Distributed rendering with network textures

[Propulsion]

I've read that it may not be possible to use DR with textures located on a network, but I've also read conflicting information.

At my work we have a PC server with all of our textures, but the DR computers just doesn't see the images. The textures are linked to UNC paths, and would render just fine if they were individual frames in an animation sent via Backburner. Instead, what I get with the DR is the attached image.



Now, the strange part of this is that our old server used to be on a Mac. If I use the texture paths linked to there, then for some reason the DR works just fine and all of the maps are found. Now that might seem like a 'problem solved' type situation, but it's not because the Mac is sorely outdated, slow, and prone to crashes. I'd prefer not to have to keep using both just to utilize DR.

Is there a solution for this?

[vlado]

How do you run the spawners? As a service or manually? What Windows user is the service running as?

Best regards,
Vlado

[rgbaz]

That also kinda looks like your DR-vrscene-buckets are not being flushed in Windows. Try deleting the *vrscene* files that DR generates when launching a render to make sure they are all new, not sure where Win stores them; \temp ?

[Propulsion]

rgbaz, I'm not sure how to flush the files, but were I to switch the textures back over to the Mac drive, everything would render just fine. I believe it to purely be some sort of network issue.

How do you run the spawners? As a service or manually? What Windows user is the service running as?

The spawners are run automatically as a service in Windows 7. I believe it's run as Administrator.

[vlado]

I believe it's run as Administrator.

Can you double-check this? If the user they are running as doesn't see the network path, V-Ray will not be able to load the textures.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Propulsion]

I double checked and it is run as administrator.

Like I said, if I rendered it as a single frame through backburner, the render grunts will find the textures just fine. And if the textures are located on the old Mac, it also sees the textures just fine through DR. For some reason it just won't see them on the PC through DR, and DR only.

[vlado]

So if you log in as an Administrator, you can access and see the textures just fine in Windows Explorer (no passwords needed or anything)?

Best regards,
Vlado

[Propulsion]

Yes, that is correct.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Hello Propulsion

Would it be possible to run a Remove Session on your machine ?
If yes please drop us an email vray@chaosgroup.com in order to set an appointment.
Please include a link to this post as additional information.