distributed rendering not updating

[phildlight]

ok. Slight problem. I'm trying to get my little render farm working and I'm hitting a wall.

I've got the following machines:
1. precision 530 dual xeon 1.7s w/ 1 gb ram
2. precision 530 dual xeon 2.2s (w/ht) w/ 2 gb ram
3. p4 3.4ghz (w/ ht) w/ 2gb ram
4. p4 1.7ghz w/ 1gb ram

all 4 on winxp pro sp2 and peer2peer network. using max8 and vray 1.46.12. Scene has no maps (for troubleshooting).

Problems:
1. the render servers don't update their scene. They just re-render the scene from previous render.
2. one of the machines won't contribute. spawner starts and sits there like it should, and like the others, but won't render, however, I did have it working.

already tried:
1. disabling all firewalls etc.
2. several reboot sequences and total network shutdown.

Question:
When you hit cancel during a dr render, the servers scenes show up as vray server scene. I've been exiting spawner from the task tray after each render attempt and then restarting it after max closes. Is this correct?

One last thing. I thought I read somewhere, but can't remember, can you use hdri's in the environment maps with dr? Thanks.

[Morbid Angel]

Re: distributed rendering not updating

ok. Slight problem. I'm trying to get my little render farm working and I'm hitting a wall.

I've got the following machines:
1. precision 530 dual xeon 1.7s w/ 1 gb ram
2. precision 530 dual xeon 2.2s (w/ht) w/ 2 gb ram
3. p4 3.4ghz (w/ ht) w/ 2gb ram
4. p4 1.7ghz w/ 1gb ram

all 4 on winxp pro sp2 and peer2peer network. using max8 and vray 1.46.12. Scene has no maps (for troubleshooting).

Problems:
1. the render servers don't update their scene. They just re-render the scene from previous render.
2. one of the machines won't contribute. spawner starts and sits there like it should, and like the others, but won't render, however, I did have it working.

already tried:
1. disabling all firewalls etc.
2. several reboot sequences and total network shutdown.

Question:
When you hit cancel during a dr render, the servers scenes show up as vray server scene. I've been exiting spawner from the task tray after each render attempt and then restarting it after max closes. Is this correct?

One last thing. I thought I read somewhere, but can't remember, can you use hdri's in the environment maps with dr? Thanks.

First of all, update to most recent vray you can get, that is 1.47.03
second, search the forum, I have posted a while back DR tips thread, where most of your problems are described.
Basicly before recent builds, canceling dr in mid render produces server hangs, scenes would not update etc.
About hdris, as long as they are sourced from the network where all machines can access it, like \\path\ etc it will work.

[phildlight]

Re: distributed rendering not updating

ok. Slight problem. I'm trying to get my little render farm working and I'm hitting a wall.

I've got the following machines:
1. precision 530 dual xeon 1.7s w/ 1 gb ram
2. precision 530 dual xeon 2.2s (w/ht) w/ 2 gb ram
3. p4 3.4ghz (w/ ht) w/ 2gb ram
4. p4 1.7ghz w/ 1gb ram

all 4 on winxp pro sp2 and peer2peer network. using max8 and vray 1.46.12. Scene has no maps (for troubleshooting).

Problems:
1. the render servers don't update their scene. They just re-render the scene from previous render.
2. one of the machines won't contribute. spawner starts and sits there like it should, and like the others, but won't render, however, I did have it working.

already tried:
1. disabling all firewalls etc.
2. several reboot sequences and total network shutdown.

Question:
When you hit cancel during a dr render, the servers scenes show up as vray server scene. I've been exiting spawner from the task tray after each render attempt and then restarting it after max closes. Is this correct?

One last thing. I thought I read somewhere, but can't remember, can you use hdri's in the environment maps with dr? Thanks.

First of all, update to most recent vray you can get, that is 1.47.03
second, search the forum, I have posted a while back DR tips thread, where most of your problems are described.
Basicly before recent builds, canceling dr in mid render produces server hangs, scenes would not update etc.
About hdris, as long as they are sourced from the network where all machines can access it, like \\path\ etc it will work.

Thanks. I was using 1.46 because I've been using viz06, and 1.47 doesn't work with viz. I got the ok to get max8 and did, but was sticking with 1.46 just to be safe (are the mats backwards compatible?) I'll look for your thread.

Got it. http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...highlight=tips

If ever a thread needed sticky'd...

[Raytonium]

There does seem to some trouble opening max8 matlibs in earlier versions, if that's what you were asking:

http://www.vizdepot.com/forums/showt...9673#post29673

(you may have to register to see the thread, not sure.)