When you create multiple outputs in Action, where do the files go?  I don’t see them on the desktop...like smoke 2012.

This is one if the bigger workflow limitations of Smoke 2013’s implementation of batch/cfx… that you can render to the timeline only and not to the library with multiple output nodes. Pity!
AD probably want to focus on timeline based work & simplicity and not so much “desktop driven” workflows that might be harder to grasp for newcomers? Also limiting Smoke compared to Flame I guess.

thanks for the reply everyone.
I have a composite with about 30 layers in it and I need to swap-out 18 of them with new footage with a limited amount of time to do it.  Therefore, I thought I’d render out the background, a middle layer w/ a matte and a foreground layer with a matte.  Then, once the new footage arrives (18 clips) I would only render those clips and add it to the new layered composite.  To render the full 35 second composite, it takes about 45 minutes.  I’d like to slice that down to 20 minutes.  I looked at the CFX clip but, that doesn’t help me much...my clips/layers don’t have many fx with them.
I think I’m just going to have to let it render and push my tight deadline back a bit.  It’s crazy how 25 minutes can make a difference.  But then, I am compositing on a MacBook Pro.

Thanks again.

Keith, would it not work to ‘nest’ that bg build(let’s call it pre build 1) in a cfx clip, match out your front & matte and then build a new cfx clip with your pre build 1 as the bg. So far I have only dabbled in the new cfx workflow but in flame you can definitely nest batch fx’s within batch fx’s. At least this way half of the rendering that won’t change (famous last words) is baked.
HTH
Truss

This appears to be a limitation on CFX. As of yet I haven’t found any way to ‘nest’ a CFX like you can with BFX. REAL SHAME. Yet another limitation on smoke I guess.

Again, thanks for everyone’s replies.
I tried creating the CFX Clip and I got the Apple beach ball and it crashed on me.  I tried it twice, it crashed both times.  Although, I’m thinking there may not be anything to create a clip from because I don’t have any FXs to prerender. (i.e. there’s not a blur FX conected to the clip) That might be why it crashes...just a thought.  Below is a screen grab.  The numbered frames are the ones I’m going to swap-out with new footage today.  My comp is pretty simple, just a lot of layers with an animated camera.  I didn’t know that cropping would help on render time...that’s a good one to know.  Thanks again.

	Attachment

Turns out that the final render took about 50 minutes.  Which I could deal with.  Thanks again for everyone’s comments.

I did run into another problem with the timing controls.  I couldn’t see any bar which represented the length of the clip in Action.  I slipped some of my replacement QT files to get then to visually sync-up and then the place you enter the numbers (ie -390) went light grey and I couldn’t slip anything.  It was a bummer.  I then tried it in the media list (how it’s done in Smoke 2012) and it didn’t ripple anything.  I exited CFX, restarted Smoke and still had the same issue.  I’m not sure if it was me or the beta version but it was frustrating.  It would be nice if the Timing set-up would work like the media list in Action where you ALT Click the media in the schematic and it would hi-light the same clip in the new timing control.  With a lot media, it was time consuming trying to select the correct clip and I was under the gun to finish it.  It could be a place for improvement.

Thanks.