RFX

Description

Qube! is a robust and highly scalable render management solution that can be integrated into any production workflow. Qube! can be easily tailored to any pipeline requirements and works with all leading content creation applications including Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk Maya®, NUKE™, SOFTIMAGE®|XSI®, Shake®, Adobe® AfterEffects®, Pixar’s RenderMan®, DNA Research's 3Delight, and Eyeon® Fusion™. Qube! is the only production proven solution that is certified IBM ServerProven®, and runs on Windows®, Linux®, and Mac OS®X operating systems.

 

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Features

• Integrated charting in the GUI
• External reporting to iPad and iPhone with Roambi
• Automated render wrangling
• Simplified job submissions
• Automated movie generation
• Job ETA predication
• Regular expression parsing of stderr and stdout
• Integration with Tweak Software RV
• Integration with Shotgun Software product

 

Multi-threaded Supervisor

• At the heart of Qube! is a multi-threaded Supervisor with the ability to manage thousands of jobs simultaneously. The multi-threaded architecture is highly-available, low-maintenance, and extremely stable. Adding more threads to the Supervisor not only improves performance, but makes Qube! scalable to virtually any size production.

 

Event-driven queuing

• Event-driven queuing is the patent-pending technology underlying the Qube! Supervisor. This event-driven architecture provides instantaneous response to job submission and dispatch to workers. In addition, the event-model supports the attachment of arbitrary callbacks via the Qube! API for unlimited customization options. Events can then trigger other events or external interactions with applications.

 

Custom job types

• Qube! comes with a number of custom application pipelines, including Maya®, SOFTIMAGE®|XSI®, 3ds Max®, and Nuke™. Each pipeline contains a submission form for the Qube! GUI, a command line submission tool, a submission GUI integrated into the application itself, and a backend execution module specifically developed to interface directly with the application. The custom pipelines reduce the time for integrating internal production pipelines with Qube! by including ready-made interfaces and execution backends. Since these job types are mostly constructed as open architecture scripts, they can be further customized, on-site. The direct application interface enables the backend to best utilize Qube! features like the work agenda and to optimize performance by not reopening files any more than necessary.

 

Numeric priority

• Jobs can be assigned a numeric priority. Jobs with the higher priority will run ahead of jobs with lower priority, which minimizes production bottlenecks and ensures that the system handles the important jobs first.

 

Host clustering priority

• Hosts can be grouped into hierarchies called "clusters." Jobs that are submitted to a particular level of the hierarchy will have higher priority than jobs submitted to a different level, thereby maximizing the efficiency of the farm while maintaining host allocations between departments or projects.

 

Priority-based preemption

• Jobs running at low priority can be preempted by jobs with higher priority. Depending upon configuration, jobs will be placed back into the queue for later dispatch immediately or when they finish the frame they were working on. This ensures that only the highest priority jobs are running. Additionally, this enables Qube! to quickly adjust when work priorities change.

 

Centralized worker configuration

• The Supervisor controls the configuration of each worker via a single freeform configuration file that enables workers to be updated with a single administrative command. This saves time and effort and makes the modification of worker configuration much easier to maintain.

 

Worker locking

• Calendar- and screen saver-based worker locking enables users to add desktop hosts to the farm when they are needed. Worker locking provides a mechanism by which those desktops can be added to the farm at a moments notice, or by a set schedule, or even when they're not in use.

 

Global resources

• Global resources keep track of arbitrary resources across entire systems. By configuring the system to monitor and allocate a global resource, jobs can be constrained without the loss of rendering due to application failure.

 

Customizable GUI application

• The Qubic GUI interface is a powerful, customizable multi-purpose tool for users and administrators. It is used to monitor and control jobs, and (for administrators) to lock and unlock render farm hosts. Operating Qube! from a common GUI helps creative teams stay productive as users do not have to learn command line tools to use the system.

 

Worker heartbeat

• Each worker automatically pings the Supervisor at regular intervals in order to report status. The Supervisor uses this information to keep a list of "live" hosts to which it can send jobs. Administrators do not need to configure the Supervisor with explicit lists of hosts. The Supervisor can also report hosts as "down" when it misses a worker heartbeat. This makes it easier for administrators to keep up-to-the-minute tabs on the state of the farm.

 

Offline host reacquisition

• The Supervisor will periodically update the state of all hosts automatically, and re-acquire hosts that have not checked in for some time. This saves time for busy administrators.

 

User-based permissions

• Individual users can be granted or denied the various Qube! capabilities, such as job manipulation. This important security feature prevents users from manipulating or even killing other users' jobs.

 

Windows drive mapping

• Qube! analyzes the drive mappings at submit time, stores them with the job, and when the job executes, automatically creates the same mappings. This feature is useful to sites that establish different drive maps for each user. Files don't need to be copied to specific file systems available to the render farm - they can remain on the file system mapped to each user instead.

 

"Smart Farming" technology

• "Smart Farming" describes a system for render farm management that delivers the power of pipeline data through integrated charting and reporting, automates labor intensive render farm processes, and integrates with other digital media infrastructure packages. The concept was developed after an extensive product validation process with customers across digital media verticals in major markets around the world.

 

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Version / Release Updates

Qube! 6.4.2 is out!!!

Run-time path translation - Qube! 6.4.2 includes a new feature - "Runtime path translation." 

This will allow a job to be dispatched to a Windows, Linux and OSX Worker without any setup by the Artist. The Qube! Supervisor will evaluate the job and the available resources and make the path corrections as needed. For simplified administration, the path translation maps are now defined at the worker and not in the user's GUI preferences. If the Qube administrator is taking advantage of a centralized worker configurations file on the supervisor (typically named qbwrk.conf), you can define these worker path translation maps only in this file and have the path maps available across all workers in the farm.

PipelineFX is also including "Smart Pathing," where (for selected applications) a user will be able to send a simplecmd job to workers running a mix of operating systems, and the job will find the application per OS.

For example, a user will now be able to send an AfterEffects, Cinema4D, Nuke, MayaBatch Render, or XSI batchRender to Windows, OS X, and Linux at the same time, provided the application is installed on all the different operating systems.

 

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