Opening multiple instances of Filterforge

Nope none as far as I can tell...FF will tell you that it is already running....

or, you could do like volde and buy 21 computers and 21 FF licenses... or was it 23?

As jffe correctly mentioned, there's no next to no reason to run multiple rendering copies of FF -- if it would be possible, the total rendering time will be larger than a sequential rendering.

I agree that batch rendering would be a good addition to FF. Currently, the only "batch rendering" support you can get is Actions support in Photoshop, but that's very limited (you still need to apply complete filter at least once and then you're limited to applying the same filter to different sources).

About server side software -- well, I don't think it's a secret, so I'll tell you. The Filter Forge core (image loading/saving, filter loading/saving, components implementation, filter rendering, library management, i.e. everything except the GUI) supports different platforms (win32/x86, Linux/x86, FreeBSD/x86, MacOSX/ppc, MacOSX/i386) and forms (executables, static or dynamic/shared libraries). So, there's a DLL version of it, along with a thin (mainly) C# layer to allow us to perform rendering functions from within any .NET application. And Filter Forge library backend is written in C# plus ASP.NET for web services (to which Filter Forge connects to check for updates, submit filters, etc.). This backend also performs rendering (along with preset enumeration, randomization, normal/bump/etc. map generation and other stuff).

So yes, there IS an FF server that is capable of multithreaded rendering of filters and their presets with different antialiasing and stuff along with saving to different formats, with C, C++ and C# APIs.

And no, there ISN'T any legal way you can get your hands on it, I'm afraid this part of FF isn't going to be released to the public at all.

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KGtheway2B wrote: Once the queue has been activated you can click on each task and define which maps you want (normal, off, diffuse etc) and the base name of the task. Then when you're ready to let it start you can just click "go" and it runs down the queue list.

----That sounds great. But for right now I'd settle for one filter map setting at a time, with a *render all presets* feature, at least for a small step in the right direction eh.

jffe

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KGtheway2B wrote: I know there's no batch rendering in FF

We're planning to release a command-line renderer that accepts an XML where you can describe multiple rendering jobs. The renderer is ready and is being used internally, but it needs some extra productization (a readme file / help entry etc.). I've added it to our short-term plan, so hopefully it will be out in one of the upcoming updates.

Also I would like to mention that command-line renderer is available on MacOSX platform, both ppc and i386 versions. But we have some problems with its "productization". So I'm affraid it cannot be public yet.

Craig, you will write an XML file containing batch jobs, like:
a) open filter "Test"
b) render preset #3, save it to PNG file named "Test-3.png", 16-bit per channel, maximum compression
c) render preset #5, save it to Windows bitmap file "Test-5.bmp", 8-bit per pixel, flipped row order
d) open filter "Test2"
...

By way of demonstration here is the snippet configured with the five surface maps of my orb filter and a simple filter in four different states. If the resolution were increased to 65536x65536 it would result in the individual images having a resolution of 21845x21845 which may be enough for some applications.
It would not have to stay at 9 images it could be increased or decreased by squared numbers.


Batch_Animate demo b.ffxml

thanks, onyx! that is pretty much what i thought. just one last question; will it allow for individual slider control, also? like 'slider 1 > set 1' then 'slider 1 > set 2', etc for incrementing a given slider 1 whole or decimal place? or better yet, 'slider 1 > set 1' 'slider 1 inc 1' where 'inc' is increment and 'dec' is decrement?

if it can, this would be great for doing .gif animation frames. i could just run off a batch and take the frames into psp's animation shop and collate into a .gif animation in no time.

ok, just wanted to clarify that. thanks, igor.