27eb7be547
Reorganise the FAQ, grouping the questions in "Features" and "Troubleshooting". Also I removed the explanation of the difference between Flamenco v2 and v3, as that's quite obsolete now.
187 lines
7.8 KiB
Markdown
187 lines
7.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Frequently Asked Questions
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weight: 10
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geekdocNav: false
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geekdocHidden: true
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---
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{{< toc format=html >}}
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## Features
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### What is new in Flamenco 3?
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The more interesting changes in Flamenco versions are listed in the [changelog][changelog].
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[changelog]: https://projects.blender.org/studio/flamenco/src/branch/main/CHANGELOG.md
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### What's the difference with OpenCue?
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OpenCue is aimed at a different audience than Flamenco. OpenCue is a large and
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complex project, and relies on a lot of components
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([source](https://www.opencue.io/docs/getting-started/)), whereas Flamenco is
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made for simplicity and use in small studios or at home, running on your own
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hardware.
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### I use a mix of different operating systems, can I still use Flamenco?
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Yes, absolutely. To support multiple platforms, first configure your Manager for
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its own platform (so if you run that on Linux, use Linux paths). Then you can
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use [Two-way Variables][twovars] to translate those paths to the other
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platforms.
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Do note that Flamenco was developed on Linux, for the Linux-only [Blender
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Studio][studio]. You may find issues that the developers did not run into
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themselves. If you do, please [report a bug][bug].
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[twovars]: {{< ref "usage/variables/multi-platform" >}}
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[studio]: https://studio.blender.org/
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[bug]: https://projects.blender.org/studio/flamenco/issues/new?template=.gitea%2fissue_template%2fbug.yaml
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### How do I make the Workers render on GPU?
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Blender needs to know which method to use (CUDA, Optix, etc.), and on which
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video card. This is something you'll need to configure yourself. Start Blender
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on the worker machine, and then [update the preferences][cycles-gpu-prefs]. If
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you disabled automatic saving of preferences, be sure to save them before you
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quit Blender.
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Also be sure to *not* use `--factory-startup` in your Blender CLI arguments, as
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that will reset Blender back to using the CPU. If you're using bog-standard
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Flamenco settings, then don't worry about this, it doesn't use that option.
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[cycles-gpu-prefs]: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/preferences/system.html#cycles-render-device
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### Can I make a Worker render on a specific GPU?
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In short: not really, not only with Flamenco, anyway.
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The issue is that Blender has no commandline options to reliably select the
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GPU(s) to use. The last information the Flamenco team heard of this was that
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certain drivers are unreliably reporting the GPU order when they are of
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identical make & model. So you could in theory tell Blender to run on GPU #1,
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and another Blender on GPU #2, but since the second Blender may see them in a
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different order, in the end both would use the same GPU, and one GPU would be
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idle.
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A possible workarounds could be to have multiple copies of Blender on your
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computer, and using the utilities of your video card to configure each Blender
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copy to only use a specific GPU. Then run multiple Flamenco Workers on that
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machine, each having a different Blender on its `$PATH`.
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### Can I change the paths/names of the rendered files?
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Where Flamenco places the rendered files is determined by the job type. You can
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create [your own custom job type][jobtypes] or check the existing
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[third-party job types][thirdpartyjobs] to change this. With that, you can
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even add your own custom job settings like a sequence identifier and use that to
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determine the location of rendered files.
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### Can Flamenco render a single image across multiple Workers?
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Flamenco does not support this at the moment. In theory this would be possible
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with a [custom job type][jobtypes]. With the Cycles render engine it might be
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possible it set up a set of tasks that each render a specific chunk of samples,
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and then merge those samples together for the final image.
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If you have made a custom job type that does this, please contact us to get it
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added to the [third-party jobs section][thirdpartyjobs].
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### Can I use the Compositor to output multiple EXR files or Passes?
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This is possible with Flamenco, but it takes a bit of work. Although it's not
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managed by Flamenco's default job types, you can use a [custom job type][jobtypes]
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for this.
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With that, you have control over the arguments that get used before and/or after
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the filename on the CLI.
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There are Flamenco jobs out there that support compositor nodes,
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multi-platform, and multiple pass outputs. You can check our [third-party jobs
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section][thirdpartyjobs].
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If you wish to contribute to the project, you're invited to
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[get involved with Flamenco][getinvolved]!
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[jobtypes]: {{< ref "usage/job-types" >}}
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[thirdpartyjobs]: {{< ref "third-party-jobs" >}}
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[getinvolved]: {{< ref "development/get-involved" >}}
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### Can I use SyncThing, Dropbox, Google Drive, or other file syncing software?
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Flamenco assumes that once a file has been written by one worker, it is
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immediately available to any other worker, like what you'd get with a NAS.
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Similarly, it assumes that when a job has been submitted, it can be worked on
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immediately.
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Such assumptions no longer hold true when using an asynchronous service like
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SyncThing, Dropbox, etc.
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Note that this is not just about the initally submitted files. Also the
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rendering of a preview video from individual images assumes that those images
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are immediately accessible after they've been rendered.
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It might be possible to create a complex [custom job type][jobtypes] for this,
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but that's all untested. The hardest part is to know when all necessary files
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have arrived on a specific worker, without waiting for *all* syncing to be
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completed (as someone may have just submitted another job).
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## Troubleshooting
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### My Worker cannot find my Manager, what do I do?
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First check the Manager output on the terminal, to see if it shows any messages
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about "auto-discovery" or "UPnP/SSDP". Most of the time it's actually Spotify
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getting in the way, so make sure to close that before you start the Manager.
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If that doesn't help, you'll have to tell the Worker where it can find the
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Manager. This can be done on the commandline, by running it like
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`flamenco-worker -manager http://192.168.0.1:8080/` (adjust the address to your
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situation) or more permanently by [editing the worker configuration
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file][workercfg].
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[workercfg]: {{< ref "usage/worker-configuration" >}}
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### My Worker cannot find Blender, what do I do?
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When installing and starting the Flamenco Worker you may see a warning in the logs that says
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the Worker cannot find Blender.
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```
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WRN Blender could not be found. Flamenco Manager will have to supply the full path to Blender when Tasks are sent to this Worker. For more help see https://flamenco.blender.org/usage/variables/blender/
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```
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If Flamenco cannot locate Blender on the system it is possible to use a [two-way variable named `blender`][blendervar] for each platform (eg: Windows, Linux, or MacOS). This path to Blender is then sent to the Worker for each render task. Note that the Worker will still show the warning at startup, as it cannot find Blender by itself; this is fine, because you now have configured the Manager to provide this path.
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[blendervar]: {{< ref "usage/variables/blender" >}}
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### What do "Error: Cached job type is old" or "job type etag does not match" mean?
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This means that you have to click on the little "Refresh" icon next to the job type:
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<img src="job-types-refresh.webp" width="396" height="41">
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### Render jobs hang after the first chunk of frames, what's wrong?
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When rendering a chunk of frames, Flamenco waits until Blender quits. This
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signals Flamenco that it finished rendering. Sometimes an add-on prevents
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Blender from quitting, and thus Flamenco will think it is still doing something.
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Disable add-ons one-by-one to see which one is causing this issue.
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### What does "command exited abnormally with code 1" mean?
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It means that the program (probably Blender) exited with an error status. Take a
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look at the task log, which you can access by going to the task in Flamenco's
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web interface.
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