Net Render, one slave rendering slightly different result

[Arkitec]

All are accesing IMAP from Network, UNC mapping. However, one machine is rendering a slightly different kind of brightness...

Im sure this has happened to me before.. Just cant remember what i did to fix it.

In post, is there a way to blend the two differences instead of re-rendering the entire animation over again?

Only thing that comes to mind is bring in the images from that machine to photoshop, do a test and try to match to the correct frames, run a batch to those images....

Any advice... Working 12 hour days for the past three weeks. I think I'm brain dead!

Arkitec

[vraypixel]

Do you have objects with changed properties : Generate GI or Recieve GI in an XRef. These are not always transmited to the mother file. It could also be a memory problem on one of your machines or a missing irradiance map.

[Arkitec]

No changed properties... The animation is an interior scene with no xrefs... Memory isnt an issue as each of my render slaves all have 12GB of Ram ea. Irraidance Map is on a mapped drive on the network- UNC. I dont see a missing irradiance map being an issue as the previous job in Backburner earlier yesterday didnt have any problems rendering....

Thank you very much for the response..... I can use all the help i can get..

At this point, im thinking about re-doing the irradiance map pre pass and see if the irmap is the problem...

Arkitec

[vraypixel]

Which max are you using? Could it be default Gamma setting. I think pre max 2010 sometimes had problems setting the gamma correctly on networked jobs.

[Arkitec]

MAX 2011. Im not using LWF. Standard Camera.

[vraypixel]

Any exotic texture formats? Any video textures with missing codecs. I know this is not a very intelligent proposition but have you tried restarting max?

[Arkitec]

no on the textures or codecs.... and ill be honest. I didnt think restarting max might make a difference based on it only being that one slave out of 4 is rendering that way..

I did another prepass... with the same results... Ill give the restart on all, cant hurt, right?

[vlado]

In general, it is good to keep the "Check for missing files" option enabled when doing DR; it will tell you if any render slave is missing some files for whatever reason.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Arkitec]

Vlado,

Ive tried restarting the machine rendering different. Ive selected the Check for missing files uption... but still no luck!

Arkitec

[vlado]

What if you render the scene locally on that machine? Is it still darker? Is there any difference in the bit-ness of the machines (32- vs 64-bit)?

Best regards,
Vlado

[Deflaminis]

I've seen this kind of thing happen when the computers on the farm have differing updates/service packs for windows.

[Arkitec]

Well, Im back with the same problem.. its an exterior animation this time. Im only using two of the machines right now.. the fastest two both running windows 7, 64 bit. Both have the same udpates / service packs.

Is there a way to adjust in post with a batch routine in ps... some kind of level tweek?

Arkitec

[vlado]

One reason for the differences might be a different decimal symbol on the systems ("." vs ",") however you said everything is identical on the two machines. Another thing to try is to copy any textures locally to each machine, just in case.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Arkitec]

Thank you Vlado for commenting... I assume then that I need to map them all to the same local directory.. ie C:\maps before submitting via netrender...?

Arkitec

[stupendousman_dk]

Check the keyboard setting are in sync. I Had slaves running uk keyboard once and workstations dk, and there was a difference in brightness. This back on win xp and vray 1.5 i think but it might still apply. Check regions settings etc as well, in windows controo panel