Network Render 7.2x wish list

[DMerz III]

  I've already mentioned how impressed and excited I am about the latest updates in Network Rendering from 6 to 7 as a lot of the features/flexibility lacking in 6 are now huge for my workflow in 7.

I do have a couple of ideas the team and I would love to see in future updates;

+ Ability to select 'dicing' size of region or some kind of ratio ability. Right now, it appears it will divide up a certain # of regions to assign as 'tasks'. However this region size is as far as I know, predetermined by the program, I have no say in how many regions I'd like to dice an image into. I know there are certain benefits to dicing up an image with a certain ratio in mind for CPU rendering, but seeing as regions are the driving force behind 'tasks' and each machine (set of cores in my pool) can only work on one task at a time. I think it would be beneficial if I could manually set my region size. For example; If I have a 'region' that is computationally more expensive, and one of my machines is churning away on that region, yet all of the other regions are done (and there's nothing left in my queue) the other machines in that pool just sit idle. It would be nice if that region were smaller, effectively multiplying the # of tasks, but allowing other machines in my pool to pick up the slack. Hope that makes sense.
TLDR; ability to create more regions/more tasks so more machines in my pool can work on difficult regions (when they become available).

+Slightly related to the first request. Would love the preview tab to show an outline of all of the regions (using a simple box and numerically calling out each region) Just so I can see where each region is assigned, then I will know..."Ohh okay, region 6 is taking so long because it's two parts that are occluding each other and that takes more computational power, etc." It isn't a huge deal, but it would help illustrate why some regions take much longer. Right now, I'm stuck guessing which regions are where in my image. Having visibility to where each region is would help me make decisions on where to optimize render settings, or better gauge how much longer an image might take to render. If region 1 is the hardest to render...I'll have an expectation that my render is going to take forever! In reality, the other 12 regions might take a fraction of the time.

+ Building on those, an even bigger ask would be the ability to 'rearrange' the priority of the regions to be rendered. I know there's another render engine out there that allows the user to 'define' which area of the render they want the computational power to focus on at any given time. It is similar to doing a region render, but ultimately, I am getting the entire image at the end, I just will see 'how things develop in certain areas, faster'. That kind of flexibility would probably be more useful in a local rendering sense, but it is just an idea.

Appreciate all the changes! Looking forward to where it will go from here!

[Rex]

Thanks for the feedback and requests David. I've recorded them in our system for further consideration.