Blackmagic Forum

Smart Cache is cool and all, but have you tried forcing a render?

Smart Render Cache isn't smart enough. Using Render in Place is NOT a solution. Far too often I'm staring at an effect waiting for the system to decide to render it blue so I can play it back in real-time, and even sometimes when it's blue it doesn't play smoothly the first time but what we really need is a way to just select any clip, or clips, or range, and hit a keyboard shortcut that forces that selection to render immediately.

Final Cut does this and it's one of the only things I miss.

(that and the magnetic timeline; don't @ me bro)

-Joseph

YES!

+1

PhotoJoseph wrote:have you tried forcing a render?

Yes. User Cache allows this.

Jim Simon wrote:

PhotoJoseph wrote:have you tried forcing a render?

Yes. User Cache allows this.

Please enlighten me. If it’s a fusion clip there’s a direct fusion cache. If color there’s a color cache. (Not that, in my experience, right-clicking and choosing that specific render cache as manual makes it render immediately). But if got a random pile of effects and text… how do I force that to render NOW?

+1 for force cache by selection. IMO, the caching system needs a serious rework.

The current "user" system will not get the OP the convenience that he wants. I guess it is an evolution of parts (clip, colour, fusion...) that allows for precise caching control, but then you have to go back and undo all that when you move on in the timeline or you will likely end up re-caching that too. Plus, it is somewhat unpredictable and not easy to "debug."

+1

I don't want to Render in Place and create a new file and go through dialogues, I just want it rendered and cached like other editing programs do.

The caching prioritises where the playhead is, or where playback began, and will then cache forward from that point.

To force caching of a particular clip, just place the playhead before it/on it, or start playback on it.

eikonoklastes wrote:The caching prioritises where the playhead is, or where playback began, and will then cache forward from that point.

To force caching of a particular clip, just place the playhead before it/on it, or start playback on it.

Ideally, I would want to hit a shortcut to force render a clip.
I want to set a media cache setting once, then when I have a clip that I feel needs rendering, hit render in to out.

I don't want to faff about with my playhead position or play the playhead.

It's just a different way of doing it.

PhotoJoseph wrote:how do I force that to render NOW?

All effects do fall under Color or Fusion Cache.

I'm not sure how to tell which is which, so I've handled this by turning them both on.

Jim Simon wrote:

PhotoJoseph wrote:how do I force that to render NOW?

All effects do fall under Color or Fusion Cache.

I'm not sure how to tell which is which, so I've handled this by turning them both on.

Fair enough, but simply turning it on doesn't guarantee that the clip(s) you've turned it on for will render. Sometimes you just sit and wait and sit and wait while it renders… well, something else.

PhotoJoseph wrote:simply turning it on doesn't guarantee that the clip(s) you've turned it on for will render.

When working correctly, it should.

Jim Simon wrote:

PhotoJoseph wrote:simply turning it on doesn't guarantee that the clip(s) you've turned it on for will render.

When working correctly, it should.

famous last words

By that I mean, it always has for me.

Philip Kapadia wrote:

eikonoklastes wrote:I don't want to faff about with my playhead position or play the playhead.

Honestly, I'm torn on this. I do like the philosophy of "let the software take care of stuff you shouldn't need to take care of", and the "faff" really is just moving the playhead (to the clip you are already looking at), so it's not a bad implementation.

On the other hand, it does break from standard, and that's always difficult to let go of.

I just dug up this old post so I could complain again. Why is this such a low priority for BMD? Fix the cache problems… give the user a simple way to select something and cache it. If I see a blue bar and it's still playing back stuttered, then there's a problem -- it's not truly cached!

Jeremy Lusk wrote:+1

I don't want to Render in Place and create a new file and go through dialogues, I just want it rendered and cached like other editing programs do.

+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1

You nailed it

Just an update on my workflow.
I'm using the 'smart cache' feature, which seems to work quite well. It caches the clips that don't play back in real time, which is very similar to Nucoda's caching function.

Maybe the problem is more that we don't know what Resolve is doing. Most of the time we don't need to know. But sometime we really need to know if Resolve is actually making the cache or not, to know approximate the time it will take. Especially when the client is near. But maybe I miss someting to have this information, more than the really really small red bar (whend your working on long timeline).

+1000

+10000

Meiges wrote:Maybe the problem is more that we don't know what Resolve is doing. Most of the time we don't need to know. But sometime we really need to know if Resolve is actually making the cache or not, to know approximate the time it will take. Especially when the client is near. But maybe I miss someting to have this information, more than the really really small red bar (whend your working on long timeline).

You’re not missing anything. We all just want to be able to select any clip(s)/range and cache that, NOW. A million amazing features in Resolve 20, but not that one!!

+1
This falls under a whole list of Quality of Life features. I agree, it would be helpful to have a keyboard command to bypass the time out requirement and start caching immediately.

Yup. If you feel like it you can search the forum for “low hanging fruit” which contains a lot of posts I consider both easy to code and helpful QOL wise.

BMD asked me to stop labeling things this way though so I’ve not been keeping the practice up.

Joe Shapiro wrote:BMD asked me to stop labeling things this way though so I’ve not been keeping the practice up.

Wait, BMD asked you to stop calling out the easy fixes for engineers that people actually want? That's… sad.

PhotoJoseph wrote:Wait, BMD asked you to stop calling out the easy fixes for engineers that people actually want? That's… sad.

I think nobody knows except the Dev Team and the actual programming staff what's actually easy to do, and what's not easy to do. Sometimes there are other issues in the way, so it's not quite as straightforward as you might think, looking from the outside in.

Marc Wielage wrote:

PhotoJoseph wrote:Wait, BMD asked you to stop calling out the easy fixes for engineers that people actually want? That's… sad.

I think nobody knows except the Dev Team and the actual programming staff what's actually easy to do, and what's not easy to do. Sometimes there are other issues in the way, so it's not quite as straightforward as you might think, looking from the outside in.

Fair enough. This specific one certainly seems like it should be easy though, and even if it's not, it's likely easier than the dozen AI features added in the new Resolve. Which are great, for certain, but c'mon… give the people the feature they've been asking for for years!

I've grown to quite like the automatic caching, and I can't see myself going back to manually triggering renders. It works as expected for me every time.

There is a setting to adjust the delay before background caching kicks in, and you can also trigger it by pressing play, so either one works pretty well for me.

If BMD do decide to implement this, they should keep the existing functionality.

eikonoklastes wrote:I've grown to quite like the automatic caching, and I can't see myself going back to manually triggering renders. It works as expected for me every time.

There is a setting to adjust the delay before background caching kicks in, and you can also trigger it by pressing play, so either one works pretty well for me.

If BMD do decide to implement this, they should keep the existing functionality.

Oh, 100% agreed. The problem of course is when you add a bunch of things and it's caching through those, but you need this ONE thing to cache now so you can preview, not sit around staring at the screen waiting for the several in the queue before it finish up. That's super lame.

PhotoJoseph wrote: but you need this ONE thing to cache now so you can preview, not sit around staring at the screen waiting for the several in the queue before it finish up.

Ya, that's my main complaint too.

One tiny change can make the entire timeline cache turn red. Then you have a 10 minute or more wait. Otherwise "smartcache" would be mostly OK.

User cache is awkward, because if you want to prevent re-caching you have to go back and dig through all the clip colour and fusion FX to turn them off - assuming you remember where these are.

+1