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As we are ramping up for a new vfh project I am wondering what version of vray standalone to use with the stable builds. We used to use the standalone vray that came with maya, but as I understand vray in houdini has a couple of features that are not available in that version (or in fact not even in the latest standalone vray). What is the recommended way to go here?
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If you have access to the V-Ray for Max stable nightlies, you can use that. Otherwise, a new Standalone build will be released very soon which will have everything you need.
Hope that helps! -
I'd rather go with the Standalone build to be honest. We did mean to swap the maya standalone version with the "real" standalone version anyways. Are there also nightlies for the standalone? I just see an APP SDK version which I think is not the standalone.
btw. wouldn't the standalone that is included with houdini also have everything I need (allthough trying to start in from command line throughs me an error with something about "Qt5Core.dll not found").
When you say very soon, does this mean within the next two days?Comment
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As a side note, using the vray executable that comes with V-Houdini is also possible since the release but you need to set up some environment variables.
I haven't tested to make sure everything is working as expected so I'm not that eager to recommend. I'll run our tests with it under Linux and Windows later today and if everything looks good, I'll ping here with more info on setting this up.
That would be unlikely. More along the lines of couple of weeks, maybe.When you say very soon, does this mean within the next two days?
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Thanks, that would be great! I just had a quick look into using the Max-version (for now). I'm just about to do some testrenders. What I already saw was, that the plugins field3dio_vray.dll and openvdbio_vray.dll are missing from the 3dsmax plugins directory and that a lot of the plugins seem to have (sometimes massivly) different filesizes which makes me think that they are not the same version. I could copy over the plugins from vfh into our standalone deployment. Does that sound like a good idea to you.
Sorry for being a bit pushy here, but I need to make sure that we can render the stuff we make in houdini on our farm rather sooner than later.Comment
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If you'd like to go the vray.exe from V-Ray for Houdini route, you need to grab the following dlls from the Houdini install folder and place them in:
VRay_Houdini_Folder/appsdk/binYou should now be able to start V-RayHoudiniFolder/appsdk/bin/vray.exe provided you pass the diplay=0 option so the V-Ray Frame buffer is not opened. Technically you don't need the Frame Buffer on the slave machines so you can start V-Ray with the -server option and you should be good to go.qt5widgets.dll
qt5core.dll
qt5gui.dll
zlib1.dll
libpng13.dll
If for some reason you need the Frame Buffer, you will also need the Houdini_Install_Dir/bin/Qt_plugins/platforms folder. You can copy it anywhere you want, for instance again in the VRay_Houdini_Folder/appsdk/bin.
Then, the following environment variable needs to be set:
At this point the appsdk folder in basically a Standalone V-Ray using the V-Ray for Houdini dlls. Everything you need on the slave machines is there.set QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH= VRay_Houdini_Folder/appsdk/bin/Qt_plugins/platforms
I'm currently running our tests through DR with the same setup. I took the appsdk directory, placed it on a network drive and started V-Ray with the -server option on a slave machine. I'll update you tomorrow - hopefully there won't be any surprises.
Cheers!Comment
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ronald_a ,
I ran our tests a bunch of times in different setups:
- if you're planning to use the V-Houdini vray.exe as standalone on the slaves, with DR, through hython, you may face some issues. I'll look into this in more depth so we can resolve things on our end.
- if you're planning to use a render manager (e.g. Deadline, HQueue), you should be safe.
However, an update regarding Standalone - it's very likely a release will happen in time for you guys to set things up. I got the Standalone release builds today - ran our Houdini tests in export mode with the latest stable V-Ray for Houdini and passed the VRScenes to the Standalone executable. Things look good - there are minor differences in displacement which you may not even notice at all. No crashes or hangs.
Hope that helps!Comment
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Thanks a lot gosho for all the info. We have changed the setup from yesterdays max standalone to today‘s houdini standalone and did some tests which all seemed to work. We only use deadline and no DR. I think we will leave it like that for now and maybe swap to standalone at a later point (after all it‘s just swapping a directory) because it seems saver to do it this way.
Out of interest: Is there any particular reason why there is currently such a mixup with the standalone versions? This seems kinda unusual.Comment
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Main reason is that now when we integrating V-Ray with Houdini, there are a lot of things that should be matched with other DCCs. And once we implement something from Houdini we must be sure that it is not breaking something with other DCCs, that's why we can't update the V-Ray standalone fast enough. But once we are sure that everything is working correctly standalone will be updated.Originally posted by ronald_a View PostLast edited by chakarov; 22-08-2019, 01:50 AM.Comment
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ronald_a ,
pinging you to make sure you guys are aware ... The new standalone builds are now public: https://download.chaosgroup.com/?platform=47&product=47
Cheers!Comment
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Thanks for the info. Do you see any advantages using the standalone over using the houdini standalone? In my understanding, using the houdini standalone gives use a 100% parity with the gui rendering in houdini.Comment
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That is correct, using the Houdini standalone should give you the same result, and I don't see any advantage in using Standalone over the Houdini version.
Cheers!Comment
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