In replying to another post in this forum about DR I realized there was a lot of disparate information I had to gather from all kinds of different forums / posts when I setup DR here... There really wasn't a post that let me know what worked / what didn't and just how the overall system worked. So, here's a thread I think would benefit new users, where those of us who have successfully setup DR can post our suggestions / thoughts in general...
So, here is a copy of my thoughts on DR in its current 1.46.08 beta state... Maybe some of the best suggestions from this thread can be compiled by a moderator and set up as a sticky FAQ or something...
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Technically, DR (distributed rendering) works but there are some things to keep in mind, especially if you are spoiled by backburner...
1. DR currently works only with the beta version of vray. As of today, the current beta is 1.46.08 with the final version being 1.5. Thus, it's getting close to the final rev, but it's not without its faults... The key is to expect problems , small or large, and don't be surprised when something goes wrong - it's BETA.
2. The vray spawner (equivalent to backburner server) must be restarted a lot. A lot. Just do yourself a favor and expect it and you'll be fine.
3. Don't hit cancel. The max pause/cancel buttons that appear after you hit render. Those are mystery buttons. I think they work like this: every other time you click cancel vray (much like max used to do) decides you've spent too much time working on your project and you should take a break, thus quickly crashing max regardless if you saved recently or not.
4. DR is awesome. It's enabled me to render things across several stations that I would have needed an entire weekend to process on one computer.
5. The host computer (the one you're working on) MUST participate in the DR process. So, in the middle of the day when you hit render you have to wait to use your computer until the DR is done. Works great for previews. Great. BUT if you have a hi-res print due at 5pm don't expect to use your computer much while it is rendering. Vray does a great job of using every CPU cycle available, unlike the MAX Scanline renderer, whose inefficiencies make it easy to keep on doing photoshop work / light max stuff even while rendering...
6. Your VRay license is tied up while waiting for DR to finish. Don't expect that you can switch to another workstation and work on your project while a render is going. Not going to happen. Vray uses a network license server, when DR is going, that license is used up. You could buy another license of course though. In which case this problem isn't a problem at all...
7. DR is absolutely unbelievable. I use it every day. When I have to use the scanline and can't use DR, it just seems so wasteful...
8. Don't get any ideas about backburning your DR render so you can work on your workstation... It would be a great idea if it worked. But no. So, I repeat, when you start a DR, your license is tied up. There isn't some slick way to bypass it... You'll have to wait it out.
9. There is no way to change / schedule DR renders. The computers that are available to render when you hit render are the ones that render. They don't automatically join if you start them after the render has started. You can't remove them (although truth be told I never tried manually killing one with task manager because I've never had a project that I could risk it)
10. If you successfully hit cancel and nothing crashes, you must wait for the currently rendering buckets to finish. So, if you set up the render as super duper high quality uber cool, you might wait half an hour or whatever for all the rendering buckets to finish before you cancel. Or, you could kill the process with task manager, restart all your vray spawners / 3dsmax.exe processes on your rendering stations and reload your max file... Unless your farm is huge you can probably do all that before vray would otherwise have finished. It's what I do everyday nearly. Annoying but it's offset by #11.
11. Distributed Rendering, IMHO, is the best thing as a max user that I've ever seen. I know it's not technically "new" as other renderers have had it, but for those of us who waited and waited before selecting a 3rd party renderer, it's absolutely indispensible!
SUMMARY: Get Vray. Play with it, get comfortable with it. It's very different from scanline. Set up DR, it's pretty easy to do. Play with it, get comfortable with it. IT'S WORTH IT.
Christopher Grant
3D Artist, Fleetwood
Webmaster, ScriptSpot
So, here is a copy of my thoughts on DR in its current 1.46.08 beta state... Maybe some of the best suggestions from this thread can be compiled by a moderator and set up as a sticky FAQ or something...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technically, DR (distributed rendering) works but there are some things to keep in mind, especially if you are spoiled by backburner...
1. DR currently works only with the beta version of vray. As of today, the current beta is 1.46.08 with the final version being 1.5. Thus, it's getting close to the final rev, but it's not without its faults... The key is to expect problems , small or large, and don't be surprised when something goes wrong - it's BETA.
2. The vray spawner (equivalent to backburner server) must be restarted a lot. A lot. Just do yourself a favor and expect it and you'll be fine.
3. Don't hit cancel. The max pause/cancel buttons that appear after you hit render. Those are mystery buttons. I think they work like this: every other time you click cancel vray (much like max used to do) decides you've spent too much time working on your project and you should take a break, thus quickly crashing max regardless if you saved recently or not.
4. DR is awesome. It's enabled me to render things across several stations that I would have needed an entire weekend to process on one computer.
5. The host computer (the one you're working on) MUST participate in the DR process. So, in the middle of the day when you hit render you have to wait to use your computer until the DR is done. Works great for previews. Great. BUT if you have a hi-res print due at 5pm don't expect to use your computer much while it is rendering. Vray does a great job of using every CPU cycle available, unlike the MAX Scanline renderer, whose inefficiencies make it easy to keep on doing photoshop work / light max stuff even while rendering...
6. Your VRay license is tied up while waiting for DR to finish. Don't expect that you can switch to another workstation and work on your project while a render is going. Not going to happen. Vray uses a network license server, when DR is going, that license is used up. You could buy another license of course though. In which case this problem isn't a problem at all...
7. DR is absolutely unbelievable. I use it every day. When I have to use the scanline and can't use DR, it just seems so wasteful...
8. Don't get any ideas about backburning your DR render so you can work on your workstation... It would be a great idea if it worked. But no. So, I repeat, when you start a DR, your license is tied up. There isn't some slick way to bypass it... You'll have to wait it out.
9. There is no way to change / schedule DR renders. The computers that are available to render when you hit render are the ones that render. They don't automatically join if you start them after the render has started. You can't remove them (although truth be told I never tried manually killing one with task manager because I've never had a project that I could risk it)
10. If you successfully hit cancel and nothing crashes, you must wait for the currently rendering buckets to finish. So, if you set up the render as super duper high quality uber cool, you might wait half an hour or whatever for all the rendering buckets to finish before you cancel. Or, you could kill the process with task manager, restart all your vray spawners / 3dsmax.exe processes on your rendering stations and reload your max file... Unless your farm is huge you can probably do all that before vray would otherwise have finished. It's what I do everyday nearly. Annoying but it's offset by #11.
11. Distributed Rendering, IMHO, is the best thing as a max user that I've ever seen. I know it's not technically "new" as other renderers have had it, but for those of us who waited and waited before selecting a 3rd party renderer, it's absolutely indispensible!
SUMMARY: Get Vray. Play with it, get comfortable with it. It's very different from scanline. Set up DR, it's pretty easy to do. Play with it, get comfortable with it. IT'S WORTH IT.
Christopher Grant
3D Artist, Fleetwood
Webmaster, ScriptSpot
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