Quick Guide to Iray Server Admin + Queue Management
Start, Stop your Iray Server Queue and Download your resultant renders. A brief primer on finding your way around Iray Server Admin pages. Link to complete Iray Server Admin PDF.
What follows is a brief overview of the specific pages in Iray Server Admin that you will need to use to effectively manage (Start, Stop) your Boost for Daz Queue and Download your resultant renders. You may also access the complete Iray Server Admin guide (PDF) in case you want to dive in deeper.
This documentation will cover the following steps:
Adding a job to the Queue from Daz Studio
Once you are connected to your GPU sever of choice on Boost for Daz, and have an active, open DS project that you are looking to send to the Render Queue on Boost for Daz, you need to follow the following steps:
In Daz Studio, go to: Render settings > Advanced (Tab) > Bridge (Tab)
(1) Uncheck Protocol (Secure)
(2) Uncheck Rendering (Enabled)
In Daz Studio, go to: Render Settings (Tab) > Editor (tab) > Progressive Rendering > Completion (Parameter)
(3) Set MAX TIME (secs) to 0 (zero).
(4) Click Add to Queue [...]
When you click the Add to Queue button, Daz Studio asks you to enter a Job Name that will identify this Render in the Render Queue on Iray Server.
Use only letters, numbers and - (dash) in the Job Name. Do not use any special characters such as * & ^ % $ # @ ! or ~. When special characters are used in the Job Name, the render results in a blank render. (This is a bug in Iray Server! 😄)
And once you submit a valid Job Name, Daz Studio proceeds to prepare the project to send to the Iray Server on Boost for Daz. This might take a few minutes the first time, because Daz Studio sends the .duf file as well as any associated assets that are required to properly render the project.
Daz Studio will show some sort of progress window (see below), which disappears once the file has been uploaded to the Iray Server Queue on Boost for Daz.
At this point you can add as many jobs as you want to your private Iray Server on Boost for Daz. To do this, open up your projects in Daz Studio and just Add to Queue. Make sure that the login credentials required on the Bridge tab, are in fact the one required for your current, active Boost for Daz session. All those jobs added to the queue will go through the same process described above and will appear in the Jobs list in your Iray Server Admin Queue.
Opening the Iray Server Admin Page
Now let's see how this job appears and is managed on the Iray Server Admin application.
To access the Iray Server Admin page for the active session, click the green 'OPEN IRAY SERVER ADMIN PAGE' button in the Iray Server Credentials section of your Dashboard
Clicking this button will open up a new tab in your browser for you to sign in:
Cut and paste the name (i.e. your Iray Server Username) and the Iray Server Password from the Iray Server Credentials section on your Dashboard, and click Login.
The first screen presented in Iray Server Admin is the Queue screen, where you can see the (example) job 'Test_Job_1' added to the Jobs queue.
On the left is the Iray Server Admin navigation bar we'll use to move around the application.
Starting a Queue
Once you have added one (or more) jobs to the queue, you will need to start the queue to actually initiate the process of rendering them. This does not happen automatically.
To start rendering your jobs in the queue, simply click on the green Start Queue button on the top left of the Jobs section.
Once you have clicked on the Start Queue button, in a few seconds Iray Server will start render your job(s) - starting with the first in the queue and moving sequentially down the list. The available buttons now change to
The orange Stop Queue button allows you to pause or stop the whole queue. In other words, the current job being rendered will be paused, and the queue will not move to the next job in the queue. If you only have one job in the queue then it will pause rendering on that job.
The Progress bars show you the current completion of the render
When renders are completed (or stopped) they are moved to the Done queue in Iray Server Admin Queue page
Stopping and Restarting a Job
The stopped job is then moved to the Done queue - which is a bit misleading because it has not completed rendering. In our example, we stopped 'Test_Job_2' in the middle of its render progress, confirmed Stop Now (see window above) and it moved to the Done queue - but there is no indicator that this job is incomplete.
To complete (or restart) a render in the Done queue, you will need to duplicate the Job, change the name, and allow it to go through the full render process until it moves down to the Done queue.
As long as the orange Stop Queue button is displayed, any job added to the queue will begin rendering immediately in the sequence it was received.
To stop the queue from processing renders, just press the orange Stop Queue button and it will revert back to the green Start Queue button.
Downloading Render Results
So your render jobs are in the Done queue, how do you see or access the results.
To see if the render completed successfully, click on the Job name in the Done queue, and you'll be presented with basic render information and a thumbnail of your render.
To download your render results, click on Results from the navigation on the left of the Iray Server Admin page.
..and if we click on Test_Job_2, we are presented with an option to download the zip file for our completed render.
Iray Server Admin Useful Tips & Resources
The Resources page in Iray Server Admin offers is another section you want to familiarize yourself with.
Hosts section
The Hosts section in the resources pages gives you specific information and confirmation about the actual type of virtual server that was privately assigned to you during this Boost for Daz session.
In this example above, this session asked for and received a single NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPU with approx. 8GB of VRAM, 31 GB CPU memory and 6 CPU Cores. If you selected multiple GPU's, then details will be presented for each GPU.
Logs section
At times it might be necessary to access your Iray Server session logs to know whats going on during you render. You can do that in the Logs section on the Resources page.
By default the Logs window is locked. Click on the lock icon to unlock it and you'll be allowed to scroll up and down the logs for the duration of your session. You can review session logs here while your session is running as well. To download the logs to your local drive, click on the Download button.
Logging Out of Iray Server Admin
On specific occasions you might want to (temporarily) logout of Iray Server. For example, you have one or more Jobs in queue, and they will take some time, so to prevent anything happening by accident (or anyone with access to your rig from doing something untoward) you may choose to logout of Iray Server Admin, and log back in again if/when required.
When you click on the Logout link in the navigation bar, you will be presented a confirmation
click on Logout to return back to the Iray Server Admin page.
You can log back in while you session is still active.
Please note that logging out of Iray Server Admin does not terminate or stop your Boost for Daz session. Your Boost for Daz virtual server and all its activity will continue even after your logout from Iray Server Admin. To terminate your Boost for Daz session, you'll need to press the Stop button on your Dashboard. This will end your session, calculate charges and stop billing.
Download NVIDIA Iray Server Admin Guide
At the time of this writing, the file below is the latest version of the Iray Server Admin guide we could get our hands on. If you are aware of a more current version, please let us know on our Boost for Daz discord server.
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