You are using local machine Input path with distributed rendering! - I'm not!

[JD3D_CGI]

Regarding the cache paths with distributed rendering - my project is pointing to a mapped network drive that is visible to any machine that uses distributed rendering on the network (basically a folder off of the project folder the scenes are stored in, on a mapped w: drive)

Why is that not sufficient for Phoenix to find the file? it's sufficient for every other renderer or plugin?

It's simple: the files are where I say they are, why do I need to switch over to UNC? I'm not even sure that I know how to do that.

Can you guys tidy this up a little please?

One of the most desired features is distributed rendering. A very common problem in the DR setup is that by default Phoenix FD looks for the cache files in the same directory where the scene file is. However, cache files are not automatically sent to the host machines like the scene is, and when the rendering begins the hosts are looking for the cache files in the same directory where the scene file is. The cache files are not sent because on one hand they may be really huge and may overload the disk space of the host, and also because in many cases not all of them are actually used in the rendering.

If you need to adjust your Input path, you will receive a message that states "You are using local machine Input path with distributed rendering! Please, change it to a network path!".

The solution is to set a network-visible UNC input path, instead of copying the caches. Push the "Cache path..." button to select input path and type \\your_computer_name (or \\your_network_server_name, or a mapped network drive) in the text field of the dialog. This will open a browsing window and you just have to find the caches and select one of them.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hello,

Basically there is some Windows functionality which we depend on to tell us whether a mapped drive is a network path although it doesn't start with \\ (this is basically what a UNC path is), so maybe this is failing under some circumstances.

In order to tidy it up, I will need more info from you - are you using Phoenix for 3ds max or Maya and what is your nightly build number (it's the 5-digit ID at the end of the archive name). If you are not on a latest nightly build, please first check if it's the same after updating.

Since you are sure that the files are shared on the network and if DR works properly, you could just ignore the warning - it's not an error. It would be better if we could track it down though.

Thanks!

[JD3D_CGI]

I am using Phoenix for Max - not a nightly build - it's rendering so I can't check the build number but it's whatever the "latest build full release is" (phoenixFD_adv_22000_max2015_vray_30_x64) is the file name.

So what I had to do was chnage the output and input paths by navigating to network>the machine>the drive>the folder etc

rather than point to w:\the drive>the folder

So apparently Phoenix doesn't like mapped drives.

Before I manually repointed everything, I chnaged my Max prefs to switch to UNC, but it didn't work until I re-pathed.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey,

If you are not using a nightly, you definitely should get one - drop a mail to support and ask for nightly build access. It's two years ahead in development and there are many many fixes.

Cheers!