Envoy - GridMarkets' Render Manager
Envoy is our proprietary render manager that uploads your scene and all its assets easily to submit, view and manage your jobs on our render farm. Our newest release, Envoy v.4.5, has new features including file upload speeds 20x faster than previous versions.
Get started rendering your projects faster and easier than ever before - Download Envoy 4.5.
Want to monitor your file submissions on the go? - there’s also a mobile-friendly version for that.
Check out the following “Getting Started” video to see how easy Envoy is to download and use.
Envoy Getting Started Transcript . . .
Welcome to the envoy getting started guide. This brief video explains how to download and install Envoy. Envoy is GridMarkets' render manager. It provides 3D submission plugins, manages project file up and downloads and provides job access and management. Get started by downloading Envoy from our website - see the "Get Started" menu option. Envoy will be downloaded along with our plugins Houdini, Cinema 4D, Maya, Blender and 3ds Max. Install the launcher and start it. In Windows, run the application as an administrator by right- clicking and selecting run as administrator. We advise to keep the launcher to update Envoy and to start and stop the Envoy service if needed. An icon will appear in your system tray or Mac menu bar that can be used to open the UI or stop the Envoy service. If you don't see them, please try rebooting your workstation. Use the launcher or the tray icon to open the envoy UI in a browser. Log in with your email and password and install the relevant 3D application plugin from the plug-in menu. Access Envoy away from your desk using the URL envoy.gridmarkets.com, though you will not be able to up or download any files, only view them. That's it! Contact us at support.gridmarkets.com if you have any questions.
Envoy General Features Transcript . . .
Welcome to GridMarkets Envoy Render Manager v4.5, General Features. Let’s get started with Views in the Envoy Render Manager. Click on the GridMarkets button located in the top left corner to see your project folders which is the default view shown after logging into Envoy. Select the Submissions button for the chosen project folder. The initial default view shows your jobs grouped by submission so you can easily manage them in case you are stopping and restarting, or have dependent jobs. Click on any of the jobs listed to reveal the tasks and other details. Click the X in the top right corner to get back to the main view. Enable the Advanced View toggle. Select any job to display its details which is shown in the right window pane. Select the Flat Listing icon to the right of the Activated View toggle, to show all the jobs in the order they ran. Next is the View Summary in Envoy Render Manager. In the grouped view, there is a green Summary button under the Actions column. Click it to open a new window that displays information about the submission. This example shown here is for Houdini. Next is the Application Logs. Click on the green Application Log icon in the Actions column to see the application log for that task. In the Application log when Auto Refresh toggle is activated, and the task is still running, it will be auto-refreshed every 30 seconds. You can turn off the Auto Refresh toggle and manually update with the green Refresh button to the right. Next is stopping tasks. You can stop running tasks by clicking the red Stop button. A window will pop up asking if you are sure you want to stop the selected job. Select the reason from the drop down menu and press stop to continue. Or you can click the X to cancel. The selected task has been stopped. Next is Stopping or Suspending Jobs. You can use the Stop or Suspend button on a running job to Stop or Suspend it under the Actions column. A window will pop up asking if you are sure you want to stop or suspend the selected job. Select the reason from the drop down menu and proceed either to Stop or Suspend by clicking the buttons respectively. Or you can click the X to cancel. Note. Suspending a selected task, will allow tasks that have already started to keep running, and will prevent any new tasks from starting. The job will be fully suspended after all the tasks that are running have completed. Stopping the job immediately kills all tasks and prevents any new tasks from running. Next is Restarting Jobs. Hit the green arrow button to restart a selected stopped job. A window pops up asking if you are sure you want to restart this job. You can select a different machine category and number of machines, and choose which tasks to restart. Hit Restart when ready. You can also set different frame ranges as well. Note. Please observe the frame range input formats in the blue box. Hit the green Restart button when ready. Thanks for watching. Go to GridMarkets.com to learn more about how we can service all your rendering needs.
Envoy Profile and Settings Transcript . . .
Welcome to GridMarkets Envoy render Manager Version 4.5 profile and settings. Let's get started. In the envoy render manager web browser, click on your blue username button in the top right corner and choose profile from the drop down list that appears. The profile window opens. The User Details section is found in the upper left corner where you can change your username and your password to your account. Note if you need to change your email address, please contact us at support@GridMarkets.com. Next is the access key, which is a randomly generated password you can share to a specific client or colleague to log into view and download files. Note they can only do and download files and cannot submit jobs or make any changes to your account. Here's an example of what they will see. Click the generate a new key to create a new randomized access key password and a new colleague or client access is required. Note once a new access key password has been generated, it will prevent colleagues or clients with an old access key password access to your account and files. Next is the service plan. You can change your service plan which changes the number of machines that you can use. Click the blue Change button in the service plan section. The update service plan window appears. Click the arrow to the right to see the list in the drop down menu. That shows all the service plan options including the current service plan that you are running shown in blue. Select the new service plan option you would like. Then click the green Update button to confirm. Your service plan has been updated. If you upgrade your service plan any jobs currently running will receive more machines. Downgrading will not reduce the number of machines or charges on any jobs currently running, only when new jobs start. Please go to GridMarkets.com/pricing-overview for more information. To use the rush plus service plan select the rush plus option and you will be taken to the rush plus GridMarkets webpage to fill out the rush Plus application form. Next is the credit overdraft limit. This operates as a loan of credit set by GridMarkets based on various factors including your total frequency of credits purchase, as well as the number of submissions. If you don't have a credit overdraft limit set, and your existing credit balance reaches zero all running tasks will be suspended. When you do have a credit overdraft limit set, all tasks running will continue to render until you have used up your credit overdraft limit. Note, when the credit overdraft limit has been reached. All running tasks will be stopped. Please go to the GridMarkets knowledge base for more information. Next is the number of machines per job section. This shows the default maximum number of machines set by the GridMarkets service plan you have chosen. You can use all machines on one job or spread them across several jobs in parallel when you submit from the GridMarkets Plug in settings in your 3d application. Hit the blue Change button to see the selection window appear. An update job through that window pops up with the current amount of machines available. You can set the job throughput limit by typing the number or using the up and down arrows to the right. Note: setting it to zero will use the maximum machines for your service plan. Next is the CPU render section. Here you can change the default machine types for your jobs that only use CPUs. Note you can also override this default when submitting your job in the GridMarkets plug in settings in your 3d application. Click the blue Change button and the update machine Preferences window appears. Select from the drop down menu the new machine you want to use. Click the green Update button to confirm. Note: preemptable machines are cheaper versions of the same machine. But these can be removed from your job to be used by other higher priority jobs. Gridmarkets will automatically restart any affected jobs. Go to GridMarkets.com/preemptable-plan for more information. You can also choose other machine configurations from the default settings like CPU simulations, GPU simulations, composite transcode and GPU Render sections. To go back to your Envoy render manager overview, click the GridMarkets logo in the top left corner. Then click on your blue username button in the top right corner and choose Settings from the drop down list that appears. A Settings window opens where you can change upload and download currencies to limit how many files are transferred in parallel. Note we advise not changing these default settings unless you are experiencing difficulties. Please contact support@GridMarkets.com if you're having any issues with your file transfers. Thanks for watching.
