Inverted render order
Some method to render from end to start would be handy, especially when rendering animations on two systems so you don't need to guess where the mid point is and can instead just wait until they meet in the middle.
Could be done with a negative frame step or by allowing the end frame to be a lower number than the start frame?
Would probably have to be limited to image output however, I doubt it'd be feasable to render a movie format like that.
4 Comments
I think rendering in reverse order could have some limited use (and really, it can already be done with Python if you really want to). However, for the specific use case you're outlining, I think there are better solutions (see my comment regarding the Placeholder and Overwrite checkboxes in Render Properties).
i would just add the possibility to set the start end at a later frame than the end frame and that as a result just render those frames backwards, all the other options mean a longer setup to something that should be simple.
You can achieve a similar effect using the Frame Step option - set Frame Step to 2 on both machines, and start rendering from the second frame on the second machine.
Assuming your rendered results from two machines are being saved on the same network storage, it's way easier to enable the Placeholder checkbox and disable the Overwrite checkbox (both in Render Properties). This way, each Blender session creates a placeholder image for the current frame it's working on, and if it sees an image already rendered, it simply moves on to the next one. It's a very quick way to set up a simple render farm.