SpinningCube.blend'
frameFileType = 'png'
startFrame = 0,
endFrame = 5,
autoscaleInit = 2,

It will command the instances to install Blender, then command the instances to render the requested frames.

def frameCmd( self, frameNum ):
    blendFileName = os.path.basename( self.blendFilePath )
    cmd = 'blender -b -noaudio --enable-autoexec %s -o %s --render-format %s -f %d' % \
        (blendFileName, self.outFilePattern, self.frameFileType.upper(), frameNum)
    return cmd

Each rendered output file will be sent back to the master host, and the master will then terminate the instances. If

ffmpeg

is installed on the master host, it will be called to generate an MP4 movie from the rendered frames.

With this simple framework, you can easily substitute your own Blender file to render your own animation. Just edit the

runBatchBlender.py

file to change the

blendFilePath

to replace

SpinningCube.blend

with the name of your Blender file, and edit

startFrame

and

endFrame

to specify which frames you want rendered.

Example Command

Substituting Your Own Blender File