CPULight is a small tool that lets you check the status of your renders even while your monitor is switched off by flashing the lights on your keyboard.
If, like me, you do a lot of rendering and you want to do something else while the PC is churning out those beautiful images, you’ll probably want to turn off your monitor while you’re gone. I know I do! The trouble is that it’s probably not for the best health of the monitor to constantly turn it on and right back off, just to check whether the rendering has finally completed.
Usage
CPULight constantly monitors the CPU usage and turns on the scroll lock light on your keyboard once the usage has reached a certain low threshold and hence rendering has completed.
Note that if you have processes using too much CPU power other than the renderer, CPULight will not be able to detect that rendering has completed! Then again, why would you have anything but the renderer running, anyway?
Download
I’ve decided to make this little tool available for download, as I’m sure I’m not the only one who can make good use of it.
If you do try it out, please let me know if it you find any bugs!
License
CPULight is free for use in non-commercial and commercial projects.
CPULight works with any Windows application that thoroughly uses the CPU, be it Maya, Max, Softimage, RenderMan, After Effects or Shake.
