DR not finding assets despite finding them...

[Art48]

Hi,

Strange title. Basically I just installed a second workstation with another VRay Workstation license and proceeded to use said machine as master and another workstation as slave for DR.
After some hassle regardgin refused connections I got it to work after a restart; BOth machines render. The only problem is, that the slave machine doesnt find ANY assets when used as DR slave. When I render locally on the slave machine everything works fine, no errors, access to all assets on a network drive.

Now this is not a gamebreaker since the "Transfer missing assets" function does its job very well (thanks for that option!) but I would like to know nonetheless why the slave cant find any assets despite having the same exact network structure, drive letters etc, all identical, and it works locally on the slave.

EDIT:
Just tried it vice-versa, slave machine being the master, and former master being the slave, doesnt work either, same issue. master renders fine, slave doesn't.

VRay 3.00.07
3ds Max Design 2014
UAC off on both machines

[svetlozar.draganov]

Most likely the core of the issue is associated to account permissions.
How do you start Vray Spawner, as a windows service or manually?

[Art48]

Hi,

I start it as a windows service from an account which has administrative privileges.

[svetlozar.draganov]

Would it be possible then to run the following test.
Log in with administrative account and make sure that you have access to all assets used in the scene.
Turn off vray-spawner-windows-service and start vray-spawner manually and run one test DR.
Let us know the result afterwards.

[Art48]

I will do the test today (hopefully) and let you know.

[tricky]

Do you have ALL assets UNC'd?

[Art48]

What exactly does "UNC" mean?

The paths look like X:\Folder\Folder\Asset.jpg

[tricky]

change them all to \\server\folder\folder\asset.jpg .ies .hdr etc. You need to do that if you run spawner as a service.

[Art48]

Thanks for your replies, I started the spawner manually and it worked fine. Is there any way around that UNC issue with service? Or automated path conversion at render time? Anything?
I would love to continue working in local, usual paths with drive letters.

[tricky]

We typically launch Asset Tracker in Max and (after clicking refresh) skim down the list. If you see anything that is in the format X:\Folder\Folder\Asset.jpg, right click on them and select 'Make path relative to Project Folder' and then rightclick again and select 'Resolve path to UNC location'. I don't know why we always need to do both, but this usually kicks the assets into being a UNC located asset.

Again, in Asset tracking, click on Paths/Preferences and put a tick next to 'Convert file paths to UNC'. This helps most of the time, but not always. Before rendering, it is always worth double checking down the list. I don't believe IES files are ever UNC'd automatically.

[Morne]

We typically launch Asset Tracker in Max and (after clicking refresh) skim down the list. If you see anything that is in the format X:\Folder\Folder\Asset.jpg, right click on them and select 'Make path relative to Project Folder' and then rightclick again and select 'Resolve path to UNC location'. I don't know why we always need to do both, but this usually kicks the assets into being a UNC located asset.

You dont need these steps. Just right click on a non unc path and select "set path" and click ok. It will convert to UNC (if you have convert to unc ticked under preferences)

[tricky]

You dont need these steps. Just right click on a non unc path and select "set path" and click ok. It will convert to UNC (if you have convert to unc ticked under preferences)

Good tip - will try!