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Render

The Render panel is where the real action takes place as it is here where the framebuffer (the render itself) is stored and displayed. This is the panel that is open by default when you load a scene in the standalone (Figure 2). The top toolbar contains buttons that perform certain operations on the framebuffer:

Load With this button you can load a previously generated .DSI file into the current framebuffer. Note that .DSI files do not store any tonemapping parameters, but just spectral radiances. So when you load a .DSI file it is tonemapped by the parameters set in the current scene (which might not be the same the .DSI was generated with).

Merge The merge operation fuses a previously generated .DSI file with the current framebuffer, modifying the current framebuffer as a result. This operation works for .DSI files with the same resolution, supersampling level, number of channels and Layer Blending layers only. In fact, it only makes sense for .DSI files generated from the same scene. The merge operator is the keystone of distributed rendering, as it makes it possible to gather all the results computed by each of the render slaves and fuse them into a single, cleaner render.Let’s say that you rendered a scene for 2 hours in two different computers. Merging both framebuffers will produce a render that will be almost as clean as if just one of the computers had been rendering for 2+2= 4 hours. Figure 99 depicts this operation. Keep in mind the following tips when dealing with the merge operator:

The merge operator works for .DSI files that share the exact same framebuffer structure. The operator will fail if the framebuffers do not share the same resolution and supersampling level, number of compositing channels enabled, or number of Layer Blending layers in use. In order for the merge operator to be effective, both .DSI files must have been rendered using a different QRN Seed. As explained before in this manual, fryrender picks a random seed whenever a render is started or resumed unless you fixate the seed explicitly. For a higher safety, make sure that the seed is set to random when aiming at merging framebuffers. Internally, the implementation of the merge operator is highly efficient. However, .DSI files are usually very large, so, whenever possible, never merge .DSI files through your LAN. Merges will run much faster if all the .DSI files involved are stored in the same computer /hard drive. In case you own many render nodes and need to make multiple merges very often, it is strongly recommended that you use dsitool.exe instead of the merge operator embedded in the standalone in order to automate the operation.

Save This button saves the current framebuffer in the hard drive in .DSI spectral format.

RGB8/RGB16/HDR These three buttons let you save the framebuffer in tonemapped 8-bit or 16-bit, or in raw untonemapped 32-bit format.

Export This button lets you export the current frame buffer to special formats like OpenEXR or QuicktimeVR files (to be used with panoramic cameras).

Clear The clear button erases the contents of the current framebuffer, making it black and resetting all its counters. After a clear operation, resuming the render has the same effect as a raw start.

Start This button tells fryrender to start the rendering process. This will create a blank framebuffer in the case of a first start, or clear the previously existing framebuffer and start over. After the warm-up phase is finished, the render process in itself will begin and you will be able to see the noise clearing as the rendering progresses.

Resume FRYRENDER can resume a render which was stopped. More so, you can load a previously generated .DSI file up and continue the render form the point it was stopped at. This is called progressive rendering.

Stop This button will stop the ongoing render and sync the framebuffer. This process may take some time with large rendering and with bloom and glare effects.

Force autosave This button manually forces FRYRENDER to save the framebuffer to a .DSI file onto the disk, as a precaution measure when the rendering process is inbetween two automatic saves for a long time. This also triggers a synchronization of the framebuffer.

NetWarrior This icon is used to send the actual scene to our network rendering manager NetWarrior. Please see its dedicated page for further information.

Pan/Zoom framebuffer This button activate the Pan-Zoom navigation method for the framebuffer. Left click is Pan, mouse wheel is Zoom.

Sample framebuffer This button lets you move a 'eyedropper' tool over the framebuffer to grab a RGB color from the rendering.

Delete region marquee This button delete the current region marquee and lets you render the full framebuffer again.

Region marquee This button lets you draw a rectangle over the framebuffer to define an area the engine will render the next time you press Start, ignoring the rest of the framebuffer area.

Sync tonemapping This button forces the tonemapping options to be synchronized to the framebuffer. After this button has been pressed, the framebuffer will match the tonemapping preview.