DR Question

[Smalerbi]

Hello again,

I have been using Vray for about 9 years now and I have never had the need for DR so I have never tried it. Now that I have this large print job, DR would be the best solution. So I attempted a small test over 2 network slaves using DR for the first time and I could not get it to work. I read the instructions provided by Chaos Group so I messing up somewhere. I will provide a step by step process and perhaps someone could point out where the screw up is. Now everything works just fine through backburner when I run an animation. All the slaves communicate just fine with my work station.

1. Started up Max on my workstation and opened the test scene.
2. Started up the Backburner Manager
3. Started up the Backburner Server on each Slave. My workstation is now talking to the render salves. All good so far.
4. Started up Vray Spawner on each render slave. Spawner seems to be doing what the instructions said. Blinks in the task bar and then changes name to "Vraydummy"
5. On my workstation, opened up the render dialog and I applied my rendering settings, clicked "net render" and then went to the setting tab and click on "Distributed Renderings"
6. I then clicked on button next to it labeled "Settings"
7. In the DR setting dialog I added the 2 servers I wanted to run the test on and click OK.
8. Hit Render and the "Network Job Assignment" dialog pops up.
9 I then click on "Connect" button and I see the 2 render slaves on the right hand side of the dialog ready to go.
10. I select both of the servers and click on "Submit"

It only sent the job to one of the slaves......so where did I go wrong?

Thanks.

Scott.

[Pixelcon]

point number 3 is incorrect. If you want to use DR and BB together then you only need to have the BB server running on one slave (workstation or slave).

[Zdravko]

You need to run one BB job before doing DR. Then you can use DR by it self without the BB manager.
You just nave to enable Distributed option, set render servers and start VRaySpawner on all the nodes.

[vlado]

And also, you need to turn on the "Save hosts in the scene" option in the DR settings.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Smalerbi]

Ok.....will do.......thanks everyone.

[Smalerbi]

Ok everyone...............try to wrap your mind around this one. I set up a simple test scene for DR. I created a plain with some teapots. Set up a light and a camera and rendered the scene with DR checked and everything worked great. Opened up my job scene and set up DR and hit Render. The only buckets showing up are from my workstation. So I opened up my DR test scene again, deleted the geometry and merged in my job scene. Hit render and once again.......the only buckets working are from my workstation. So does anyone know what is going on?

Thanks,

Scott.

[Zdravko]

It looks like the nodes are not accessing the textures or IES lights.
Check the "Check for missing files" option and if the nodes can not access the textures you will get a message 'Missing maps found aborting renderer'.

Do you start VRaySpawner manually? Do you use UNC path or mapped drive for the textures?

Also make sure that you have lights in the scene. The DR doesn't distribute the default 3ds max lights.

[Smalerbi]

It looks like the nodes are not accessing the textures or IES lights.
Check the "Check for missing files" option and if the nodes can not access the textures you will get a message 'Missing maps found aborting renderer'.

Do you start VRaySpawner manually? Do you use UNC path or mapped drive for the textures?

Also make sure that you have lights in the scene. The DR doesn't distribute the default 3ds max lights.

Thanks Zdravko......I go it to work. I think the problem was based on my stupidly. But you brought up something interesting with regards to IES lights. On a different subject, I have a problem that I can not solve. I worked on an interior using IES lights with photometric webs. When I rendered the scene with my workstation, everything looks good. But when I sent file to one of the render slaves, the end result looked blown out. I mean the lights looked liked the intensity was cranked up. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Scott.

[Zdravko]

We would need more info in order to help you out with the issue.
Are you doing network rendering with a manager (if yes which one) or distributed rendering? It will be helpful if you could send us some logs from the main and slave machines.
Also did you check "Check for missing files" option and would it be possible to send us a screenshot of the difference in the outputs?

[Smalerbi]

We would need more info in order to help you out with the issue.
Are you doing network rendering with a manager (if yes which one) or distributed rendering? It will be helpful if you could send us some logs from the main and slave machines.
Also did you check "Check for missing files" option and would it be possible to send us a screenshot of the difference in the outputs?

Ok....I will the send information you requested. Please give me a few days. I'm currently dealing with a deadline that is unrelated.

Thanks you.

Scott