Can I open other files and still extend the render later? Also why did my render restart?!

scullygirl818_02147fecb6

I want to get the one project rendered, but it stopped during the night only ran about 5 hours so I need to change the settings. The thing is obviously you can't use DS while it's rendering. I've never tried keeping the window open for the render, but can I open another project to work on and then when I'm done open back up the same project and resume the render or will it dissapear from the cache or whatever? What if I open 2 instances of DS (not sure if you can do that?) Would be great if the particular render was tied to that file so you can just go back any time as long as you don't close it, but I'm afraid to try it.

ETA So I couldn't find the pull out panel to change the settings within the render window for some reason. So I change the time in the regular render settings and boom suddenly I had a resume button - but it started over in the same window! I compared the save last render and it's way more grainy. What did I do wrong? Now I lost 5 hours :( I mean I know it usually will still start over percent-wise but this is actually a new render in the same window

Richard Haseltine

If you leave the render open you don't, as far as I know, need to have the actual DS file open - the data has already been passed to Iray. In theory you should be able to chnage the settings and resume, but sometimes it does seem to insist on starting over.

scullygirl818_02147fecb6

So I can do anything else, just don't I assume start a render of another project? I assume you can't leave multiple renders open and resume either? I also realized, I had the render window super big. I didn't realize the little tab was only in the middle of it. I was trying to pop out the settings and was hitting the resize part of it by mistake; at least that's why I think I couldn't find the tab with the options.

Richard Haseltine

Yes, you can have multiple renders open - but each will be consuming memory.

scullygirl818_02147fecb6

Richard Haseltine said:

Yes, you can have multiple renders open - but each will be consuming memory.

So I can pause one and resume the other then finish it later? I assume the main thing is to make sure you hit resume within the same window? Just worried that if I do that it will restart the render on me like it did earlier within the same window. What if I change render settings or does it not matter because it is saved with each file? Also, by memory you mean it's using RAM leaving it open not the video card memory when it's not rendering, right? Also, how does it know which "save last render" to save? (sometimes I pause the render and use that to see if it's still too grainy for if I shrink it) or would I have to wait until I'm sure I'm done and save? or maybe restart each render a bit first? I'll have to do some testing after I let what I'm rendering now finish I hate to lose 2 hours again if I mess something up.

Richard Haseltine

It should resume if the settings are unchanged, but as I said this doesn't always seem to be the case. Yes, it is using GPU memory if it was rendering on the GPU. Save last Render should work on the last active render, I think, though it's not something I can recall testing.