Production fallout after enabling it: the trimmed EXR footage started
after the head handle as intended, but the overlay's burn-in timecode
(hardcoded to start at frame 1001) did not shift with it, so the
delivered burn-in no longer matched the footage. The picture-lock
reference render also never worked correctly in practice. Reverts the
AE panel checkbox, the preview-build script's trim/reference logic, and
the server/worker plumbing around it back to their pre-feature state
(82dfaee) — untrimmed previews, no picture-lock reference, overlay
timecode correct again.
The noPictureLock/piclockRefKey schema columns and their migration are
deliberately left in place: they're already applied in production, and
dropping an applied migration's file risks the next `prisma migrate
deploy`. They sit unused and harmless until this is revisited.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Previews used to ship the full padded (handle-included) render to
clients, with an artist manually pulling picture lock and hand-trimming
the comp to match. The automated preview stage now trims the client
comp to the picture-lock edit itself (a fixed handle count off each
end, per the studio's existing convention) and separately builds an
ungraded, full-duration picture-lock reference MP4 as a diagnostic
sidecar to check back against. A new "No Picture Lock" panel checkbox
is the single override for shots where picture lock is missing or
wrong, falling back to today's untrimmed behavior.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Some exports are deliberately framed differently from their review —
unscaled or un-punched-in EXRs — and a preview rebuilt from those frames
would be the wrong picture. The previous export's MOV is the correct one.
skipPreview renders the EXRs and goes straight to READY_FOR_QC. Available
at Queue Export (a "No preview" checkbox in the panel, E1 field) and as an
option when overriding a validation failure.
The inheritance is as important as the skip: deliveryMovPath, the review
MP4, the thumbnail and the Version are carried over from the newest
earlier export of that shot which has them. Without it the delivery
builder — which takes its MOV from deliveryMovPath — would package EXRs
with no MOV at all. Where there is nothing to inherit, the export still
reaches QC and the timeline says it has no review media.
QC is untouched by any of this: a skipped preview still needs a human
pass before the export can be delivered.
Panel 2.3.0. Adds migration 20260814000000_export_skip_preview.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Completes RenderPipeline2 phases 3-5. Additive throughout: with
validation.enabled=false the pipeline behaves exactly as before.
Validation (§8) runs on the worker straight after a render, while it
still holds the job and the files are local. Everything is read from the
EXR header — one 64 KB read per sampled frame, no pixel decode — so the
engine needs no oiiotool. The render job deliberately stays open through
the stage, so a worker that dies there is reaped and retried instead of
stranding the export in VALIDATING.
Timecode is the primary check and is anchored on the plate, never the
API: measured on the live show, Shot.timecodeStart is the editorial
in-point and sits one handle-length (8f) ahead of the plate, so checking
against it would pass the defective exports and fail the correct ones.
Reference precedence is manifest timing plate -> plate found on disk ->
API value, and the API rank is WARN-only. The panel now resolves plate
provenance by walking the comp's own footage layers, so the worker never
guesses which element carries the comp's timing.
Verified against real studio renders via the new --validate mode: it
catches both defect classes seen in shipped work — the +8 handle offset
and frame-derived timecode (00:00:41:17 = frame 1001 at 24fps).
QC (§10) is one service behind two front doors, API-key for the panel
and session for the web. PASS means ready to upload and nothing else;
FAIL sets the comp task to CHANGES. The panel gains a QC section that
imports the real EXR sequence at full res rather than the H.264.
Delivery (§11) rides the existing queue as a DELIVERY_BUILD job: hard
links with a copy fallback, verification by re-hashing delivered bytes
against the validation-time digest, manifest.json and the CSV report.
fsutil hardlink list is unavailable over SMB, so link identity is never
queried — reading the bytes back covers links and copies alike.
Also fixes ApiClient.ProgressAsync throwing on transport failure, which
would have aborted work in flight during a brief server outage; progress
reporting is best-effort by contract.
Removes the stale RenderWorker/ rule from the root .gitignore. The
worker's source is tracked like the rest of the repo and its own
.gitignore already covers bin/, obj/ and publish/; the rule silently
excluded new files while the existing 20 stayed tracked.
Not yet applied: migration 20260813000000 was hand-written because the
dev database was unavailable — run prisma migrate deploy and verify
before relying on it. None of this has run against a live server.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A slate or burn-in mistake is usually caught after a preview has already
succeeded, and there was no way back: retryPreview required PREVIEW_FAILED, and
READY_FOR_QC only led on to QC_FAILED/READY_FOR_DELIVERY/SUPERSEDED. The only
recourse was a whole new export, re-rendering every EXR and burning a version
number to fix a typo.
- transitions: READY_FOR_QC and QC_FAILED can now go back to GENERATING_PREVIEW.
- regeneratePreview() rebuilds the manifest from scratch rather than patching
anything, so shot code, episode/scene, frame count, slate date and burn-ins
are all re-derived exactly as on a first-time preview. Validated EXRs are
reused and the version number is untouched -- this re-delivers the same
version, it does not make a new one.
- vfxScope and submissionNote are frozen onto the Export at submission time, so
regenerating refreshes that snapshot from the shot's slate fields (explicit
override wins, same precedence as createExport). Slate text edited on the web
app's Slate tab is therefore picked up.
- finalizePreview replaces the media on the export's existing Version instead of
stacking a second row, so the version number stays put and reviewer notes and
annotations survive the reslate. First-time previews are unaffected.
- POST /api/ext/exports/{id}/regenerate-preview exposes it to the panel.
- Panel: Regenerate Previews button, gated on the same statuses as the server,
with a confirm covering what is and is not reused.
Also fixes the slate description source: the Slate tab authors
shot.slateDescription (falling back to shot.description) but the preview
manifest only ever read shot.description, so edits made there never reached the
rendered slate.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
One "Queue Export" click now renders the EXR sequence, then rebuilds the shot
headlessly with the studio slate/overlay template to produce the delivery MOV
and review MP4. Implements RenderPipeline2 phases 1-2 plus the preview stage.
Server:
- New models Export, RenderJob, ExportEvent, Machine, WorkerHeartbeat, plus
Project.deliveryConfig and per-submission slate fields (Export.vfxScope,
Export.submissionNote, inherited from the shot's previous export).
Both migrations are purely additive; no existing column is touched.
- lib/render-pipeline: server-enforced state machine, transactional version
increment with supersede, atomic FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED claim gated by
machine availability windows, and a lease reaper run from instrumentation.ts.
- /api/ext/* endpoints for the panel and workers; session-auth mirrors under
/api/render and /api/machines for the web UI.
- Pipeline pages: render queue, export detail, machine monitoring, plus an
Exports tab on shot detail.
RenderWorker (.NET 8 Windows service, new):
- Registration, heartbeat as cancel channel, claim loop, aerender runner with
progress parsing and stall watchdog, crash recovery and disk-spooled
reporting that survives server downtime.
- Preview stage: headless AE assembles the preview comp into a throwaway AEP
with both output modules queued, then a single aerender pass renders them.
Preview jobs are not claimed while an interactive AE session is open, so an
artist's project is never taken over.
AE panel: Queue Export with live status polling, urgent flag, retry, and the
VFX Scope / Submission Note fields. Every existing panel action is unchanged.
Preview chaining ships disabled behind SystemConfig preview.enabled.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
twotalesanimation