Smedge 2019 Released!

All Products can now distribute work using any combination of CPU, GPU, and RAM resources to run parallel work on a machine.

The settings to allow GPU distribution have been moved to the base Job class so they are available for every product in Smedge by default. Additionally, the system to allow CPU/RAM distribution has been simplified. All systems are now available for all jobs at all times. The default values will cause a job not to request any RAM or GPU, so default jobs will work the same as they always have before, but you can submit jobs to use any system at any time.

New ways to stagger work

There is a new Job parameter called StaggerMode that lets you set how the staggering works for a specific job. You now have 3 options for how you want work to be staggered:

Value	Meaning
0	All work from the job is staggered (like how Smedge worked in 2018 and earlier)
1	Stagger work on an Engine but not Engines. If a job doesn’t use all of the resources available on a specific engine, multiple work may start on that engine only after the staggering limits are observed. But if multiple engines are working on the job, they can all start at the same time.
2	Stagger Engines but not work on an Engine. If a job doesn’t use all of the resources available on a specific engine, multiple work may start on that engine at the same time, but if multiple engines are working on that job, work sent to each engine will respect the staggering limits.

New Work Chart and other graph improvements

New graphical view of your job’s history charts every work unit using the engine as the Y axis and real time as the X axis. You can more easily see engines with performance issues or having trouble, as well as just get a nice overview of how your rendering is progressing or elapsed over time. Mouse over an item in the chart to get more details, and right click to access further operations, including remote connecting to the engine or viewing the process output. You can also use the filter field a the top of the graph to highlight specific work units from the Job.

Besides the new graph, the histogram and heat map views have been separated to their own panels and have added functionality, including being able to right click on items to view the output or remote connect to the Engine, as well as a filter field to highlight specific work units from the Job.

New Job Errors Info Panel

There is a new info panel associated with Jobs that shows only job history elements that indicate errors from that job. The list is filterable by using the filter field at the top of the panel. You can right click on items in the list for more options, including remote connecting the Engine that ran this work unit or viewing the entire process output from the failed work.

Improved display and filtering of Job parameters

Every Property Grid control has a filter text field at the top. Typing in this field will filter the list of parameters displayed to any parameter whose name or value contains the text you have typed. Additionally, basic job data that used to be handled specially internally is now part of the same parameter system for a more consistent user experience.

Search and Replace values in multiple jobs without editing each job individually

The same search and replace dialog that you can use in the Submit Job window to change look for text in every value from a job and replace that text with something else is now available for using on multiple jobs at the same time directly in the main window. Select one or more jobs and use Job > Replace in Job to access the replace window. When you click OK, every selected job will have every value searched and will replace any text found that matches the criteria with the text you supply.

New parameter commands

There are a bunch of new parameter commands available for the variable substitution system. The new commands are listed below. See the Administrator Manual for a more complete list of all parameter commands and instructions on how to use the syntax to build pipelines using the Event commands.

SwapExtension	Replace the extension for given parameter value
Length	String length of the current value
Empty	1 if current value is empty, 0 otherwise
Contains	1 if current value contains parameter, 0 otherwise
ContainsOneOf	1 if current value contains one of a list, 0 otherwise
ContainsOneNotOf	1 if the current value contains character besides those in the provided list, 0 otherwise
StartsWith	1 if the current value starts with parameter, 0 otherwise
EndsWith	1 if the current value ends with parameter, 0 otherwise
MatchRegex	1 if the current value matches the parameter regular expression, 0 otherwise
Left	Leftmost N characters, N supplied by parameter
LeftFirst	Leftmost characters up to the first occurrence of parameter
LeftFirstOneOf	Leftmost characters up to the first occurrence of any character in parameter list
LeftFirstNotOf	Leftmost characters up to the first occurrence of any character not in parameter list
LeftLast	Leftmost characters up to the last occurrence of parameter
LeftLastOneOf	Leftmost characters up to the last occurrence of any character in parameter list
LeftLastNotOf	Leftmost characters up to the last occurrence of any character not in parameter list
Right	Rightmost N characters, N supplied by parameter
RightFirst	Characters from the first occurrence of parameter to the end
RightFirstOneOf	Characters from the first occurrence of any character in parameter list to the end
RightFirstNotOf	Characters from the first occurrence of any character not in parameter list to the end
RightLast	Characters from the last occurrence of parameter to the end
RightLastOneOf	Characters from the last occurrence of any character in parameter list to the end
RightLastNotOf	Characters from the last occurrence of any character not in parameter list to the end
FileSize	Size on disk of file named by current value
IsDirectory	1 if the current value names an existing directory on disk, 0 otherwise

Updated support for Blackmagic Fusion, Maya and Blender

Blackmagic Design has modified how Fusion works from the old Eyeon versions that Smedge has supported for many years. We have updated the support to work with the more modern interface of the current version, and renamed the product to the new simpler name “Fusion”.

For Blender renders, you can specify the output path as the parameter “Output”. Because this parameter is a File parameter type, it is automatically translated between platforms, if you have configured path translations, allowing you to render on multiple platforms at the same time.

The Maya module now detects the “fatal error” message and Arnold for Maya licensing failures, and the options have been cleaned up for the current version of the Arnold rendering plugin, which has added, changed, and removed some of the override options available over the last several years.