The following information is designed as a quickstart guide to help you get up and running using IRender nXt's Cloud Rendering Service. For more detailed, nuanced information about the service please refer to our IRender nXt Cloud Rendering Advanced Help page or see the FAQ.

1. Cloud Rendering Activation

In order to access the Cloud function, you must have an active license for IRender nXt so you can download the latest version of the software (and it must be version WD27 - released April 2023 - or later. Download).

Active means you purchased a new perpetual license, or renewed your perpetual license, within the last 12 months. If you are a subscription license holder you are always considered “active”. If you need to renew your license you can do so [here (you will need your license number to do this. If you need assistance email us Render Plus Support Email).

If you have an active license, download the latest version of IRender nXt here and install (you will need your license number to do this. If you need assistance email us Render Plus Support Email).

2. Buying Tokens

Tokens are the “currency” you will buy/spend to render your scenes and or animations on the Cloud. The number of tokens you spend to render will depend on a number of factors related to the scene or animation (see IRender nXt Cloud Rendering Advanced Help).

Token Refund Policy Tokens are time sensitive and not refundable! Tokens not used within any 1 year window are forfeited and the remaining value of the unused tokens is not refunded. However, if you have purchased tokens and, as an example, used some but not the remainder for 8 months, if you purchase another block of tokens, ALL tokens would be valid for 1 year, i.e., even those you did not use for the 8 months prior to the purchase of the latest block.

• Important: No refunds are given for unused tokens.

Follow these steps to buy tokens through the Cloud dialog box within IRender nXt (note: you cannot do this while in trial mode):

1) Click the Cloud icon on the IRender nXt toolbar (3rd icon from the left). You can also reach the Cloud tab via the dialog box displayed when you click the green Render button (2nd icon from the left), or the Animation icon (3rd icon from the right).

2) Click the “Purchase Tokens” button.

3) Complete the information requested and submit (you will be emailed an invoice/receipt).

4) Once your order has been processed, click the "Refresh" button to the right of “Remaining Tokens”. This will refresh the total to reflect the number you just purchased.

You can setup a job to run longer than you anticipate it will take, in tandem with setting the number of passes, to ensure that you get quality you want. If the job ends sooner than the time set you will be refunded the unused token(s), rounded up to the next 15 minute or hour increment.

• Important: Please read important information about tokens (including tips, refunds, token life, etc.) on the IRender nXt Cloud Rendering Advanced Help page.

3. Preparing Your Scene/Animation for Rendering

Prepare the model/scene you want to render in the normal manner using SketchUp and IRender nXt.

The default settings for rendering your scene or animation are 15 minutes on a Standard (8 core) machine. Change any of the following settings before you start your job:

1) Machine Type

2) Maximum Minutes

3) Maximum Passes (optional)

4) Job Description
i. Name
ii. Project Group
iii. Email Address

• Important: Experiment on small scenes when you first start using the Cloud service! We highly recommend you experiment with the number of minutes and size of machine (Standard (8 core) or Large (16 core)) available to you once you open the Cloud dialog box. This will help you determine the time or number of passes (optional) you want to render for when you start rendering a job on the Cloud.

You will notice that you will spend more Tokens if you increase the amount of rendering time and or you use the Large machine (16 core) vs. the Standard machine (8 core). The Large (16 core) machine will render faster (more passes, but not necessarily double that of the Standard (8 core) machine), and quality of your image will improve the longer you render.

4. Start Rendering

Clicking on the “Start Cloud Rendering Job” button on the bottom right hand corner of the dialog will send your model/scene to the Cloud and start rendering based on your settings (see Preparing Your Scene/Animation for Rendering section above).

At this point all work is being done on the Cloud; nothing is happening locally on your machine (you could shutdown your machine if you wanted).

• Important: Once submitted, a job goes through a loading and queueing processes before the job actually starts rendering. This process is not instantaneous and may take several minutes depending on the size of your scene or animation and or the load on Microsoft's Azure Cloud service at any particular point in time.

You can load as many jobs as you like to the Cloud for rendering at the same time, as long as you have already purchased the appropriate number of tokens required to cover them. This is one of the main benefits of Cloud rendering.

• Important Privacy Information: As this is a Cloud service, as the provider of the service, Render Plus Software is able to see any of the jobs submitted by users and the Cloud variables (machine type, maximum time, maximum passes, etc.) associated with those jobs.

5. Using the RPS Cloud Job Monitor

Once you have started rendering a Job Monitor is displayed. The Monitor shows you the progress of the job(s) you are rendering on the Cloud. You will see your rendering job name in a list (along with any others that are in process or completed associated with the license number). A single click on the job name will display the job details in the space below the list area. These details will automatically update once every 60 seconds during the rendering period should you want to check on its status.

To see a larger image of your rendering, clicking on the image will display the current state of the image.

Once your rendering is complete, click the “Download Image” button in the bottom right hand corner and you will be able to download the rendered image to your machine to view.

To stop your rendering at any point in the rendering process (because you might be happy with the rendering at a certain point before the job completes), click the "Stop" button. Note: If you stop your rendering and want to restart, you will NOT be able to restart the job from the point at which you stopped it, and you will NOT receive a refund for the tokens spent. If you decide to re-render you will need to change the settings for your job (machine size, time, and passes (optional)) to ensure you achieve the rendered image quality you want.

You would be refunded unused tokens if you had setup a job for 30 minutes or more but stopped the job within the first 15 minutes, i.e., all users spend at least 1 (8 core) or 2 (16 core) tokens for every job, for that first 15 minutes. This concept also applies for stopping a job after the first 15 minutes, i.e., you would be refunded unused tokens rounded up based on the next time increment and beyond (45 minutes, 60 minutes, and every hour thereafter). See the IRender nXt Cloud Rendering Advanced Help page for more information on refunding of tokens should you stop a job before it completes.

See Also

IRender nXt Cloud Rendering Advanced Help
Frequently Asked Questions