Missing references in DR nodes

[Itoosoft]

Hi,

We usually receive requests from our customers, about DR nodes that render wrong buckets, because missing textures or plugins.

Is there is some way to identify these problems for a specific render node ? I made some tests (for example removing a plugin), but as far i can see, the VRayLog doesn't show any error.

[Slazzo]

Not sure if I understand your question but I would rather check for missings (filenames, plugins) from each node using a script, I think if you register it as a callback it could work for DR as well..
I'm not aware if there is a better way to check the nodes.

[Zdravko]

There is just “Check for missing files” option that could warn if there is any missing textures or plugins in the beginning of rendering. Note that this option is valid only for the render submission machine. However it stops the rendering and may save a lot of time.
As for the render slaves currently we don't have assets reporting mechanism. There is vraylog.txt file on each slave that outputs the render job progress and V-Ray errors/ warnings that appears during the job.

[Itoosoft]

As for the render slaves currently we don't have assets reporting mechanism. There is vraylog.txt file on each slave that outputs the render job progress and V-Ray errors/ warnings that appears during the job.

Well, that is exactly the problem: i cannot see any error in vraylog.txt of the slave node.

You can find a sample attached: in this scene i removed all textures from the slave (renaming the folder), so it generated wrong buckets (as expected). But the vraylog.txt seems normal: messages of type "Loading bitmaps for...", but no errors.

[tashko.zashev]

Hi,

Could you share more details or render examples, what do you mean with "wrong buckets"?
Does it look like different Gamma or different GI calculations?
Did you try to assign "Override material" with simple V-Ray shader?
Thank you.

[alexyork]

Differences in buckets are usually due to different Gamma settings across nodes, wrong maps being "found" by asset manager, or different plugin versions.

The best practice here we're found is to use a centralized maps and assets location that is accessible by all rendernodes on a separate machine on the network, containing all our maps and proxies etc, either in an overall folder for all jobs or in a specific folder for that job so we can make changes to the maps without cluttering the main library (so we can have brighter or darker versions of maps, or lower resolution versions etc.). We have a "F" drive with all jobs in it and a "Z" drive which contains all assets per job and map both to 2 network drives on all rendernodes, so they all point to exactly the same files in the same folder. We run the Asset Manager before setting off any renders and ensure everything is correct there and "OK" NOT "Found". "Found" will mean that it's found the file but it might not be the same file in the same folder - it could be an edited duplicate with the same name but actually a different file.

A common mistake is when you import a 3D model, say a SKP, into max, which then brings in the texture maps from the SKP into your C:\users.... folder instead of your project folder. When you render, your main machine will have those texture maps on it in that location but your network nodes won't. Asset Tracker will tell you if this is the case. I hate AT - it's a complete mess and very buggy, but it's the only way around this.

Gamma should be set the same on all nodes, too.

If there was a "Sanity Check" similar to Deadline then that would be fantastic, but being vigilant is currently the best method.

[Itoosoft]

Could you share more details or render examples, what do you mean with "wrong buckets"?
Does it look like different Gamma or different GI calculations?
Did you try to assign "Override material" with simple V-Ray shader?
Thank you.

With "wrong buckets" i mean any type of error caused by missing files (plugins, xrefs or textures). The problem here is not a specific issue with my render farm, but that sometimes we receive requests from our customers of Forest Pack with similar issues. They have problems rendering Forest scenes using DR, but most of times are caused because they are not installed correctly the software, or the slave cannot find a specific texture. So would be very helpful to identify the problem, for example asking to them their vraylog.txt, if this could record the problem.

For example, in the attached scene, i used a simple grass object (no Forest here) with a texture map. Then i removed the map file from the slave before rendering. The blue buckets are generated by the slave (diffuse color was pure blue), because it cannot find the texture map. Instead, vraylog.txt doesn't report any problem:

[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating scene materials for time=0
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "_fp_common_grass_01_clump"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "_fp_common_grass_01_clump"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "DefaultVRaySky"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "DefaultVRaySky"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "_fp_grass-a"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "_fp_grass-a"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "Map #771"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "Map #771"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "Map #750"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "Map #750"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "Material #593"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "Material #593"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Loading bitmaps for "terrain"
[2013/F/25|16:35:25] Updating "terrain"

[tashko.zashev]

Thank you for all details about this issue Carlos.

We will add this report as a request to our bug tracking system.
The log files from the salves should print all information about missing texture files and plugins.
We will try to keep this thread updated.

[Itoosoft]

Nice. Thanks for you help.