Phoenix and BackBurner problem

[Teriander]

Everytime I send a job with Phoenix FD, the fire does not display. It displays when rendering inside max, but not when I render from Backburner. neither from the same machine or the render slave machine. Im not getting any error messages such as "Missing Phoenix DLL" Everything renders fine except the fire is completely missing. Any suggestions?

[Ivaylo Katev]

go to the "input" panel, and set the path to be network visible. the easiest way is to use the browse button and to select the files entering through the network.

[Teriander]

That solved it, thanks a lot!

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

hello,
i have exactly the same issue but unfortunatelly for me, i cannot find any "set path to be visible" in the input rollout....
can you please tell me where to find it?
perhaps on a sample picture?
Thanks
Best Regards
Martin

[Ivaylo Katev]

there is no option named "set path....", i meant to set the input path not in local form "c:\mysims\test1....", but in network form "\\compname\somesharedfolder\...." .
the easiest way is to push the browse button (...) and to find your cache files entering from the network.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

ok thanks,
is it enough to select just one file from animation cache? cos it doesnt allow to select multiple ones ...

[Ivaylo Katev]

yes, one is enough

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Thank you!

[Teriander]

I seem to be running into the same issue again, but I have correctly mapped my "Input" fields by using the browse button and linking to the first aur file. It's the exact same path that my Output file is linking to "\\network\etc". Everything renders fine locally, but the network computers are rendering black screens. No error in backburner, no missing dlls, etc. Phoenix FD was installed as "Render Slaves" on the network computer.

All other network files such as textures and proxies are rendering fine. Any suggestions?

[Ivaylo Katev]

hmm, my first idea is very stupid, but i should ask - do you have lights in the scene? if you have no lights, max has the option automatically to produce lighting, but it is not supported by vray. in this case you may obtain black result.
another suggestion: go to some render slave and try to open a file placed in the same folder where the cache files are, an image, or text document, no matter what. it may be a permission issue, many times i have encountered such a situation.
if the problem still occurs, please send us the log file of a render slave, it is placed in ...documents\phoenix fd folder

[Teriander]

I do have lights in the scene. All Vray lights. The Master Workstation with the dongle renders the Scene with fire just fine.

The Render Slave machine does have full permission. I successfully created a txt file and opened other files in the same location as the output for my fire.

I did NOT see a phoenix.log in the "Phoenix FD" folder on the render slave machine. Only "samples" and "templates". However, I did see the Phoenix.log file on the Master Workstation with the dongle. Do you want the log from the Master Workstation instead?

hmm, my first idea is very stupid, but i should ask - do you have lights in the scene? if you have no lights, max has the option automatically to produce lighting, but it is not supported by vray. in this case you may obtain black result.
another suggestion: go to some render slave and try to open a file placed in the same folder where the cache files are, an image, or text document, no matter what. it may be a permission issue, many times i have encountered such a situation.
if the problem still occurs, please send us the log file of a render slave, it is placed in ...documents\phoenix fd folder

[Ivaylo Katev]

one more attempt - what if you use the vray's dr system instead back burner. i'm not suggesting to use it permanently, just for the test

[Teriander]

Switching to DR system. The image renders, but not the entire fire. The only fire that shows are from the buckets of the Master Workstation. Not the buckets from DR system. The Buckets that are rendering from the DR system renders everything else in the scene fine except the fire.

one more attempt - what if you use the vray's dr system instead back burner. i'm not suggesting to use it permanently, just for the test

[Ivaylo Katev]

i tend to believe that this is a permission issue. the render slaves apparently have no permission to create log file, it's very probably that they have no permission to read the network path as well. still considering how to test it.

[Teriander]

Please let me know how to test it. I can move the dongle to the Slave Machine, reinstall Phoenix as a WorkStation instead of a Render Slave, and see if it will render the fire on the network path as a new Master Workstation instead of a Render Slave. Could this help narrow the problem down?

i tend to believe that this is a permission issue. the render slaves apparently have no permission to create log file, it's very probably that they have no permission to read the network path as well. still considering how to test it.