DR in Viz 2005 Works!!!! (Recipe Inside)

V-Ray V-Ray for 3ds Max General
1

OK, our awesome IT Guy tinkered around with getting DR under Viz 2005 up and running today, and he got it working! Basically he narrowed it down to a problem with the default vraydummy60.xml file that the spawner was using, it was created using max 6 for backburner, and for some reason this wasn’t working with viz2005 and backburner…

anyway long story short, copy and rename any existing backburner .xml file that you have rendered sucessfully in the past (can be an archived job, or whatever) and rename that to vraydummy60.xml and throw it on the render the server, overwriting the default one, restart vraydummy60.exe and bob’s you uncle it works!

I hope this helps timmatron and other fellow viz2005 users.

-Z

PS, watching twelve buckets dance around the screen is pure joy :smile:

2

thanks for the info, im using viz this will help alot.

Travis

3

If this is the case, I’m guessing that the .xml that is in the installer is requiring to some plugin or such that is in max, but not viz

4

If this is the case, I’m guessing that the .xml that is in the installer is requiring to some plugin or such that is in max, but not viz

that’s what we figured… if you open up a viz based xml and a max based xml, they are pretty different where it comes to <job description>.

-z

5

That sounds great!..but I’m not too familiar with XML - actually not at all. So how would I go about creating an XML file that is suitable to be renamed vraydummy60?

6

I GOT IT, I GOT IT!!! :smile:

I found an old xml file in my backburner folder, and renamed it like you said. Its also important, as mentioned somewhere else, to actually create a vraydummy60.max file from VIZ itself, and not just make a new .max file through windows.

I’m so happy, I suddenly feel the urge to buy a few more computers!

Thanks so much for sharing your tip!

7

no problem, glad it worked.

Goodt point about the viz created .max file, we just copied whatever .max file that backburner .xml was pointing to and it worked,

good to know we can just use a blank one!

:smile:

8

Yeah - thanks for that info! I’ve been running tests so far using 2 additional computers… I’ve had no problems / no restarting / no clearing the network folder… everything’s been working beautifully so far.

9

that really works?

seems like chaos need more betatester. :slight_smile:

10

Yea no kidding! Zoog’s IT guy needs to be working for Chaos!

11

hahahahaha :lol:

thanks for the tip, czoog :smile:

paul.

12

I just did this, but now when I try to fire vrayspawner60, I get a Windows error saying that Vray Spawner cannot continue, but they would be happy to report the problem.

So close!!

Any ideas?

(BTW, VIZ2005 with vray 1.46.09)

13

I just did this, but now when I try to fire vrayspawner60, I get a Windows error saying that Vray Spawner cannot continue, but they would be happy to report the problem.

So close!!

Any ideas?

(BTW, VIZ2005 with vray 1.46.09)

hmmm… never had that happen. I would try starting over from the top, uninstall/reinstall vray on the node, send a simple non DR job to backburner via net render. Grab that max file and the xml file for that scene, copy and rename them vraydummy60.xml and vraydummy60.max, then copy them to the render nodes, create the ini as per the instructions, then start the vray spawner. Viz should fire up minimized. If you don’t get any errors you are good to go. Try DR.

good luck!

-Z

14

Just did the whole thing again. Got the same result though.

Error results per Windows:

AppName: vrayspawner60.exe	 AppVer: 1.9.1.3	 ModName: msvcrt.dll
ModVer: 7.0.2600.2180	 Offset: 0003168d

Any chance of getting a copy of the files from someone else to try?

15

I can email ours to you… drop me a my emai is my user name here AT jrparch.com

what OS are you using?

16

cool, im rendering on 9 machines at the moment but havnt tried DR yet with viz2005 because so many people have said it didnt work. Will add this to my list of things to do :slight_smile: thanks!

17

czoog - I emailed you. Let me know if you didn’t get it.

Also, could you clarify the process a little? Here’s what I did. Maybe I am screwing something up.

When I run backburner, I have all machines running ‘server’ and one running ‘manager’. Each server machine generates an XML, but only the manager has the MAX file.

I have VIZ & vray working fine on my main computer (manager). I have a new machine that I have now installed everything on. VIZ works fine, but vray won’t work because I only have one license. My understanding is that it will still work work network rendering and distributed rendering - just not in “normal” mode within VIZ. (Is this correct?)

Am I to copy & rename a MAX file from the manager and rename it “vraydummy60.max”?

I then to copy & rename an XML file to “vraydummy60.xml”. Do I take the XML from the manager or the server?

Also, my understanding is that I create the INI file, copy the XML and MAX file, and run vrayspawner - all on the machine I want to use as vray’s equivalent of a server, but not on the manager. Is this correct?

Thanks for the continued help.

18

Is there anyone who can email me a copy of “vrayspawner60.xml” that works with VIZ 2005 and vray 1.46.09, or alternately, post its contents here ???

Thanks

And… Merry Christmas!!

19

Hi All,

Having just got DR to work in viz2005 I thought that i’d summarise what was needed for me to get it working:

Firstly, make sure the VIZ 2005 directory is not set to read only :stuck_out_tongue:

1. create a file called vrayspawner.ini in your viz root directory. Edit with notepad and put this info inside:

TempDir=C:\Program Files\Autodesk VIZ 2005\network
AppName=C:\program files\Autodesk VIZ 2005\3dsviz.exe

make sure this file is saves with the ini extension (not txt). Right click on start, click explore, go to tools → folder options → View, then untick “Hide extensions for known file types”. Now you should be able to rename the txt file to an ini

Also, adjust the locations this file points to according to what is needed. For example, some people use a network drive for the TempDir emp

The reason for the ini file is because by dafault (no ini), the program looks for 3dsmax.exe rather than 3dsviz.exe

2. Find any completed job .xml file from the backburner 2 directory and copy this into your viz root folder, then rename this to vraydummy60.xml

3. Open viz 2005 and save a new job over the file vraydummy60.max in the viz root directory. You may need to insert a camera before saving called cam_0 (depends on contents of your vraydummy60.xml file)

4. double click on vrayspawner60.exe in your viz root directory. This should start vraydummy, and the vray spawner.

Notes: if vray spawner or viz dissapear straight away, open and study these two files for indications of why there was a failure:

c:\VRSpawner.log <---the location of this file may vary

c:\program files\Autodesk VIZ 2005\network\ToServer.txt <---if viz keeps opening and closing, look in this file and see what the error is (be quick though as the file dissapears after a retry)

Lastly, delete contents of c:\program files\Autodesk VIZ 2005\network as another thing to try if all else fails.

Hope this summary of my day helps someone else :slight_smile:

BTW: I doubt many people would get all of this to work easily without help so I think for vray 1.5, if the whole process was made much easier then more people would have luck using DR with viz2005

20

Followed all your tips and it worked great…for about 2 hours!

Found that viz (or vray) had created a new vraydummy60.xml and vraydummy60.max files on the root of c:/ with a the log files.
Replaced them with ones that I knew were ok and it’s working again.

Also found that I’ve had to add an extra IP (any old no) otherwise it doesn’t seem to pick on one machine! Don’t know what that’s about.

Thanks for the help chaps

Geoff