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The Smedge Packet

• The Packet Lifespan
• Stopping Packets
• Viewing the Rendering Frame
• Viewing the Output
• Packet Options

Packets are started automatically by Smedge as machines become available to perform work and work is queued for the machines. Which job will start first is based on the job priorities. You can get more information about job priorities in The Smedge Job.

Packets will live as long as the rendering program is executing. How the rendering program finishes is one of the ways that Smedge uses to determine if a packet finished successfully. Every program returns some kind of result code, and Smedge can use this code to determine if the renderer is reporting some kind of error. Smedge also uses other checks to make sure that the packet finished successfully, even if the renderer is not reporting an error.

Any packet that finishes successfully will be finished forever in Smedge and will never be requeued. If a packet finishes in failure, Smedge will attempt to requeue the packet. A packet will retry on the same machine only a certain number of times, before restricting that machine from rendering that packet again. If a packet finishes early due to a user aborting it, what happens depends on how the user stops the packet. A packet can be aborted any number of times and will always be able to be requeued on any machine.

There are three ways to stop a currently going packet early:

Stop packet and requeue	This command means that the packet will be immediately stopped and requeued as part of the same job. The job history will show the packet as canceled until it starts again, when it will go back to a normal status. The packet will not count as complete in the progress of a job
Stop packet permanently	This command means that the packet will be immediately stopped and never requeued again. The job history will show thie packet as canceled, and it will be counted as complete in the progress of a job.
Stop packet and submit as new job	This command means that the packet will be immediately stopped and not requeued as part of the job, like the Stop Packet Permanently command, however a new job with only the one packet will be created.

The preferred method of stopping and requeuing a packet is to use the Stop packet and requeue command. The Stop packet and submit as new job command is for those pesky packets that don't seem to be responding correctly.

For some products, Smedge can determine the filename of the frame as it is being rendered. For these products, you have the option of viewing the frame, even as it is still being rendered. Smedge uses the frame viewer that you have configured to display the image. By default, Smedge is configured to try to use fcheck, the image viewer that is included with Maya, but you can configure it using the Select Frame Viewer command in the Host menu.

Smedge will add the filename as a parameter to the viewer command you select. If the filename contains relative paths, or contains a path to a disk that is not mounted on the local machine, the viewer program may fail to find the file. Also, sometimes the rendering program may determine the name well before the file is actually created on disk. Smedge will report this sort of failure and fail gracefully.

Smedge captures the output from the rendering program and processes it as part of its error detection system. Processing the output is also how Smedge can determine the current frame inside a packet, and how Smedge can detect the currently rendering filename. Smedge also saves the captured output for later perusal.

To view the output while a packet is rendering, you can use the View Output command. Your Smedge client will connect directly to the client that is rendering, which will the spit out all of the captured output from the render so far. As more output is generated by the packet, it will continue to be communicated to your machine, and displayed in the window as long as the window is open. The text in the window can be copied and pasted using the standard Windows commands and keyboard shortcuts.

Besides the above options, you can also use the Copy filename to clipboard command to copy the string with the filename into the Windows clipboard. This functionality will only be enabled for products that can determine the filename.

You can also use the Job Settings command top open the read-only Submit Job dialog box. This allows you to adjust properties of the job to which this packet belongs. These changes will not affect the packet itself, but will affect future packet generation.