Distributed Rendering Texture Question

[miguelortega]

I am getting erros saying warning:Bitmap File "G:/xxxx/xxxxx/xxxx.tiff" failed to load [makeOpenError] failed to open file:2

this happens for all my files, so does this mean i need to transfer all the files to every computer?
or do they just need access to the directory in the main render client?

EDIT: the only way i got it to work is to map the drive by setting permissions to the root of the drive on the render server,
this seemed to work,, is this a correct way? windows warned me of it being a risk. so im a bit worried.
please excuse my lack of Networking knowledge.

for example lets say i have 2 computers, in my Client the textures are stored in F:/scenes/textures/example.tiff
when i now set my sharing permissions to F:/scenes/textures/
and then map my drive to that as well in the slaves, It is reading that directory as the root of F:/ as opposed to a folder within F:/
this is causing vray to not find my textures . The only way it seems to not give me an error is when i set the root of F:/ as shared
but like i mentioned above im told this is a bad idea (sharing a root directory)

can anyone help me out would be really appreciated.

[miguelortega]

my render times are actually slower now that i have DR on, why would this be the case?

[vlado]

The texture maps need to be in a place where all machines can access them. You can either copy them locally, or place them in a shared network location.

For DR, it takes some time to write out the render scene file and transfer it to all the render servers; for simple scenes this time might be longer than the actual rendering.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Mules]

I managed to set up distributed render between a PC (as client) and a Mac (as server); a simple setup with a basic 3D scene (Maya2012). Both Pc and Mac render the image. Now I'm also trying to figure out how to let the Mac find the bitmap files (I also get the failed to load error). Is it possible to let the Mac find the bitmaps on a Windows system? Mac sometimes uses other file path notation. Sharing the drive or a subfolder and mounting it on a Mac does let it find the Bitmaps ...

I installed Vray for Maya as standalone on the Mac (Snow Leopard). There is no Maya itself installed on the Mac. I also didn't install the V-Ray license server on the Mac because I thought maybe this was not needed ... ?

I start the render from Maya2012 on the PC; batch render with Distributed Rendering turned on.

Tnx,
Mules

[vlado]

If V-Ray cannot load a texture, it will check the VRAY_ASSETS_PATH environment variable and look in the directories listed there. You can set this variable before starting the V-Ray render server, so that it can find the textures.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Mules]

I'm trying to get my head around this because I can't seem to get it working. I still get the error on the OsX render slave :

warning: Bitmap file "D:/projects/dual/sourceimages/lettering_color_vs002.tif" failed to load: [LoadImageFile] Failed to open file: no such file

On PC (WinXP) I shared the folder D:/projects (share name : projects). On the Mac I can access this share (using correct user account login). I guess the path on OsX to that share is Volumes/projects. I added this in the Maya.env file in users folder on the Mac :

### BEGIN CHAOS
### These lines are inserted by VRay installer
### Please do not modify anything between BEGIN CHAOS and END CHAOS

VRAY_FOR_MAYA2012_MAIN_x64=/Applications/Autodesk/maya2012/Maya.app/Contents/vray
VRAY_FOR_MAYA2012_PLUGINS_x64=/Applications/Autodesk/maya2012/Maya.app/Contents/vray/vrayplugins
VRAY_FOR_MAYA2012_MAIN_PowerPC=/Applications/Autodesk/maya2012/Maya.app/Contents/vray
VRAY_FOR_MAYA2012_PLUGINS_PowerPC=/Applications/Autodesk/maya2012/Maya.app/Contents/vray/vrayplugins
VRAY_PATH=$VRAY_PATH:/Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Maya2012-x64/bin/x64/vc6
VRAY_TOOLS_MAYA2012_x64=/Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Maya2012-x64/bin
### END CHAOS
VRAY_ASSETS_PATH=Volumes/projects

I guess I do not have to add the VRAY_ASSETS_PATH in the Maya.env on the PC.
I read that some used symlinks on Mac to get it working.

I start the render from within Maya (batch render) and not with Vray standalone ...
The file path in the file nodes is a relative path. When trying to change this to a absolute path, Maya switches this back to a relative. I'm not sure if this adds to the problems.

Thanks!
Mules

[vlado]

The variable needs to be set on the machines where the render servers are running. One way to do it is to modify the vray-slave script to set the variable before V-Ray is started. Perhaps we can also figure a way to specify this variable in the Maya settings and then transfer it to the slaves automatically.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sacha]

If V-Ray cannot load a texture, it will check the VRAY_ASSETS_PATH environment variable and look in the directories listed there. You can set this variable before starting the V-Ray render server, so that it can find the textures.

Hey vlado,

would it also be possible to get vray also look at the "VRAY_ASSETS_PATH" for "Lightmaps"? I guess when using DR just on windows machines it'll work but the network-names between OSX and WIN are different, so I can't access that files. I placed a Photon Map on my mac in the folder, which I set in the env but the log says: Error loading photon Map from file "d:/Maya/projects..... etc", so he just looks at the original place, I set in maya (on the windows machine) for the map... Or am I doing saomething wrong?

[vlado]

Hm, I think we are using the VRAY_ASSETS_PATH variable for light cache files already (as well as irradiance maps and photon map files). I'll double-check though.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sacha]

Hm, I think we are using the VRAY_ASSETS_PATH variable for light cache files already (as well as irradiance maps and photon map files). I'll double-check though.

Best regards,
Vlado

The textures are working perfect but when I want to use a saved Lightmap and place it in the sourceimages on my main machine and also in the path, i set for VRAY_ASSETS_PATH on the mac he still tries to load the image from the original place (sourceimages on win) and doesn't look in VRAY_ASSETS_PATH. Would be great if you could check that.. thanks

[ignuf]

hi , been looking at this thread which seems to outline the problem i'm having but so far haven't been able to implement the solution ,

I've got a pc and a mac , the pc is the main computer and the mac is the slave.
I managed to share the maya project folder on the PC and used smb on the mac to connect to the PC and mount the shared folder, so far so good.

started v-ray slave on the mac , then in Maya on the PC I activated the distributed rendering option, Vray found the mac/slave, great so far !

On actual rendering though, the mac does join in but i get the black squares , ok.... so the slave/mac can't find the textures as its looking for the D:/ drive of the pc... how can i get the slave to find the files ?

took a look at the answers you provided further up the thread but... I have no idea how to find/modify the "VRAY_ASSETS_PATH"

any help appreciated

[Sacha]

Hey ignuf...

you should look at http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...different-OSes...
there you'll find what you need... A tipp: either you have a folder on the mac, where every single image file, needed for the project, goes (so you'll have all twice, on on the pc an one on the mac), or you mount the sourceimages (or whereever you store all your images for that project) folder from your pc via smb and assign that path to the VRAY_ASSETS_PATH.

edit: it works most of the times... i had problems with the lightmaps so decided to switch my mac into a win for dr

[ignuf]

Thanks for the link aqua

though I think I've reached the point you got to where you mentioned that for some reason the slave doesn't seem to be redirected to the location of the textures even though I've opened the terminal and entered the export VRAY_ASSETS_PATH=”Macintosh HD/users/....../sourceimages/” to tell vray where the mounted folder is.

Also did as you suggested re copying the source images to the mac and then tried to do the terminal command export VRAY_ASSETS_PATH=”" etc and still no joy there, so close and yet so far

do you know if there's a way to check that the export VRAY_ASSETS_PATH=”Macintosh HD/users/....../sourceimages/” command has worked in the terminal?

[Sacha]

Thanks for the link aqua

do you know if there's a way to check that the export VRAY_ASSETS_PATH=”Macintosh HD/users/....../sourceimages/” command has worked in the terminal?

just enter export. That shows you all set variables. If the path is correct it should work. The textures were all fine for me.. just the lightmaps didn't work. I suggest anyway to enter the export command (of course with your path ) to the "profile" file within /etc to have the variable set whenever you open the terminal.

edit: by the way do not use the slash at the end of the path! just export VRAY_ASSETS_PATH="/Volumes/Macintosh HD/users/..../sourceimages" ... that worked for me!

[t.petrov]

ignuf:
"env | grep VRAY_ASSETS_PATH" should tell you if the path is set.
Also keep in mind that if you use export the exported environment variable is valid/active only for this terminal.
This implies that you should run the V-Ray Standalone from the same terminal.

Something like:
$ export VRAY_ASSETS_PATH=/my_path/
$ /path/to/vray/vray -server -portNumber=20207

/Teodor