How to change your mind in the middle of a long render
Tell Vizard Agent the moment you know, and say the old version is dead. A long render writes its files as it goes, so a job left running underneath a new instruction keeps replacing shots with the old settings, which is how a video comes back half in one format and half in the other.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Say the new brief and say that the current one is cancelled. Both halves matter, because "also make a vertical one" and "make it vertical instead" are different instructions, and only one of them means the running job should stop. Say it as soon as you know, and be specific: Vizard Agent can act on "make it vertical instead" immediately, while "it doesn't feel right" starts a conversation.
Stop the landscape render. I want this in native vertical instead, not cropped.
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
It treats a running render as something to stop, not something that will simply be superseded. A long job writes each shot as it completes, so while it's alive it keeps putting old-format files where the new pass is writing, and whichever finishes last wins each shot. In the session behind this article it:
- Was already rendering a full-length local sports interview to landscape when the brief became native portrait. It switched, but the first portrait pass came back with some shots in the wrong orientation, because the earlier job was still finishing its own files.
- Measured the exact length of every rendered shot, which is how the mismatch surfaced at all.
- Re-rendered the shots that had been cut off partway and the ones that had come back in the wrong orientation.
- Confirmed no stale render jobs were still running before starting anything else, so the same mixture couldn't happen twice.
- Re-rendered the full set in native portrait as one clean pass of about twenty minutes, keeping the transcript, cut list, cleaned dialogue audio, graphics and caption timings.
When does this not work well?
When the change arrives after everything downstream has been built on the old version. Captions mapped onto a landscape timeline don't transfer to a portrait one for free, and the later a format change lands, the more of that work is repeated. It also doesn't help if the change isn't a change, and Vizard Agent will say when an instruction matches what is already running.
Common questions
How do I know the old job actually stopped? Ask. Vizard Agent checks for running jobs and will tell you what it finds rather than assuming.
Why did only some shots change? Because each shot is its own file. The ones the old job reached after the switch kept the old settings.
Can I keep both versions? Yes, if you say so. Then Vizard Agent lets the first job finish instead of stopping it.