Setting up Distributed Rendering

[l1tay2]

I have completed the steps below and I am receiving this error message.

// Error: Local machine is not used for distributed rendering and there are no enabled hosts!

Update:

I am now receiving this.

// Warning: Local machine is not used for distributed rendering and no slaves can join!

I cannot set this up. I need help.

[yolov]

It means it can't see the slave (where a "standalone only" installation was made.
It might be one of the following:

1. the main machine is not set up to look for slaves - you need to tell vray in maya what machines to use for DR
2. The standalone-only machine is not running its standalone'
3. The standalone-only machine is unable to obtain license (thus, not joining the rendering)

To resove:
1. In the render settings, go to where the DR is enabled in the settings tab and when enabled, there will be a large button called setting. Click it to open the DR setttings and enter the slave's IP. The default port is 20207.
2. Check if a vray.exe process is running. If there is one but you don't see a vray standalone console, then it's running as a service. If there isn't one - you need to start it manually from Start menu > Chaos Group > V-Ray > Maya(version) > launch vray render slave.
3. Get the vrayMayaSpawner log from your user's temp directory on the slave machine. On windows, for quick access to it, you can open a windows explorer and in the path field above just type %temp%

[l1tay2]

To resolve:
1. In the render settings, go to where the DR is enabled in the settings tab and when enabled, there will be a large button called setting. Click it to open the DR setttings and enter the slave's IP. The default port is 20207.

- When I run a ipconfig in the CMD, I recieve four values regarding IP. DNS suffix, IPv4 address, Subnet Mask, and default Gateway. Which one do I use for the IP?
- The port number 20207, do I use this exact port (20207) for BOTH the main machine and the slave machine when editing the change license settings?

[l1tay2]

2. Check if a vray.exe process is running. If there is one but you don't see a vray standalone console, then it's running as a service. If there isn't one - you need to start it manually from Start menu > Chaos Group > V-Ray > Maya(version) > launch vray render slave.

If vray.exe does not run automatically, I will need to start this manually every time I wish to render, correct?

[l1tay2]

3. Get the vrayMayaSpawner log from your user's temp directory on the slave machine. On windows, for quick access to it, you can open a windows explorer and in the path field above just type %temp%

How will "getting" the log help the slave machine obtain a license? Can you please explain this to me?

Sorry for all the questions, but I want to get up and running as well as have a understanding of how to add to the farm at a later date. You have been very helpful so far. I am new to networking different machines.

[yolov]

2. Check if a vray.exe process is running. If there is one but you don't see a vray standalone console, then it's running as a service. If there isn't one - you need to start it manually from Start menu > Chaos Group > V-Ray > Maya(version) > launch vray render slave.

If vray.exe does not run automatically, I will need to start this manually every time I wish to render, correct?

You have two options - one is to let it run as a service, the other is to run it manually each time. If it's not running as a service - it might be the reason it's not picking up the rendering request.

[yolov]

3. Get the vrayMayaSpawner log from your user's temp directory on the slave machine. On windows, for quick access to it, you can open a windows explorer and in the path field above just type %temp%

How will "getting" the log help the slave machine obtain a license? Can you please explain this to me?

Sorry for all the questions, but I want to get up and running as well as have a understanding of how to add to the farm at a later date. You have been very helpful so far. I am new to networking different machines.

It will confirm if the problem is in the licensing setup.

[yolov]

To resolve:
1. In the render settings, go to where the DR is enabled in the settings tab and when enabled, there will be a large button called setting. Click it to open the DR setttings and enter the slave's IP. The default port is 20207.

- When I run a ipconfig in the CMD, I recieve four values regarding IP. DNS suffix, IPv4 address, Subnet Mask, and default Gateway. Which one do I use for the IP?
- The port number 20207, do I use this exact port (20207) for BOTH the main machine and the slave machine when editing the change license settings?

You need the IPv4 address. You also need to specify a port, the default 20207 will be assigned if you don't specify it. It's best to use the default.

[l1tay2]

It still is not working. I have changed the license settings on both and made sure to check what you previously posted.

Here are my settings:



Here is my slave machine:


I am receiving this error when trying to render:
// Error: Could not obtain an interface license (-200)!

[l1tay2]

Update:


I am not even able to render on my main machine anymore. I tried to change my licensing back so I could at least render on my machine.

Nothing is working.

Is there a possible way I could have someone remotely set up distributed rendering for me? I have tried everything I know of and now I'm stuck without vray and $10,000 worth of equipment I cannot use.

[yolov]

What are the licensing settings for both machines? Try and have a look here: http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...+your+Licenses
We could set up a remote session, you could drop a line to support@chaosgroup.com and refer to this thread.

[l1tay2]

Alex - I got it working.

Instead of using port 20207 on the main machine, I used 30304.

Problem:

Its three times slower than just rendering on my main machine. My machine has 4 cores, the slave has 16. Most of the time seems to result from the scene transferring information from one machine (main) to the next (slave).

Two questions:

1) I have a wireless connection to my network. Could this be why the DR is so slow? Should I be wired?

2) Could this be improved by using my slave WITH the main workstation to render? I would need an additional universal RN license for this, but it may be worth it so i do not have to wait 3 minutes for files and light cache to build/transfer every time I render.

[yolov]

Ah yes, 20207 is the DR port, 30304 is the licensing port, it's easy to get confused with this. Glad to hear it's working.
On your questions:
1. Yes, wireless transfer is usually two times slower than wired - depends on your router and wireless card, you could check what's their max speed.
2. Yes, it will be faster in rendering, but you'll need another license. It will not save time though from transfering the scene to the slave. But if you're also transfering the assets (textures, vray proxies, etc), you can use the "use cached assets" option (right below "transfer assets in the DR settings) to make vray only trasnfer a specific asset once to the slave. If you're using network-shared assets though, this might not speef up things quite much.

[l1tay2]

1. Yes, wireless transfer is usually two times slower than wired - depends on your router and wireless card, you could check what's their max speed.

This is what I have, I am not sure how to check the max speed. See below link.
http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wirele...rt+wifi+router

Also - I do not use a network card to connect, I use an older wireless USB adapter. Do you recommend I replace this with a cat-6 Ethernet hard-wired cable?

2. Yes, it will be faster in rendering, but you'll need another license. It will not save time though from transfering the scene to the slave. But if you're also transfering the assets (textures, vray proxies, etc), you can use the "use cached assets" option (right below "transfer assets in the DR settings) to make vray only trasnfer a specific asset once to the slave. If you're using network-shared assets though, this might not speef up things quite much.

Is there a way to avoid transferring the scene, and assets every time I render? Will a shared folder prevent this and if so, how do I go about setting one up?

[yolov]

1. Seems the netgear should be able to provide a decent speed.
2. You can only avoid transfering the asests by using a shared network location to load them from to Maya. The scene will be transferred to the slave each time you hit render so the slave has a scene to render. If you're doing animation - it will only be transferred the first time you start the render, so it's not going to be sent over and over for each frame.