Idea on how to speed up LC calcs when doing distributed rend

[Dynedain]

This might have been suggested before, but I'm not sure.


Currently when doing Distributed Rendering using LightCache, each machine involved does it's own LightCache calculations. On my network at least, the workstation I'm submitting the DR from is much faster than my rendernodes, and so completes the LightCache pass well before the rendernodes.

A way to speed things up would be if the first machine to finish the LightCache calcs could Flag that it was done, and send its LC solution to all the other machines (of course this probably means sending it back to the workstation first).

This thought occured to me before, but really emphasized it as I'm sitting here watching this rendering. It's a high-resolution still, and my workstation has gotten through about half of the IRRMap solution, and my 10 render slaves haven't even finished their LC passes yet.


While I know people have asked for distributed LC calcs in the past, and that is a very difficult thing to do, I think this would be a great intermediate solution to help speed things up.

[vlado]

Yep, it's an idea that has come up a number of times; I have made a note to investigate this, but we'll see if there is time for it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Dynedain]

Great to hear its on the radar... means at least I'm understanding how it all works

[baumgore]

Hi,

what about MERGING the LC from all hosts before continuing rendering?
Or DR merged LC in progressive mode?
We are just evaluating Maxwell, and VRay DR with merged LC in progressive mode would make Maxwell look like a turtle.
Work flow-wise, their DR system sucks.
From what I understand, Pr Mode LC is about shooting a lot of rays out of the camera, so why not shooting them from all the hosts at their own and merge it afterwards? LC in normal mode is a bit more complicated, but here merging also would help a lot.
I do not want to complain, LC brought GI to a new level, you are far ahead of the competition (MR, FR, Brazil), but DRed LC would blow them away.
So, please consider this and keep up the good work !!!