[RESOLVED] Keyshot8 takes extraordinarily long time to queue render

[theAVator]

I finally got updated to Keyshot 8 yesterday! Yay!

Unfortunately, it seems extraordinarily slow adding a render to the render queue. I'm about 15 minutes in and it's sitting at about 13% preparing to save. It will make it up to about 26%, then sit there for about 5-10 minutes, then the last bit takes off and runs for about 5-10 minutes in order to finish up. This seems Suuuuuuuper sloooooow. I could've rendered the image in the time it takes to queue it up.

It's a larger file, but KS7 never took this long for any file.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Eric Summers]

The only time I've noticed that it takes longer to add to the queue is if the scene has displacement or flakes/bubbles. And especially if there are a lot of parts that have those geometry modifiers. But even then it doesn't take 15 minutes. Yikes! Maybe a minute for those renders, otherwise it's a couple seconds.

[Bruno F]

Hello theAvator,

What is the file size for your BIP file? Is the BIP file saved locally on your computer or in a shared network/server location? Do you experience long save times for smaller scenes, say just a cube?

[theAVator]

Hey everyone, I'm revisiting this topic again as it has resurfaced and as such I now have a little more concrete data to express.

SO to Bruno's questions, My models are saved on a server (NASP) located in our building - i.e. my computer to switch to server. I don't believe it is affecting smaller models/scenes. just seems to exponentially get worse as size increases.

In the case of the current model I am working on, here are the current stats:
File size: 17GB
Triangles: 794,814,366
Model sets: 1 (default)
Mostly all "standard" materials (paints/plastics/rubber/glass)
One of the "default" environments (from library or from KS cloud)
Color background - no backplate

Render settings:
Outputting to folder on the same server (different folder, but closer to root level)
Format: PNG with alpha transparency
1920x1080 @ 300
Max Time - 15 minutes

Times to perform associated tasks (in minutes):
Saving file:   4:35
Saving file as new file:  6:00
Opening file in fresh KS8 instance:  7:28
Adding file to render queue:  43:58

So, obviously, looking at the times - one of these things is not like the other ones....
Almost 45 minutes to queue a render that will only render for 15 minutes seems a little ridiculous. I'm not sure if this issue compounds as size increases or what, as I don't seem to notice any major issue with smaller/lighter files.

So when you queue a render, where does it save the temp file? I'm wondering if this could be a factor as this is a corporate environment and certain folders related to my user profile may actually be stored in our data center across the full network. So depending on location, it may be a "network issue", but I can only guess until I know where the temp queue files are saved to.

Thanks everyone!
*Also, I cannot share the file (or else i go to prison    )

[KeyShot]

There once was an issue where KeyShot would benefit from being paused when outputting a file to the queue. It should auto pause in KeyShot 8, but perhaps you can check if this helps? Note, that adding to the render queue is mostly the same operation as saving a file, so there should not be a major time difference (as long as the location is local - a 17GB file can take a while to save over the network).

[theAVator]

There once was an issue where KeyShot would benefit from being paused when outputting a file to the queue. It should auto pause in KeyShot 8, but perhaps you can check if this helps?

I'll give this try and see what result it produces. At the same time I should probably see if in fact it is pausing before trying to add to the queue.

Note, that adding to the render queue is mostly the same operation as saving a file, so there should not be a major time difference (as long as the location is local - a 17GB file can take a while to save over the network).

It's over a local network - at least for saving the file. As you can see from the times 4-8 minutes for any type of normal save function. The more concerning factor is the 45 minutes to queue the render. Given your information, this is what seems way out of line. Are the Queued files saved in the Keyshot Resources folder somewhere, or in the C: drive somewhere, or a documents folder or something? That is one thing that I can think that might make a difference. Being a corporate environment, if it's trying to save to my user folder, it's likely going over the network which would def. slow it down.

Is there any way to change this or move where the temp file is created? As I can see, there is nothing in preferences for this. Might be handy to add.

[theAVator]

*UPDATE*

So, after trying to follow the trail, the render queue apparently saves the temp files into the Scenes folder - wherever that may lie. It generates an EXT file and a GEOM file. 

As I suspected, this by the default installation of Keyshot, lies within my documents folder which is tied to my user profile within our main IT architecture. As such, trying to transfer 17GB across the network, doesn't work so well and as a result: the terrible wait times for the render queue.

Creating a new folder in the same location (local server) that I output renders to resulted in render queue wait times more in line with what the actual file save time is.

[mattjgerard]

Nice detective work Sherlock!

Good to know too, as that will help me solve my issue in my post where I was running out of working space on some drive the render queue  dumps the files to because KS saves a copy of the entire project file, not just the selected scene sets and associated model sets. I have a 512 gb ssd for my main drive and a 2tb working drive, so now I can create a new folder there for KS to dump render queue projects to.

Excellent, thanks for posting the solution too.

[KeyShot]

Thank you indeed for pointing this out. It is correct that KeyShot creates a temporary file. This was introduced to avoid creating incomplete files in case something interrupted the save operation. We will make an option, so you can control the location to make sure it is local.

[theAVator]

It is possible to control it currently as the Scenes folder is now one of the folders that can be customized in preferences with a custom file/folder path.  That is how I remedied the issue this time - essentially taking it off the network (out of my user folder) and putting it onto our local storage server which is the same place we save the source files to and the output renders as well.

Works much better.
And helps me justify to IT that we still need the server and can't work off the network. Blessing in disguise. haha

[Bruno F]

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