2013/5/28 Curtis Nichols <curtisnpcs@sbcglobal.net>

Longtime lurker, mediocre AE user.

We need to run a render farm and have several seats of AE available on our network. We've never done this, but running the Render Engine looks straightforward.

My question is about render options. We'll be rendering multiple QTs. I know with multiple engines running I can set up a post-render action to consolidate multiple still images into a single QT.
Can I set it so that each engine renders a QT instead of rendering stills and setting the post-render action?

No, you should render to an image sequence that AE will recognise as one item in AE that you then can put into a QT file. 

You can't make AE put the rendered QT files in the correct order automaticly and render a collected single QT. I guess you could with some clever scripting, but then it becomes more complex than needed.

Just render as an image sequence, you also get the added benefit of very easy rendering of small parts of your comp if there is any errors. AE also has the ability to automaticly skip already rendered files so you don't have to manage what seqments the various computers on the network have to render, it will just render the next missing frame. 

Learn to love image sequences, they are your best new friend on large renderheavy and timecritical projects :-)

- Robert