DR Frustration - HELP!

[glorybound]

I am getting very frustrated with distribution rendering. There is no amount of starting and stopping that seems to help. Yesterday after starting/stopping all day I finally got things to sing, but today all I am getting is warnings. This can't be that complicated. I started and stopped everything. I tried running as a service and then manually. I get:

[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Render host xp64rend1 (192.168.8.126) is not responding
[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Server 192.168.8.126 is currently busy.

[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Render host xp64rend4 (192.168.8.173) is not responding
[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Server 192.168.8.173 is currently busy.

[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Render host xp64rend2 (192.168.8.172) is not responding
[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Server 192.168.8.172 is currently busy.

[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Render host xp64rend3 (192.168.8.164) is not responding
[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Server 192.168.8.164 is currently busy.

[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Render host bobby-p-xp (192.168.8.134) is not responding
[2009/Jul/17|10:57:32] warning: Server 192.168.8.134 is currently busy.

My slaves are telling me:

"warning: Failed to delete server scene file "C:\Documents and Settings\bob.parker\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\3dsMaxDesign\2010 - 64bit\enu\temp\vray_server_scene.max" (32)"

[glorybound]

DR

I read this on another forum:

"Did you send an actual job to them though. This is an important step. You need to have your slave computer complete a backburner job before you can DR something."

any truth to it?

[glorybound]

Hdri

and HDRI's DO NOT work with DR.

[Morbid Angel]

you might want to send a bb job and see if it helps..it worked for me.
I would recommend trying experiments on one machine to see if that works. Also check permttions to see if that file its trying to delete is write accessible.

[glorybound]

Hdri

If I copy my hdri to all the local drives it works. It doesn't make any sense because each slave is mapped and sees the shared network drive.

[Morbid Angel]

what if you try to make a path such as \\server\directory

[plastic_]

If I copy my hdri to all the local drives it works. It doesn't make any sense because each slave is mapped and sees the shared network drive.

if you run the spawner as a service, the mapped drives wont work. some say that they managed to get mapped drives working with services, but i tried hard and it never worked.

better stick with UNC paths, as morbid angel recommends.

still, you should run the services with user permissions, instead of the default SYSTEM user.

[glorybound]

what if you try to make a path such as \\server\directory

I am not sure I understand. When I map my drive it is using that format with an assigned letter. When I browse to the network drive I do pick the z, which all the machines are mapped as z. I tried to change the asset manager to use the unc path, but that didn't do anything for me. Am I missing something when I read make a path as you quote?

Other than the HDRI's (all other textures are fine) it seems the complexity of the scenes make all the nodes drop off. I am working on a simple 900 frame animation with glass and a mid gray material. All the slaves are churning away like I would expect. It seems once the scenes gets larger they stop working. What would cause this? I am replacing my hub Monday, could it be network collisions? I have all 6 computers in my office and they are all connected with the hub.

Thanks again for all your patients.

[Morbid Angel]

mapped drive is one way...
unc path is the better way by far. If you open explorer and type \\xp64rend1 it will open that machines shared directory if it has any. In essence all your textures have to be on a server to which all machines point. And all of the must access the textures using similar way.

[glorybound]

UNC paths

so if I type in "\\xp64rend1" and it doesn't open (not at the office) how do I fix it? Is it a network setting?

[Morbid Angel]

depending on your op system you need to enable file and printer sharing protocol under networking. Once you do that the machine should communicated with the server and everything should work.

[flino2004]

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...t=32700&page=2

I posted here a script that i found somewhere to convert mapped drives to UNC and viceversa..open them and change it with your information.

[glorybound]

shared

OK. I check it out and when I type in my shared network drive I can access is via the command line \\archive\bparker_toolbox

This has something to do with file size. I ran a 900 frame animation (5,020kb) last night and all 5 slaves were working. I have 2 textures, 1 being an hdri, and I had no issues. When I open up another project (410,080kb), which uses the same HDRI and some proxies, it just returns that the slaves are busy. I tried without proxies and the HDRI, but still nothing.

I just invested 10 grand in the 5 slave machines and all I cna use them for is simple scenes, which is when I don't need them. Could this be a Vista thing? I am running Vista 64 and the 5 slaves are XP64.

[simmsimaging]

Have a look at yoru event viewer and see if you are getting an error with Event ID 2017.

I'm not sure it will be related but it's something I am having problems with now that I am running a Vista64 workstation and a couple of XP nodes.

b

[glorybound]

Vista and DR

No, I am not getting that error. I cleared my errors and I'll monitor it close. I was seeing a tcp/ip max connection error (EventID 4226: TCP/IP has reached the security limit), but it looks like this is how Vista is handling connections and it would be happening to everyone.