DR animation??

[kylefoster]

Hi there

My names kyle and Im new to the forum but Im stuck now after using VRay for a while. I've just started using DR using a dual quad core and two other quad core machines.

Single images are working a treat and I couldn't be happier but when I tried doing an animation, as far as a could tell the only contribution I got from the 'servers' was during the light cache pass. I've searched for this problem and have found some posts but Im not sure how up to date they are and i suppose i just need some closure on the issue.

Is there an equivalent to backburner or shall I just convert to 3DS Max? I know i could just split the animation into segments to be tackled by each computer but in my mind its simpler to have the servers working on the same thing.

Forgive my naivety as I'm sure this question has been answered already but it seems like such a large piece of the puzzle to be missing since Vray for rhino is otherwise complete. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
kyle

[Micha_cg]

Re: DR animation??

Backburner for VfR - no. The only way to get best animation power I know is to start a BONGO animation on all machines, set the output to the same network directory and enable "don't overwrite exist images". So, each computer is working on a frame only. But this solutions needs so much licenses for Rhino+Bongo+Vray like machines are used. In the past I asked at the Rhino forum for a solution that allow to use a single Rhino license without save option on multiple machines, but there was no interest.

[kylefoster]

Re: DR animation??

Thanks for the quick reply Micha.

Yes this workaround would require multiple licenses for all software involved though a good idea. I suppose now my question is why would DR animation not work since DR for single images is fine and an animation is simply one single render after another?

It seems like a strange 'bug' but im sure there's a technical reason for it. The reason I cant really get over this problem is becuase animation is what I'm most involved with at the moment.

Would there be any way of 'coding' (dont know if thats the correct term) an animation so that each frame is treated as a single frame in the eyes of the DRspawner?

kyle

[dalomar_cg]

Re: DR animation??

DR with animations should work as I was doing an animation at the beginning of December which utilized DR for an animation. That was a little bit more specialized, and was pretty much a scripted animation. With Bongo though, I think if you let bongo take care of processing the output, then I think DR should also be active as well. I think the only "catch" to using DR with animations is having the Animation tag disabled in the Output section of the VfR options (kinda anti-intuitive, but hey).

If for some reason push comes to shove, a scripted animation (which will use DR) won't be that hard to write at all.

As to a Backburner type interface, there's nothing like that on the horizon, although it has been something that has been discussed and we are fully aware of the limitations of not having it. At one point we thought Andy (LeBihan, developer of RDK and Brazil4Rhino) was going to have something to offer through RDK, but that never really materialized. We'd like for something that actually utilizes our spawners rather than a running instance of Rhino as that's a more economical solution (ie no extra licenses needed).

[kylefoster]

Re: DR animation??

Thanks Dalomar, Sorry to ask such frustrating questions, im sure you've thought about this a lot too. I've made peace with this but I'm now having a much simpler problem.

I'm able to render a scene with standard materials but when I try textured materials like a wooden floor, it doesnt work.

I have saved a directory folder under 'c/for network render' and have put all of the images in the folder named 'for network render'. I have copied this folder onto just one other PC directly into the C drive so it should be the same directory. Is there any more that I have to do? Does it matter if the name of the drive is different? One is called 'Local Disk (C' and the other is called OS (C.


I know that it is not an issue of visopt since if i hide the textured objects, the DR is successful but as soon as i unhide the textured objects, it fails.

Does it have something to do with the asset collection?

[kylefoster]

Re: DR animation??

I've also tried Creating a shared folder to be accessed over the network. The folder Itself is working as in I can access the folder and files on the server computer but I have no idea how it accesses them to use in the rendering process if it needs to.

The only thing that the manual mentions is creating a shared folder which is what I have done as far as I know. Im sure there is something simple I am missing though.

P.S, I should be calling you Damien and not Dalomar, sorry

Thanks guys
kyle

[patrickk_cg]

Re: DR animation??

Were you ever able to get your animation rendered? Im curious to know!