The name of the job. Set this to <default> or set blank if you want the default job name to be used.

The render node used to generate the output files. For most cases, this would be a path to a Mantra ROP.

The machine name and listen port of the HQueue server.

The path to the Houdini distribution that will execute the render on the HQueue farm. The distribution must be installed in a location that is accessible by every machine on the farm. You can use the $HQROOT and $HQCLIENTARCH variables to help specify the folder path (see HQueue Variables).

The job’s priority. Jobs with higher priorities are scheduled and processed before jobs with lower priorities. 0 is the lowest priority.

When Render Target HIP File is chosen, set this parameter’s value to the location of the .hip file to be loaded and rendered on the farm. The .hip file must be saved somewhere on the shared drive, or any other location that is accessible by every machine on the farm. You can use the $HQROOT variable to help specify the .hip file path (see HQueue Variables).

When Copy Project Files to Shared Folder and Render is chosen, set this parameter’s value to the location on the shared folder where you want to copy your .hip file and its dependencies to. The location must be accessible by all machines on the farm. You can use the $HQROOT variable to help specify the .hip file path (see HQueue Variables).

When Use Existing IFDs is chosen, set this paramter’s value to the path of the IFDs to be used for rendering. The location must be accessible to all locations on the farm.

When Use Existing IFDs is chosen, set these fields to specify the start frame, the end frame, and the frame increment value for the render. The frame increment may not be zero and the start and end frames chosen must correspond to existing files when the IFD Path is expanded with frame numbers.

When checked, Houdini automatically saves the current .hip file before submitting a job to HQueue. This guarantees that the farm renders with the latest changes made to your scene. This parameter does not apply when Render Target HIP File or Use Existing IFDs is chosen.

When checked, Houdini warns of any unsaved changes in the .hip file when submitting the job to HQueue. If this parameter is not checked, then Houdini ignores any unsaved changes and automatically submits the job to HQueue. This parameter does not apply when Render Target HIP File or Use Existing IFDs is chosen.

When checked, Houdini shows a message stating the ID of the successfully submitted job. To avoid these messages, uncheck this parameter.

Enable this parameter if you want status emails for the specified events to be sent out.

The list of emails that will be sent status updates. Use commas to separate the entries.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when the job starts being processed by a client.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when the job is successfully completed.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when the job has failed, been canceled, or abandoned.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when the job is paused.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when the job is resumed.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when a job is rescheduled.

Enable this parameter to have emails sent when a job’s priority is changed.

When checked, a job is submitted to HQueue which writes IFD files to the specified path. As IFDs are generated, additional jobs are automatically submitted to HQueue which perform the rendering using the IFDs as input. When unchecked, IFD generation is skipped and hython, instead of Mantra, is used to cook and render each frame. Having this parameter turned on guarantees that at most 1 HBatch (or greater) license token is used on the farm to process your job.

This parameter does not apply when the Use Existing IFDs options are chosen or when the Output Driver parameter points to a ROP other than the Mantra ROP.

Set this parameter if you want HQueue to assign the IFD generation job to a specific client or a member of a specific client group. This parameter only applies when the Generate IFDs parameter is checked on.

The list of client machines that HQueue can assign the IFD generation job to. Use commas to separate the machine names.

This parameter only applies if Listed Clients is chosen in the Assign To parameter.

Click to pop-up a dialog with a list of client machines registered on the HQueue farm. Accepting the selection in the dialog automatically populates the Clients parameter with the selected clients.

The list of client groups that HQueue can assign the IFD generation job to. Use commas to separate the group names. Specifically, HQueue assigns the IFD generation job to a machine that is a members of at least one of the groups in the list.

This parameter only applies if Clients from Listed Groups is chosen in the Assign To parameter.

Click to pop-up a dialog with a list of client groups registered on the HQueue farm. Accepting the selection in the dialog automatically populates the Client Groups parameter with the selected groups.

If this box is checked, the IFD for a frame will be deleted when the farm finishes rendering that frame.

This parameter only applies when Generate IFDs is enabled. It does not apply when the Use Existing IFDs option is chosen.

If this box is checked, the render job submitted using the IFD file would be platform-independent.

This parameter is default to false, and only applies when Generate IFDs is enabled or hq_hip_action is set to use_ifd.

The minimum number of client machines that should concurrently render a single frame. Multi-client rendering is achieved on HQueue using Mantra’s -H option (please see rendering on the network for more information). This parameter only applies if the Output Driver parameter is pointing to a Mantra ROP.

The maximum number of client machines that should concurrently render a single frame. This parameter only applies if the Output Driver parameter is pointing to a Mantra ROP.

Check this box if you only want the single tile specified by the Mantra ROP's Tile Index parameter to be rendered. If tiling is enabled and this is box is not checked, then the tiles are rendered as separate jobs before being stitched together into the final image. This parameter only applies if neither Use Existing IFDs or Generate IFDs are enabled.

Check this box to turn on Mantra checkpointing. If the job fails or is cancelled, then checkpointing enables the job to continue rendering from its last checkpoint if it is rescheduled.

Set this parameter if you want HQueue to assign the render job to a specific list of clients or client groups. This parameter only applies when rendering to a local HQueue farm.

The list of client machines that HQueue can assign the render jobs to. Use commas to separate the machine names.

This parameter only applies if Listed Clients is chosen in the Assign To parameter.

Click to pop-up a dialog with a list of client machines registered on the HQueue farm. Accepting the selection in the dialog automatically populates the Clients parameter with the selected clients.

The list of client groups that HQueue can assign the render jobs to. Use commas to separate the group names. Specifically, HQueue assigns render jobs to only the machines that are members of at least one of the groups in the list.

This parameter only applies if Clients from Listed Groups is chosen in the Assign To parameter.

Click to pop-up a dialog with a list of client groups registered on the HQueue farm. Accepting the selection in the dialog automatically populates the Client Groups parameter with the selected groups.

Check this parameter if you want to render all of the frames in a single HQueue job. This is especially useful when rendering with a Dynamics ROP or a Geometry ROP where a cooked frame depends on the cooked results of the previous frames. RBD, Cloth and Wire simulations, which cannot be divided into slices and distributed across multiple machines, work best with this option turned on.

The number of frames that are rendered in a single HQueue job. For each job, HQueue starts Houdini, loads the .hip file, renders the requested number of frames and then quits. Having more frames per job reduces the amount of overhead spent starting and quitting Houdini. However, having too many frames per job means less jobs can be distributed across the farm which could potentially lengthen the overall rendering time depending on the number of available client machines.

The ideal value for this parameter would result in having at most one render job assigned to a machine on the farm. You can use the following formula as a starting point:

frames_per_job = ceil(number_of_frames / number_of_machines)

In most cases, a value of 1 is usually sufficient.

This parameter only applies if Batch All Frames in One Job is unchecked.

Check this parameter if you want to set the maximum number of CPUs used for each render job.

The maximum number of CPUs that will be used by a render job. If the number exceeds a client machine’s number of CPUs, then the client machine will not be assigned to any render jobs.

A list of variable names and values that should be defined on the client machine when running the job. The variables appear as shell environment variables.

A list of output directories that should be created on the farm before any files are rendered out. For example, if your render generates a shadow map and an image, then you can add $HIP/shadowmap and $HIP/pics to this list.

Note that this parameter does nothing if the output directories already exist.