DR inconsistencies in 1.46.10

[CCS]

Finally got DR running last week (thanks to czoog for the files). Haven't played with it too much, but enough to know that I love it

Question though. Look at the attached image. (I created this scene to compare 1.09 to 1.46.xx for render times, quality, etc.) The top image was rendered with 1.46.09 on my main render machine. (1.46.10 gives similar result.)

Problem occurs when I enable DR (bottom image). Check out the increase in artifacts, and especially the missing displacement (grass areas), the black areas, splotchy areas, etc.

Any ideas what is causing this? I'd love to use DR in production, but it has to be at least fairly stable and predictable.

Thanks!

[egz]

It looks like your rendernodes don't have access to the displacement maps. Make sure you use UNC paths to all maps (\\server\share\etc..), and not local drive letters etc.

[CCS]

Thanks Torgeir. I used local mappings, but the drive they are all mapped to is essentially mirrored on the other computer, so all maps are present with identical paths. (I was told this was better than accessing maps across the network because of transfer times. ???)

Look at the strange artifacting on the short red box toward the left side of the image near the center. That has nothing to do with maps.

Still befuddled....

[egz]

I tend to alway use UNC paths, mapped drives seem to be problematic. Did you try to change the path to UNC and rerender? Once the map is loaded properly you might see that the artifacts go away too.

It's kind of hard to tell exactly which red box you are referring to, they all have a lot of JPG artifacts, so I can't really tell if I'm looking at the correct box. Could you post a less compressed image?

[CCS]

That's part of the problem. They're not JPG artifacts. That's how they render.

I'll try UNC paths just for grins, but I don't see how it would change since they exist on both machines...

[egz]

Could you post a PNG so that we can see clearly what the artifacts look like, or even better: post the scene

[TishoChaos]

I am using in my DR renderings what egz is referring to. On my main pc I dont write for maps for example "d:maxmapsx.jpg" but "\mymachinedmaxmapsx.jpg" . This way the slave is always looking at this location and finds the map.

And about those artifacts on the red boxes ... do you use a simple color or any additional kind of maps or something? Do you use f-Edge?

[RErender]

He did post the scene here http://www.chaoticdimension.com/foru...pic.php?t=9881 don't know if it has changed since

[egz]

Thanks, I didn't make the connection to that thread
I can't connect to the server though...

[CCS]

Sorry about that. FTP is back up now.

This is strange. First, I re-pathed all materials to V: drive (where I keep all maps) to make sure the paths were good. Then I verified that each map existed with the same name in the same place on the other machine (which also has a V: drive). Rendered again, and got the same splotchies.

Next I changed the paths to UNC, but pointing to the same files in the same places. Re-rendered and this time no artifacts or goofy areas. Very strange.

I don't understand what the difference would be, but there it is! Thanks egz.

[RErender]

We need a sticky "use unc paths!"

[Syclone1]

We need a sticky "use unc paths!"

good idea RErender.

-dave

[CCS]

I got a tip from someone else that I shouldn't use them. "What's the purpose in using DR if each machine has to pull textures thru the network?" was the reasoning. I was told that the network access time would be detrimental to render time as opposed to keeping mirrors of maps drive on each local machine.

Made sense to me so that's why I started down that road....

[czoog]

We keep all our textures on the sever on thier own virtual drive and use UNC names for everything. It makes like much easier, and We don't have any issues with pulling textures through the network. we do have a fast setup, though.

The textures (and everything else) live on a 200 gig RAID 5 fiber channel array, and is connect to the render nodes via gigabit ethernet. However my station is connected with regular 100baseT and i still do not have any issues.

-Z

[Da_elf]

my main work computer has in the drive with all my textures and work files. its drive F in that computer so on all other computers i set it up so that i have a mapped network drive labeled drive F
ive had no problems with this setup so far