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Other Uses of Network Rendering
Although you will probably set up network rendering for the purpose of accelerating the output of your final renders, Fusion is capable of using the network for other purposes as well. You can use the nerdier nodes on your network to accelerate the creation fo Flipbook Previews and disk caching as well.
Flipbook Previews
Fusion Studio is able to use Render nodes to accelerate the production of Flipbook Previews, allowing for lightning fast previews. Frames for previews that are not network rendered are rendered directly into memory. Select the Use Network checkbox and the Render nodes to render the preview frames to the folder set in the Preferences Global > Path > Preview Renders. This folder should be accessible for all Render nodes that will participate in the network render. The default value is Temp\, which is a virtual path pointing to the system’s default temp folder. This will need to be changed before network rendered previews can function. Once the preview render is completed, the frames that are produced by each Render node are spooled into memory on the local workstation. As each frame is copied into memory, it is deleted from disk.
Disk Cache
Right-clicking a node in the Node Editor and choosing Cache to Disk opens a dialog used to create the disk cache. If you enabled the Use Network checkbox and click the Pre-Render button to submit the disk cache, the network Render nodes are used to accelerate the creation of the disk cache.
Render nodes can be used for disk caching as well as final renders.
When Renders Fail
It is a fact of life that render queues occasionally fail. The composition has an error, the power goes out, or a computer is accidentally disconnected from the network are some causes for failure. If no one is available to monitor the render, the risk that an entire queue may sit inactive for several hours may become a serious problem.
Fusion Studio includes a variety of measures to protect the queue and ensure that the render continues even under some of the worst conditions.