Render network set up

[Papigiulio]

I have some questions regarding the VRAY USB dongles licenses.

We have 9 computers here at work and 4 usb dongles with VRAY licences on it.
So from time to time when I have to render something I have to ask who's machine I can use and make sure everyone has the USB dongles plugged in to start distributed rendering.

Now this is pretty annoying and im looking for a way to simplify the system i.e., would like to plug all USB dongles in 1 machine and use/read the licenses from that machine OR maybe if there is a way, copy the licenses from the USB dongles on to the server and use them whenever I want.

Anyone with some good solutions?

[Morne]

you can specify 3 different computers to search for a license per pc. So you don't have to move the dongles. You can cross reference different dongles from different computers. The pc the dongle is plugged into, doesnt have to be a rendering pc.

All that doesnt really matter anyways as you only have 9 computers. With 1 License you can use up to 10 computers for DR at a time. So just tell the other 8 computers to look for the license on your pc.

Things change however if you're not the only person using vray for dr at a time. Then revert to my 1st sentance

Also, check with ChaosGroup, maybe you can load the other 3 licenses onto 1 dongle (but you'll have to to check with them as I'm not sure if this is possible)

[3LP]

If you have a server, just stick all the dongles in that server and run the licence server from there, it will stack the licences. Configure all the workstations and nodes to look for the licences from the server and you are good to go. It can work with a workstation as well, you just need to make sure that computer is on all the time otherwise no one has any licence anymore

Stan

[Papigiulio]

you can specify 3 different computers to search for a license per pc. So you don't have to move the dongles. You can cross reference different dongles from different computers. The pc the dongle is plugged into, doesnt have to be a rendering pc.

All that doesnt really matter anyways as you only have 9 computers. With 1 License you can use up to 10 computers for DR at a time. So just tell the other 8 computers to look for the license on your pc.

Things change however if you're not the only person using vray for dr at a time. Then revert to my 1st sentance

Also, check with ChaosGroup, maybe you can load the other 3 licenses onto 1 dongle (but you'll have to to check with them as I'm not sure if this is possible)

Wow sounds more complicated than I imagined. How can we search a license per pc? The license is on the dongle right? Or how to put the license on the computer?

All of our computers have VRAY Workstation (full) installed. fyi

And one other thing. I've read the manual in your signature, according to your explanation you use Backburner more for animations but one CAN use it for still images, what are the pro's and cons vs the usual DR?

[Christweil]

I have some questions regarding the VRAY USB dongles licenses.

We have 9 computers here at work and 4 usb dongles with VRAY licences on it.
So from time to time when I have to render something I have to ask who's machine I can use and make sure everyone has the USB dongles plugged in to start distributed rendering.

Now this is pretty annoying and im looking for a way to simplify the system i.e., would like to plug all USB dongles in 1 machine and use/read the licenses from that machine OR maybe if there is a way, copy the licenses from the USB dongles on to the server and use them whenever I want.

Anyone with some good solutions?

Do you have the 4 dongles at one and the same location ? is there any particular reasons to do this ?
When I read that you would plug all USB dongle on 1 machine, it would then make more sense to combine your licenses on 1 and the same dongle and then it make the whole setup quite easy via floating license access.

[Morne]

Wow sounds more complicated than I imagined. How can we search a license per pc? The license is on the dongle right? Or how to put the license on the computer?

All of our computers have VRAY Workstation (full) installed. fyi

And one other thing. I've read the manual in your signature, according to your explanation you use Backburner more for animations but one CAN use it for still images, what are the pro's and cons vs the usual DR?

In > start > all programs > chaosgroup > V-Ray Adv for 3dsmax version > Licensing > Administration > Change V-Ray client license settings,
you can set your primary pc location for dongle 1 and then you can specify another 2 computers to look for a dongle/license.
So then if it can't find a license on the 1st pc because the pc is off or it is already being used, it will look for a dongle/license on the next pc in the list

Backburner for stills is nice because you can start the render but then you can still use your pc as an additional vray license is not required. You can also use Backburner to batch stills or animations. So for example you can set one computer to run Backburner manager and server and start the vray spawner on all the slaves. Then the pc running the Backburner slave will start the render at it will tell the rest of the nodes to participate in DR. You can also render 1 view with Bacburner and use pc 1,2 and 3 for DR, then render view2 on a different backburner slave using pc 3, 4 and 5. Then 4 and 5 will render and as soon as 3 is done with view 1, it will join view2. Etc etc. Backburner can be very usefull for stills especially if you have to do a couple of views overnight.

So basically it's still DR, but with some "extra features" if I can call it that in simple terms.