lol Ill prob get it for this but Ive NEVER used UNC paths for my DR. Although my total render farm for DR is maxed out at 4 boxes. On my main box Ive allways had my maps and scenes on a local physcial drive Ive made “Z:\” which makes it easy for me as I just share that drive to my other slaves and map the network drives on each machine to “Z:\” and Ive never had a problem with maps and what not. Im not saying it will work for you but for a small farm it works fine for me. I do agree though if you have a large network that its better to use the UNC paths.
I havnt tried using the gamma correction in max (I use photoshop) but I imagine that if the local machine is set up with gamma correction and set to affect the render and the slaves are not I imagine that the buckets would render differently from the main box.
I seriously dislike UNCs. See its purpose but man what a pain. It’s like a rollercoaster of actions. Have to go up and down trees to find the materials. (This is where I really wish Windows had a favorites list like Mac OS 9.2 has.)
That is a great and simple idea Syclone. I wish I had set up my previous scenes/drives such as this. I think I will convert it over to your setup to make life alot easier (I’d buy another drive specifically for this if I could afford it.) the only problem is that I have soo many other applications installed on the available drive as well as a Ghost Backup. Really don’t want to partition it either… Hot Diggity Damn!!!