There are 2 ways to render still images on the RANCH: MultiBand or MultiCam. Depending on your needs, one may be better than the other. See below to get further information.

For some render engine, the MultiBand is not accessible.

The MultiBand is built to render very high resolution still image very quickly! It splits your image up into horizontal strips (~60-120) which are rendered independently on different nodes, simultaneously. Once all the strips have been rendered, they are stitched together to produce the final image.

There are some limitations (due to the stitching part):

• Only 7 output file formats supported: PNG/TIF/TGA/BMP/JPG/EXR and HDR
• Multi-layered EXR or TIF with layers may only produce the main pass
• Stereoscopic image with both view (left and right) is not working due to the command line renderer
• Two dimensional filters/post effects like [Lens Effects] will not work properly because any filter will be applied on the strip and not on the whole image
• Any prepass map (from GI, caustic or SSS materials) must be calculated beforehand on your computer in order to avoid lighting discontinuities between stitched strips.

While rendering, you can observe, in near real time, the progress of your render by clicking on the Preview button. The preview image is updated every minute or so. Above is a preview of a still image rendered at 56%.

It’s normally used when you have several cameras from one scene to render in one project. Each camera will be rendered on 1 server (n cameras = n servers), but it also works for only one still image. If there is only one camera, RANCHecker will automatically retrieve the information (the selected camera view, the image size and the frame number). After you press ‘Prepare Project’, you will get the MultiCam window allowing you to select your camera.