I’m just curious about this- can you render out a single frame using two machines to work on the same scene? I’m not much of an animator- and I know the max network rendering system alllows multiple machines (slaves) to render out independent frames which you have to piece together later- but I’m just wondering if there’s a way in vray to have multiple machines process a single image thus cutting down rendering time for a single frame.
-juju
re
Yes…this is how vray’s DR works.
Thanks for the simple info. I wish I had known this before. That was the main reason why I was disappointed with backburner.
Maybe a good reason to go too Max 6 too, “net region render”
hehe Viz4 have alredy this… 
hehe to bad viz 5 won’t 
-dave
:shock: Ok I will keep with 4
Why would they take away something so useful? Does it have that many problems?
In max 5 net region render is present in cd2. It’s an script called “Macro_RNR202.mcr”
Regards
oh god. I would’ve never figured that to be a separate script… Nice help files Max has on this.
Ok- I read all the articles in this fourm on Vray DR and I have several questions I couldn’t find answers to. I am familiar with setting up backburner so I’m not completely clueless when it comes to network rendering. In this particular scenario, I have NOT set up backburner. is this necessary? Here’s what I’ve done so far. I was hoping someone would be kind enough to tell me if my settings look messed up.
1) Installed all plugins across machines. Setup is basically identical.
2) Set up a ‘transfer’ folder that’s shared out across the local network- i.e. “\compname\transfer”
3) Installed Spawners on machines. Set them as services. Directories set to folowing:
a. Spawner Temp Directory: \\compname\transfer
b. App Exe.: c:\3dsmax5\3dsmax.exe
c. VraySpawner Dir (normally the same as Max/Viz Folder): c:\3dsmax5
4) Ok so this being set up identical on all machines- I’m not too positive about the spawner temp directory (3a). Should this be local?
5) Then when I launch Max on one machine- do I need it to be open on the others? This is not the case with backburner. I take it that you don’t need it open cause that’s why it is a service…
6) I selected the scene on the main machine. ALL my materials/scene files are located in one folder on the desktop for this particular project. I realize it’s a pretty bad habit. Does this need to be moved to the ‘transfer’ folder? Or is it smart enough to ‘pull’ from this directory. It would be a pain to have to move a directory over to a shared location every single time. I’m also wondering how DR is going to handle the materials as well as the HDRI map.
7) Set Max to Vray as the current renderer: System\Distributed Rendering. Click on settings. Now I add all servers or is there only one- the main machine needed? My search doesn’t pull up anything. So what I’ve done is entered IPs through add server. They pull up and show themselves as “disabled.” I enable them. I clicked on them and hit “resolve.” The names now pull up. The comp icons are green.
8) “Auto-management” is checked on to ‘promote new servers.’ Leave bucket label is NOT checked (I have no clue what either one of these does but I’d like to.)
9) I don’t know what to do with the following in the settings as I had thought I set these up through the wizard:
a) Projects Directory: c:\DOCUME~1\LOCALS\~1\Temp (default) - browse button can be activated. does this need to be set up to the same as step 3a?
b) Network directory: (blank)- browse unselectable
c) MAX directory: (blank)- browse unselectable.
I activate the DR checkbox. So then I hit ‘render’- it pulls up a preview window and it just hangs blank. I see nothing happening. I run over to the other computer and nothing is happening on the screen (I mention that Max hasn’t been started on this comp MAX hasn’t been started.)
Apologies for asking so many questions but I think I am being very thourough as to my steps. I haven’t seen anything too detailed about a proper setup in this forum (I’ve read through all of them.) It’s usually abbreviated or people run into issues with their settings. It’s all a little bit confusing path-wise. Are there any other external settings in the main render scene dialog that I should switch on?
-jujubee :?
Anyone? I think it’s installed fine. I resaved the dummy file for max 5.1. I’m just not too sure about my paths- nor am I sure whether backburner neeeds to be installed too.
-juju
have you looked at this thread:
http://www.chaoticdimension.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2477
-i think the spawner temp directory should be local, because i assume each server has to make a copy of the file. Did you try that way?
- its not necessary to open max on slaves, just the open the spawner on all machines( if you installed it as a standalone) including the one where you run max
-you don’t need to run backburner in order to use vray’s DR, in this case you will have the machines rendering different regions of the same frame.
marq
I really appreciate the response. I’ve looked at it about 7 times now lol as well as read every other thread about DR a good 3 times over. Read through the manual. I’ve also done an extensive search on the web and have come up blank for solving this problem.
I did some more tests- I can see that my main comp is processing the pre-passes. Eventually it goes into image render mode but only renders from the main computer. I can still see the other comps (slaves) listed in the vray network settings. The slaves go from idle directly to finished once the main prepass finishes- there is no pre-pass occuring with them nor do they stamp out the scene- hence the really don’t appear to be doing anything.
If I change the mode from ‘single frame’ to ‘bucket’, it stamps the buckets with only the main computer’s IP Address. The slaves IP’s do not show up in the image.
Hey Marq- thanks for the reply. That information is really helpfful. I feel rather awful that you all read through my mess.
spawner- ah, in the initial setup. no. the information on that wasn’t clear anywhere. I assumed (for some reason unkown to myself) that it had to be on the network. I will try that.
I guess I have to wonder then what parameter needs to be shared out on the network if this wasn’t it. Would it be the projects folder? Ill give it a run. Thanks for the tips.
I was just being a smartass about Viz 5, discreet/autodesk in their infinate wisdom have discontinued Viz and forcing anyone who has Viz to “upgrade” to 3dsmax. Even though most Viz users are Arch Viz people and will only have a use for 1/2 of max. So there wont be a Viz 5
-dave
Hey Marq. Thanks once again. Your response really helped me out. I owe you one for sorting out that mess.
I set the DR up so that the spawner temp directory is local now (c:\temp.)
Now when I render I’m pulling up both computers to do their prepasses on the scene. This wasn’t even happening before- I was probably flooding my network with too much info the other way. My question about this is that when ‘Advanced Irradiance Map Parameters’ is set to ‘single’, both computers will render their passes independently of one another.
For instance, one comp will be at prepass 3 (61%) while the other is at 2 (72%). It doesn’t seem like I’m getting an additive results here. You’d think that they would both be working together on the same pass attempting to get to (100%) then rolling over to the next pass. Is this normal for this setting and why would I want to use it?
On the other hand, if I set ‘Advanced Irradiance Map Parameters’ to ‘bucket’, then the scene cranks through and the image gets stamped now by the two computers.
So is default Vray ‘single’ method just something that you don’t want to use when Distributed Rendering?
-juju
Jujubee
glad that helped.
About the prepass, that’s not distributed, but i read in other threads that it will be in 1.1.
So, in order to work with single frame, you have to make the imap calculation on a single machine and then set it to reuse the map, then you can use dr with all the machines reading from it.
But here’s the problem for me, i could make it work with bucket mode, but not with single frame and saved imaps. First the slave machine woudnt read the map, and now the client machine does not see the textures.
From what i read in other posts it should work if you use UNC paths for everything, so i dont know what im doing wrong, if you pull it out, please tell me how you setup the paths.
Marq- I actually have it working fine in Bucket Mode. DR cut one of my scenes down to a third of its original 40 minute render. This was over a two computer set-p- 1 athlon 2600xp and a dualprocessor P3 800. It was all in the paths- all the materials needed to be converted to UNC names which was a royal pain. According to someone else on the forum, you can somehow specify this by adding the network paths to your bitmap configs- you got me if this works. Overall, this torture test was well worth racking my head for 3 days.
As for your Imap tips- I have no clue what that does. I wonder if it really saves any time over bucketing. I’ll have to read up on it. I’ve only really been using Max seriously for about about a month and a half now so alot of this terminology is new to me…
juju
“It’s all an attempt to cover-up my really bad modeling skills…”