Good Old Distributed Rendering Crashing

[MegaPixel]

Trying to calc an IR map for an animation using DR and multiframe incremental. The dummys servers are setup correctly and are participating in the DR - that's not the issue. What's happening, is that when the first frame of the sequence is calced, and it's time to move on to the next frame and start again, I get a crash to the desktop with an autodesk error report. I'm calculating every 30 frames out of a range of 30 seconds - 800x600 - Low IR default settings and the IR calculates fine when it's just my own workstation. Is multiframe incremental the correct option for what I'm trying to do?

I'm using 1.47.03 still on MAX 8. (I'm not updating to 1.5r3 until I'm finished with a current client contract where I can't afford any hickups which may cause changes in the existing production workflow) If I can get a reassurance that my existing projects will render out exactly as they do in 1.47 with no changes necessary, then I'll consider moving to 1.5 now if it means better DR stability - but I don't like to gamble.

Thanks - Dave

[MegaPixel]

Bump

[jacksc02]

megapixel, just calculate it on a single computer using "incremental add" it will be much fast than trying to DR it (and it wont crash)

[vlado]

The only supported modes for the irradiance map in DR mode are "Single frame" and "From file".

Incremental modes will be supported at some point, but I don't want to risk breaking the DR at this point to implement it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jacksc02]

Incremental modes will be supported at some point, but I don't want to risk breaking the DR at this point to implement it.

This is good to know vlado, is there a note in the help stating this?

[vlado]

This is good to know vlado, is there a note in the help stating this?

Yep; in the notes at the end of the "distributed rendering" section; I'll add these to the irradiance map page as well.

Best regards,
Vlado

[MegaPixel]

So if I don't have a super fast single computer, then my chances for calcing an 800x600 IR map for a 1 minute+ movie overnight are very slim? The reason I tried DR was because my one machine wasn't cutting it. Thank god the Quad cores have arrived, now if I can just save up some pocket change

Ok, thanks for the help guys - Dave

[vlado]

Well, technically you can split the animation in several sequences, calculate the irradiance map for each sequence on a different machine, and then merge the maps together.

Best regards,
Vlado

[MegaPixel]

Is the IR map merge tool located somewhere on this site? I guess I'll have to try that - Ovcourse that means I need that many copies of MAX and Vray to do this.

[dlparisi]

So if I don't have a super fast single computer, then my chances for calcing an 800x600 IR map for a 1 minute+ movie overnight are very slim? The reason I tried DR was because my one machine wasn't cutting it.

I can usually calculate a 60 second (1800 frames or so) IR calc (calculating every 20-30 frames) in a few hours on a dual opteron 270 due to the incremental nature of the IR map. So overnight on a slower machine doesn't seem that far out of the realm of possiblities to me but I haven't seen your scene. Otherwise, Vlado's suggestion of merging the maps from several machines is yor best option.

[dlparisi]

Is the IR map merge tool located somewhere on this site? I guess I'll have to try that - Ovcourse that means I need that many copies of MAX and Vray to do this.

You may be able to send these out using backburner but sent to a single backburner server, meaning you wouldn't need mutiple licenses.

[MegaPixel]

I'm running a single 3.2 xeon. It takes just over one hour to calc the IR for the first frame of the sequence at 800x600. I know that typically the first frame takes the longest, but from my experience, there's no good way to estimate how long it really will take and usually I come in the following morning and minimum progress has been made.

dlparisi,

What's the best way to get the backburner servers to save the IR map? Is autosave our only option? Will they run if I have the "don't render final image" option checked? I would much rather try this option then opening the scene up on serveral machines individually.

[RErender]

I have a couple scripts that can make it a bit easier http://varcht.net/index.php?option=c...d=13&Itemid=28

[vlado]

Is the IR map merge tool located somewhere on this site? I guess I'll have to try that - Ovcourse that means I need that many copies of MAX and Vray to do this.

It is included with the installation of RC3; you can just install this to some temp folder and copy it from there.

Best regards,
Vlado

[MegaPixel]

Thanks Vlado and Eric - Very handy scripts - nice work!

-Dave