Why MULE™ Enterprise!?
MULE™ is the premiere tool for rendering LightWave® content over a network of computers.
It used to be the case that your workflow was highly impacted by a time-intensive pipeline running between your LightWave work environment and the ultimate viewing of completed renders. You pretty much had to walk away from your system for a significant period of time before returning to see what you had rendered. If adjustments were called for in a scene or image, it was time to take another long walk!
Well, now with MULE™ you can keep working at your LightWave machine while you render. You can monitor rendered frames as they're generated, and you can tweak and adjust the render settings, even while you may be working on something else.
SMARTGROUPS™
Optimize your arsenal of CPU power by creating SMARTGROUPS™ to focus your varied array of system resources on specific tasks that individually suit them best. Send specific frames to specific computers for the most robust or speediest results. Work fluidly and without trepidation, because the flexibility provided by MULE™ allows for all the experimentation you desire -- and your final project renderings will be far better as a result, with the fastest output possible on your equipment!
SCENE-Q™
The scene manager in MULE™ ( SCENE-Q™ ) allows for unprecedented coordination of the all the render tasks at hand - with instantaneous response. Launch new scene renders. Cancel renders on a whim. Change output specifications. Rearrange the pecking order of elements-in-waiting, or even for elements that are currently being rendered. Upon changing a setting, all nodes in your network will immediately be re-deployed with their new priorities. No delays. No freezes or lock-ups or system congestion. Go ahead and change your mind! MULE™ won't fuss.
MULEVIEWER™
With the MULEVIEWER™ you can look at frames as they're rendered -- without having to wait for your whole project to complete and without the system overhead of launching an external image program. Play back your animated scenes for advance preview. You can even play or scrub through the completed portion of an animated scene while the rest of the scene is still being rendered!
FRAME Re-Q™
You will be immediately alerted if a frame did not render properly, and once again, you needn't wait for the whole project to complete its rendering before learning of an error. Also, with the power of FRAME Re-Q™, you don't even have to re-render the entire project to fix a glitch -- just the affected frame(s)!
FRAMESPLITTER PRO™
For extremely hi-res, or processor-intensive renderings, MULE™'s FRAMESPLITTER PRO™ will allow you to slice the desired area for your image into manageable parcels to be distributed and rendered by separate network clients -- then it will automatically receive and re-assemble all the finished slices into the glorious whole.
Need alpha channels in your renderings? No problem. MULE™'s got 'em. Do you use different image formats? No problem. MULE™ gives you many options. Want to keep track of your system render data for reference or billing or showing off? No problem. MULE™ will export it as a spreadsheet. MULE™ does a lot of things. Future releases of MULE™ might even have a built-in can-opener.
MULECLIENT™
Setting up MULE™ is a breeze. Only one instance of the main MULE™ software package ( MULESERVER™ ) is necessary for managing your entire render network. It is installed on a primary control system, and each additional system node in your network simply needs the lightweight MULECLIENT™ utility module (included with the program) for connectivity. Configuration and control of the whole network is managed from the main MULE™ interface on the primary system, so no client wrangling is necessary. No jumping around from system to system to tweak this or that -- MULE™ will keep all of your network "ducks" in a row and busy at work.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
A live mule is the hybrid offspring of 2 powerful animals. Likewise, MULE™ software is a hybrid of two powerful technologies -- .NET and LightWave imaging -- brought together to make one extremely powerful tool.
A live mule is smart, strong, and dedicated. Failure isn't an option. MULE™ software is very much the same.