I’m doing a distributed render to a couple of new machines and the GI seems to be working well but the maps on the distributed machines seem to be missing. I’ve checked the mapped drives on all machines and they can share the relevant folders where the maps are.
Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Ta
Everything is UNC path?
( \\IP\folder\folder\file.jpg)
Road to hell
That was it!!
Thanks thablanch turns out all my issues the reason the distributed rendering wasn’t working properly was because of the paths. Even though each machine had the correct directories mapped under the same drive letter, they still didn’t pick up the maps. Bitmaps and Lightmaps. The other thing I noticed was that I had to change all the slave machines to a Gamma of 1.8 to match mine, so that the buckets had the same tonal value.
I don’t understand though why I have to spend the extra time going through the extended process of doing absolute paths, when my 3dsmax customize user paths is set to absolute.
You can try to copy you 3dsmax settings (3dsmax.ini) to all your slaves.
FIRST backup in a zip file the original 3dsmax.ini on every slave
Then copy 3dsmax.ini which is located at C:\Documents and Settings\#USER#\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\3dsmax\#2008 - 64bit#\enu
look for LoadEnableState=1 <-- it means that max look if you have set a gamma to your scene. And looks at for every scene. I have some at 2.2 and other at 1.75
and Every directories where max is going to look if there is a missing material.
And sure All you folders have to be the same.
hope it will help you
Yes, this always help. But let me think about it more…
Could anyone tell me why is not possible send with the scene also textures on each render slave ? Vlado, is it missing feature of 3DSMax or Vray, i think Vray. Do you think you can add this as option in some future release of Vray ?
Yes, it has been requested, and we’ll probably do it, but it must be implemented carefully; sending several gigabytes to many machines all at the same time is a painful experience 
Best regards,
Vlado
BTW, V-Ray will automatically set and transfer the gamma settings of the client machine to the render slaves, so there might be no need to explicitly enable that.
Best regards,
Vlado
Distibuted Rendering Tips
Here I can give you some tips for a succesful installation and using of distributed rendering:
1. Use same OS on all computers.
2. Install same software on all computers.
3. Configure your LAN.
4. Use UNC for all data.
5. Run one Netrender Job on all computers.
6. Run Distributed rendering.
Regards.
Daniel Krüger
Fine good news. When we can wait this will be add?
I think more then carefull implementation it need carefull user which should know that transfer huge datas through the network can take some time.
I think there re not much project using more than few hunderets of maps and each good renderfarm should be on gigabit minimally so it should be really not the problem…
Of course it would be clever make it default as it is now and only if the user will want check the option to send also maps.