Distributed Rendering - Dongle Issue

[bvdsdesign]

Hi guys,
I'm new to the vray scene. And I'm setting up distributed rendering. I've got 2 full licenses on 2 dongles. Got several workstations that I can use. All workstations have the full installation.
Started backburner for the first time. And started V-Ray DR spawner and V-Ray license server on the render servers. On the main pc is started 3dsmax + vray and the dongle.
But when I start the rendering only the render server with the other dongle is recognized.
I heard from other people for DR to work no license was needed. Is this correct? If so, what could be the problem. And what if I would use external render farms?
Some help could be welkom

Thx
Bart

[Morbid Angel]

No, you always need license even when using DR. When you started your vray license server, after installing vray on DR machine you must point to where the license will be read from (your license workstation ip).

[tashko.zashev]

Hi Bart,

As Dmitry already mentioned, each render node in DR mode requires a license. Depending on your number of Render node licenses, you have to point your slaves to both machines (with the dongles) where the license servers are running. We have a special tool for this "Change V-ray license settings".

If you still have problems with setting your licenses in DR, please contact us at support@chaosgroup.com and we will assist you further.

[bvdsdesign]

Thanks guys for the reply. So if I understand this correctly for each render node I need a render node license or full license. For example I've got 5 workstations this means 2 full license and 3 render node licenses on 5 dongles. Or 1 dongle on one license server with 1 main pc and 4 render nodes in a same network. What about working with rebus farm..
Does the same apply to backburner?

[Morbid Angel]

since vray 3, you need render licenses. You should refer to chaos groups website about the license scheme. But I believe 1 user license gets you 5 render licenses (I could be mistaken though).

This applies to the DR. BB and any other licenses, but the license is universal. Meaning one vray license should work on max, maya, xsi etc.

Usually the way this works is you have 1 license server that holds all the licenses. One usb dongle can have many licenses in it, depends on how it was programmed. Or you can have multiple dongles plugged into one workstation (license server). All of the network machines after vray install have a "change vray client ui" under licensing/administration where you need to point them to the license server.

[bvdsdesign]

OK that explains a lot. Most of the people I talk about are still using 2.4. Since we just bought v-ray. We started in v-ray 3. Just need to look up this license scheme, to be sure what I get for the 2 full licenses we have. So normally this means 10 render licenses..Need to test this at the office, because I'm still on vacation at the moment.
Thx Dmitry for the help, I appreciate this a lot.

[Morne]

You get 1 full render node for each full vray license
Things changed in 3. You now need a render license for each pc that will render (inlcuding your workstation if that is going to render)

A full license is considered one GUI license which comes with 1 render license

[bvdsdesign]

OK. Back at the office and tests are going good. Changed the license server specs and everything worked. Just got to order some additional render nodes. Only got 4 at the moment.
Again thanks for the help guys.