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This page provides answers to the most frequently asked questions about Chaos Cloud.

 

What is Chaos Cloud? 

Chaos Cloud is a software as a service (SaaS) which allows you to submit and render scenes with cloud-based V-Ray. You can concentrate on designing and creating your scene, and Chaos Cloud will take care of installing and maintaining everything needed to run V-Ray, without hogging your hardware and software.

What is the Chaos Cloud client app? 

The app is the connection between your scene and Chaos Cloud, and it allows you to submit scenes to the cloud. Depending on your workflow, the client app can be started from the 3D application you used to design your scene, or manually. If it is started from the 3D design application, it will automatically load the scene you are working on. If you start it manually, you will have to find and open the vrscene you have exported and want to render in the cloud. To start it manually on Windows, open: "%appdata%\Chaos Group\Cloud\Client\ccloud.exe". To start it manually on macOS, open: /Applications/ChaosGroup/Cloud/Client/ccloud. To start it manually on Linux, open: $HOME/.ChaosGroup/vcloud/client/ccloud.bin.

Which browsers are supported? 

You can open and work with the Chaos Cloud web portal and client app in the latest versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft EDGE, Apple Safari and Opera browsers.

What type of render jobs are supported by Chaos Cloud? 

Chaos Cloud supports rendering still images and animations. Still images can also be optimized for virtual reality (VR). If VR is enabled, Chaos Cloud will generate a responsive web page for reviewing the result on VR headsets such as Google Cardboard.

Which render modes does Chaos Cloud support? 

Chaos Cloud can render scenes using Progressive or Bucket render mode, depending on the scene setup in the 3D application.

Which V-Ray engines does Chaos Cloud support?

At the moment, Chaos Cloud supports and renders scenes using the V-Ray CPU and the V-Ray GPU engines. But for V-Ray GPU there are several important limitations. V-Ray GPU runs only in Bucket mode, hence any V-Ray GPU Progressive scene will be forced to Bucket mode. V-Ray GPU runs only on CPU which is the so-called hybrid rendering. And lastly Chaos Cloud supports only versions V-Ray Next Update 1 (4.10.x) and above for V-Ray GPU, i.e. any V-Ray GPU scene created with a previous version will be rendered with V-Ray Next Update 1 (4.10.x). Support for V-Ray GPU engine running on GPU is coming soon.

How do I start a render job?

To start a render job, submit a scene through the client app. If there are free resources in the cloud, Chaos Cloud will start rendering your job. If there are no free resources, your job will join a queue and will start rendering automatically when resources become available.

What image types will I get as an output by rendering in Chaos Cloud? 

The output image types you will be able to download by rendering in Chaos Cloud are JPG and the file type you have specified in your scene’s settings. These settings are customized in the 3D application you use for designing your scene. If you don’t specify anything in the 3D application, Chaos Cloud will generate an EXR image beside the JPG.

Can I download the output image if I pause or cancel my active rendering job?

Yes, you can download the image at the current status of your rendering job. Bear in mind that Chaos Cloud will generate the image type you have specified in your scene’s settings in the 3D application. If you haven't specified anything, Chaos Cloud will generate EXR and JPG images as outputs for your job.

Which 3D applications are supported by Chaos Cloud? 

Chaos Cloud is available for all 3D applications supported by V-Ray via vrscene file export. Chaos Cloud also integrates directly with V-Ray for SketchUp, Rhino, Revit, 3ds Max, Modo, Blender, Houdini, Cinema 4D and Maya.

Where can I download the Chaos Cloud Client App? 

The Chaos Cloud Client App installer can be downloaded from the Chaos Cloud web portal.

Which operating systems are supported? 

The Chaos Cloud Client App is available for Windows 64-bit, macOS 10.9 or later, and Linux 64-bit.

How can I update the Chaos Cloud client app? 

When a new version of the Chaos Cloud Client App is available, a notification appears. Click on it and update the client app.

How many jobs can I submit simultaneously? 

You can submit up to 10000 jobs simultaneously. Their status will be "Submitted" and will wait in a queue until they become "Active" and start rendering.

How many jobs can I render simultaneously? 

You can render up to 100 "Active" jobs at the same time. Their status is “Active”.

Is there a limit of how many GB of data I can download from Chaos Cloud when I want to get the results from my rendered job?

Yes, there is a limit. For 30 calendar days, i.e. 720 hours, you are limited to downloading 500 GB of data. If you hit this limit, you can always contact us through support and ask for a quota increase.

What camera types does Chaos Cloud support for the Virtual Reality (VR) feature? 

With the VR feature, you can review your rendered image in a VR headset. This feature is available if you are using 360 VR Spherical Panorama camera in your scene. VR Cubemap camera is not supported yet. But the VR Cubemap camera is supported in the image output which you can download after rendering your scene. It's just not displayed in the VR preview page.

Will you notify me when my job is completed? 

Yes. By default, our notification service will send you an email if your job status changes from "In Progress" to "Completed" or "Failed". You can unsubscribe from these notifications from the Chaos Cloud portal options. Chaos Cloud also has in-app notifications in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

How can I download my images?

You’ll find them in the Job Details page on the web portal, or you can download them with the corresponding command in the Chaos Cloud Command Line Interface (CLI): "ccloud job download --id --output”

How secure is Chaos Cloud? 

All communication between the user and our services is encrypted, so your data is safe. Files and other data that go into Chaos Cloud are attributed to the user who submitted them, making accidental sharing impossible.

Why has my job failed while rendering? 

If your job renders successfully on your computer, it shouldn’t fail when rendered with Chaos Cloud. If your job still fails on Chaos Cloud, review the logs in the Job Details page in the web portal, and copy and send them to us to investigate. We’ll be in touch.

What happens if I run out of credits on Chaos Cloud? 

If you run out of credits on Chaos Cloud, your "Active" jobs will be paused, and you won’t be able to submit new jobs. You will be able to resume your job and submit new jobs when you get more credits.

How can I purchase Chaos Cloud credits? 

Predefined packages of credits can be purchased from our online store or via a preferred reseller. Package options start at 100 credits and go up to 50000, based on rendering needs. Please note, purchased credits don't expire and you'll be refunded for failed frames. Credit package purchases are non-refundable.

Will you refund credits spent for failed frames and still scenes? 

Yes, Chaos Cloud will refund any credits spent for failed frames and still scenes. That is if a still scene job fails, we will refund the credits spent for the whole scene, and if a frame (or frames) from an animation job fails, Chaos Cloud will refund the credits spent just for the failed frame(s) (not for the whole animation job).

Why are there black spots on my render output image? 

If your job has dark spots where you expect to have objects, it might be because you are trying to render a scene with plugins which are not supported by V-Ray.

Why is my render output image black? 

If your image is black, it might be that you are using plugins which are not supported by V-Ray. Another possible reason is that you are using a camera directed in a position opposite your scene.

My job status is staying at "Submitted", and will not start rendering. Why is this? 

It may take up to three minutes to setup and start a rendering machine. If it fails, the job state will change to "Failed" and we will notify you.

If one frame from my animation job fails, will the whole animation job fail? 

If more than 5% of the animation frames fail, the whole animation job will be stopped and considered as failed. If the number of frames is too small, than at least two frames have to fail to fail the whole job. You will still be able to download the output generated up until the fail of the animation job. If you clone the failed animation, the Clone UI will suggest you to render just the failed frames by filling in their numbers in the Frame Range field.

Can I resubmit a job which I have already rendered in Chaos Cloud?

Yes, you can re-submit a job with the Clone option, which is located in your Job Details page.

How do I check my remaining credits?

If you want to check how many credits you have left, go to the Resources tab and check the Remaining credits.

What are the hardware specifications of Chaos Cloud? What kind of virtual machines do you use to render my job? 

One of our primary goals is to keep the workflow as simple/automated as possible with little to no sacrifices. With that in mind, selection of machine type and number is handled for you by us. At the moment we use a wide range of machines from 36 to 96 cores. But we continue to experiment with different configurations so these might change. Also, we are currently working on making distributed rendering automatic. With that in place you may seldom feel the need to specify anything upfront. That said it is important to clarify that the number of credits consumed takes into account the amount of processing power used for a given period of time. So 1 hour on a 36 core machine will cost the same amount of credits as 30 mins on a 72 core machine and the same as 22.5 mins on a 96 core machine.

Why does exporting a scene take so long?

If you are re-submitting an animation scene that has a change in a character or geometry, the whole export process of a scene is done again. This process might take up to tens of hours depending on the complexity and number of frames in the animation.

Some scenes that are rich in geometry or some long animations could also take long during the exporting process. Note that the exporting process and the rendering in Chaos Cloud are two different things and you are not charged with credits during the export.

Important note!

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If you add a new version of a job that you have already submitted to the Chaos Cloud, its upload will be much quicker than the initial upload. Chaos Cloud compares every new job to the existing ones, and if there is a match the client app will upload only the changes. This is useful when you make a new iteration of an existing scene. That is why it is useful to keep your jobs in Chaos Cloud while you are still working on them.