Ok, so I'm sitting here waiting for a render to finish that has been going for... hmmmm... almost 24 hours now (gotta love displacement on a water plane with translucence thrown in for good measure...).

As I sit here, staring at it inching closer to the finish line, block by sloooooow block (2 hours to go!!!).... I was wondering what others do while they wait for a long render?

I tend to do housework, work on sketches, or watch TV... better yet, hope it finishes rendering while I'm doing my nightly snoozing.

anyone else?

monkey island 1 - 2 was a winner since it uses so little energy to run - but since i finished them I tend to read php manuals (fun life yes..) or watch tv.

Also I like to check back every 10 minutes and see if its magically finished :P

LOL!!!!

I've done a few online games cus of the fact it doesnt take too much memory...

i am the queen of spider solitaire.

ok, not that great... but i call myself that ;)

and yep, the whole checking every 10 minutes thing is lots of fun (i like to watch the differences, specially if it had to do a pre-pass, like this one)

i also catch up on movies my husband brings home from work (he works in a video rental store).  drive the cat nuts (whats good for the goose is good for the gander, y'know? LOL).... yep, read manuals, read through tutorials of any kind, and one thing that drives my husband nuts... is completely rearranging all the "small" items in my itsy bitsy teeny weeny living room.  (7'x6' room, and let me tell ya... its SMALL).  That can take a couple hours.  (i am really good at squeezing 10 pounds of stuff into a 2 pound room)....

oh yay... it says 45 minutes to go now!

ok, not 24 hours... sure felt like it, though.

18 hours, 59 minutes - EXACTLY.  (strange, but cool!)

this is why I try to work out better render strategie now, hehe.
2 PCs, on other one I cna play games (used ot do renders on it but can't as it's not 64 bit etc, meh)
been playing Mechcommander2 again, and reading when not Vue-ing :)

no room for a second computer, unfortunately =(  i have a laptop my dad gave me thats basically JUST good for games anymore... and i cannot set it up (it has a loose wire, so isnt considered mobile anymore).  eventually, its gonna become a render cow.  and i'll just have to steal whatever computer hubby has at the time to play games on =D

Well, I'm here while waiting for render. This one is my first attempt at a 'hyper terrain' as per Quadspinner. I will put it in my gallery see what you guys think.

Render still on prepass

read tutorials, surf for pr0n (just kiddding) and generally faff around while waiting for renders to finish although a lot of mine don't take all that long (plus I love watching VRay renders, the way it does it is great fun to watch)

HAd to stop render it was ...rap. Started again different mat and camera angle. Hopefully OK, well for first one anyway.

Render time:
Play Rtype 3 on expert on the SNES, by the time you win youre render will be done.  :)

hehehehe - wish i had a SNES.  those were fun =D

no.... i tend to play the sims 2 on the xbox (one of the few gamesof mine that havent ended up so scratched it crashes within minutes of playing - i learned not to loan my games out.).... or, catch up on movies LOL.

A second computer doesn't take up much room actually, if you let the two share the same keyboard, video, and mouse via a KVM switch.

laughs  ok... take a look at the thread where people describe/show their desk area.... you'll see what i mean.  things have changed in here a little since then... but i literally have 7'x6' to have my desk, computer, tv, vcr, game systems, a small (and i mean SMALL) couch, a bookcase for all my 3D & other books & pretties, another small bookshelf to hold hubby's DVD collection - which are in notebooks with sleeves to save space.  That leaves exactly 1 foot path behind my chair, and a slightly larger area for feet for the person on the couch.

i cannot rearrange without first measuring EVERYTHING and cutting it out from graph paper to scale, and playing tetris, and then, most everything has to be hauled outside just to be able to move other items around.

My desk has a bookcase on top of it - my two monitors are squished in between the legs.  my keyboard is kitty-corner (to the first monitor) and my wacom has a REALLLLLY bad habit of sliding under the support bar on the legs on the right side.  I have exactly 1 foot of desk space on the other side of that set of legs on the bookcase, and it has my modem, my external drive, my phone, a small lamp and whatever other junk happens to land there.

Seriousely - I'm trying to figure out some better arrangement, because I have NO room.

I've seen closets bigger than this place.  I am really detesting living here, although still thankful for a roof over my head and a place to lay my head at night.  At first, it was a haven - away from thieving "family" (very long story)... but, well... three years into it, and i'm ready to ... expand =D

I wanna have a network of computers again!!!!!  RENDER COW! RENDER COW! RENDER COW!  WAHOOOOOOOOOO.... or would that be... WA-MOOOOOOOOO??

Quote - I was wondering what others do while they wait for a long render?

When I ordered Vue I figured that it wouldn't hurt to order 2 additional computers for rendering (hey, you can build a decent QuadCore with 4 GB RAM for about $300 these days) using e-on's RenderCows.

So I now have 3 computers for remote rendering, and keep on working on my main PC.

Yes, that IS boring compared to, lets say, having sex while Vue is rendering :-)

 still got about 19 hours on one of mine.
I usually watch movies, play some xbox or sculpt.
and yeah I always check every 10 mins too haha
its enough to drive you insane!

I have two monitors on this computer.  One is in hour 60 of a 135 hour render.  The other monitor is for Internet browsing.  I've been reading through the Chopine's "Vue 7 From the Ground Up" book, wishing I had another computer to do Vue on.

Have a **** ..... or several ;-) try and explain to the GF that computer needs to be on for 18 hours!

I have my desktop box for work and use 3 dualcore laptops as extra render nodes if needed.
xbox360 for the waittime...

Wife don't mind the extra laptops that much as they can be easily packed away when not needed..