Hi!
My first post in a forum here so I hope I'm getting it right!

My husband is rendering an animation in Vue 6 infinite.  We have 3dscan data of a 3000yr old standing stone site and are rendering a set path fly through for the local archaeolical web site.
It had been running for 3 weeks and only had a few days to go when the darn electricity company scheduled a power cut.  We tried various options but we lost the render. 

We have over 2 gigs of information saved .. but nothing seems to open it and we don't seem to be able to activate the "resume render" option.

Can someone help please with information about using the external render option.  I know nothing about it and can't seem to find much information about how it works.
The project was due to be submitted last week and now it's been put back another 3 weeks.  We really need to speed the rendering up if possible.

Many thanks
Emma

Were you rendering individual frames as graphics or to a video codec?

Have you thought of using a render farm to speed up delivery.  I've had a good experience with ther RANCH Renderfarm http://www.ranchcomputing.com/ .

Hi, oo thats a nightmare for every artist!!!

I think there must be files somewhere, but can't find where they must be placed.. Maybe anyone else know that..

A friendly tip for you if you render a big big scene :
http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=269&ISOCountryCode=ww
buy a battery backup system...

uum I'm fairly sure its individual frames.
Thanks for the link to the renderfarm. I shall give it a look ;-)

I'm not sure if resume will work if Vue is crashed by a power outage rather than being stopped.

If it was being saved to individual frames what format were you saving the frames in?  You should be able to open them in an appropriate graphics package (which is how I've do things) or assemble them in a suitable video editing tool.

Forgot to in my first post say how much sympathy I had when I read your problem.

:-)
Thanks for the sympathy
it was in .avi format I think but we've tried opening it in other applications and it crashes them too. ;-(

As far as I know an avi file can't be opened unless the whole animation is rendered.

I used to render to individual jpegs.  I just picked up a 320GB external hard drive for rendering sequences to in future so I can use a lossless format instead but the principle is the same.  The big advantages are that if your computer crashes you don't lose everything.  Also you can assemble them in a video editor afterwards and try different codecs to see which one gives the best quality for the file size you want.

:-) We have an APC backup on the PC The average runtime is 7mins..the power outage was 8hrs ;-(

I is just a tip, but sometimes VirtualDub opens damaged video files, u can give that a try..

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

Thanks for that ;-) It's all a learning curve for us! I have a 500Gig external drive..time to connect it to the PC and not the laptop!

Hi Emms!!! glad you plucked up the courage to ask here, as i can't think how to help you on this one, just before reading javil's post i was thinking of virtualdub too!! it's a great freebie movie editor, so i would definately go with trying to open your .avi in that,
 
have you tried asking at the e-on website yet?

B**ger you never mentioned it had been going for three weeks!!!! seriously if you get it back or have to start again, make sure you stop the render and then save each day (making sure that the "resume render" option has been checked) then resume render. but really you should go with the render farm option on this!!! (they even have cows (Pull the "udder" one, sorry couldn't resist))

hope you get the advise you need here emma!!! good luck!!

:b_rolleyes: @ Vince
Yup its a big deal..luckily our client is very understanding.

LOL..serves the lazy big fella right for going out an selling his first ever attempt at a render for £4 000.  Well actually this one's only £3 000 they're getting an upgrade for a £1000 & we get another chance to get things right.
Here's me slaving away at Poser renders for years and making zilch!!
Actually he's doing really well and the Callanish stones are looking gooood. Could do with a slightly lighter stone texture though

I think we'll go with the render farm option ;-) LOL at the joke

Life can be that way sometimes :-)

I spent ages working on getting better and better Vue renders.  I did some for a fanzine I'm involved with for a steam punk article and for a laugh sent the editor who is a friend a picture of the daz steam mech with M3 in victorian gear controlling it.  I didn't bother to texture M3.  If anything it was going to be used as a space filler in b&w.  It ended up on the front cover and got a fair few comments while no one said anything about the interior art that had taken ages...

I hope we'll be able to see this animation somewhere when its done too.   I'd like to see it.

Add me for the sympathy, it's a real nightmare!!   :)
Resume render could only be used if Vue didn't closed, so it doesn't seem to be your case...

Quote - Life can be that way sometimes :-)

Don't I just know it! LOL...
all too often something you've worked really hard on gets overlooked ...
whilst something you think is hardly worth it gets noticed!
..........................................

Quote - i hope we'll be able to see this animation somewhere when its done too.   I'd like to see it.

It will go up on the island councils archaeology website when it is finished.  They understand that we are new to all of this and the second "upgrade" will be more to their specifications.
Each render he does gets better. .. and the stones were scanned to a very high resolution (lol we had to decimate it considerably to get the data to open in any program other than the program the guy who did the scan developed himself.

I shall post a link to the here when it is up (this particular render will be copyrighted to the client) and we hope to get commisions to do more as well as a whole load other stuff with the scan data.
He's gotta do one for the Callanishblackhouse myspace page next!!

:-) Thanks everyone for the help .. I shall be less hesitant posting queries from now on!.

Emma