Questions about Vray Distributed Rendering

[danb4026]

I have a single desktop machine used for both modellinng and rendering. It really is a problem when I have a high res render going but still have work to do.

 

I had never used Vray DR before, so I decided to give it a try on my home network by adding my laptop to the mix. So I added my laptops IP address to the Vray License server so that it could be included to the render job.

 

The laptop is nothing special:

 

Vista 64 to match desktop

AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology ML 40

2 GB Ram

ATI Mobility RADEON Xpress 200 Series.

 

I thought that simply adding an additional processor to the mix thru distributed rendering would speed the render up a bit. NOT the case.

I found all test renders to take a tad bit longer than without DR on.

 

Why would this be the case? Is the addition of an additional but "lesser" processor a hinderance rather than a help?

 

Perhaps I am just doing the whole process wrong:

1) Lauch Vry Spawner on laptop

2) Open scenen on main computer and render with DR checked.

 

Seems simple enough. Any help?

 

1 more thing.....If you were to add 2,3,4,5 etc. inexpensive desktops to the mix to be used in DR, wouldnt that be the same thing as building your own render farm? Or is it not that simple?

Edited May 8, 2008 by danb4026
added info

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Watch the V-Ray message dialog. It will tell you if your computer successfully connects to the laptop, and it will tell you when information is being sent to the other computer. If the other computer is not responding, it will tell you that also.

 

You should monitor it visibly. The buckets have names on them that correspond to what computer they belong to. If your laptop successfully connects, you will see buckets that correspond to it. Don't worry if the buckets don't pop up right away, depending on the size of the scene, it may take awhile to transfer the information.

 

Which leads into two more things. If you see your bucket(s) for the laptop, and they never get past the first one, your laptop might be to weak to be of use. Also remember, the scene is being transfered to that computer, which is not instantaneous. It may take a few minutes depending on the file sizes.

 

If your scene is simple, it may take longer with distributed render because there is additional time for identifying computers, and transferring files. If your scene is complex, it may take longer because your desktop may be able to compute the entire scene, and render it out before you laptop can finish one bucket.

[danb4026]

Ok...looked at log and error messages like you said.

 

A few things pop up:

 

1) Could not connect to host "ip address": No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

2) Render Host MachV (machine name) is not responding.

3) Render Host Laptop is not responding.

 

Its still rendering though.

 

My firewalls are off...so thats not the problem.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

But only your host machine is doing the rendering, the laptop is not helping at all. The extra time you are experiencing is the time it is spending trying to connect to the laptop, and then not being able to.

[danb4026]

True, but I can not figure out why it isnt connecting to the laptop. I even went into network render and openend the manager on the host machine and the servers on both. They connected and registered fine. So they are communicating.

 

I don't know why I am getting that error messgage in Vray regarding not being able to access the laptop.

[RobNJ73]

Something similar came up at work last week (at least, it sounds similar), and what wound up working was making sure that the User accounts were set with administrator privledges.

 

Just a thought... whenever I come up against a stumper like this, it always seems to be something minor and only peripherally related to what I'm trying to do.

[danb4026]

They are both set up as Administrators. So thats not it.

[Eric Sosa]

hey Daniel,

 

my own experience is that: you need to have all pc's connected to render one single frame using the 100% CPU'S FOR EACH MACHINE, otherwise it not recomended to use the DR, as said before, it takes longer to render because it takes time to identify each machine and they use only about 23% of it's CPU.

 

here is the procedure:

 

1. start u'r own spawner and make shure it's running
   
2. make shure the other pc's have the spawner installed and running too.
   
3. open max and go to your script window (upper pink box at the bottom left of your max window) and type the script to make all pc's work with it's 100% CPU (don't have the script here unfortunatelly, but I'll give it to you tomorroy when at the office) and PRESS "ENTER" ONLY IN THE NUMBERS KEYBOARD SECTION.
   
4. go to your vray setup, find the system control, check the distributed rendering box, open it and check that all pc's IP are identified.
   
5. press "RENDER", go to your slaves machines joblist and make shure their CPU is running above 26%, eventually the will launch their CPU to 100%, mainly when the "rendering" action takes place.
   

If succeded, you can see the buckets with the pc's IP on at the rendering window.

 

hope someonelse has the script for you, before me

 

important; the pc with the highest configuration will take the biggest part of the buckets amount per frame (render)

 

not a good idea to use several slaves computers if some of them are less then 50% of the main computer, again, it will delay the render more then speeding it up because of trying to identify all pc's at the begginning and at the end of the procces.

 

don't remember what else atm....I don't have max open

 

we have 6 x quad cores working together all the time with DR, it's great when it works, but sometimes DR is a pain in the b_t

[danb4026]

Eric, thanks for all that information. I am not sure that I fully understand about how to get all the pc's to run at 100%, but I will give it a shot.

 

I will wait to get that script you are talking about.

 

Do you favor running "net render" using backburner instead? Vray DR seems much simpler to use.

[Eric Sosa]

humm, don't realy understand what you want DR to do for you.

DR = several computers connected on a local network to render one single frame.

 

if you do not get the 100% of the CPU of each machine, what is the point of having them to run together?, then, simply make each machine render one frame on it's own.

 

lets put it this way: one "dual core" pc can render a frame in 60.0 min on it's own, 2 x dual core pc's, working with DR, can render the same frame in 30.0 min, 10 x dual core pc's, working with DR, can render the frame in 6.00 min!!...this is the advantage of rendering with DR

 

DR gives you the chance to render one single frame FASTER by using several computers networking.

 

back to topic;

 

script: renderers.current.system_numThreads=4

 

this script is for quad cores machines, therefore the nr. 4 at the end. dual cores would use nr. 2 fo example. about your computers specifications.....dunno if you can us this script with a nr. 1 at the end or you simply need other specific script. more advanced members may help here

 

good luck daniel , you'll be very happy of you make it work this way.

 

greets Eric

Edited May 9, 2008 by Eric Sosa

[danb4026]

Thanks for the script!

 

My objective is do exactly what you are describing. My main machine is a quad core. My thought was to use the laptop's CPU as an addition during the render process. It is much slower than the quad core obviously.

 

I am serioulsy thinking about getting another machine with a quad core or equal just use for DR with my main machine.

 

I hate to go out and by an expensive computer just to aid in rendering, but I may have to.

Edited May 9, 2008 by danb4026
mispell

[danb4026]

I got my second machine built and now it is running Vista 64 aswell, has a Quadro FX 1700, and Quad Core processor with 8GB Ram.

 

Time to set it up to be a render slave.

 

Do I need to have a full licensed install of both Max and Vray to get this to work?

[Eric Sosa]

humm, not shure, I think that you can install only the vray spawner in your slaves machines, although you need to have max installed on the slaves.

 

advanced member can help you here

 

good luck mate...and let me know if you succeed on making the "tricky" DR to work properly

[danb4026]

let me know if you succeed on making the "tricky" DR to work properly

 

I will let you know how I progress.

[gfa2]

I got my second machine built and now it is running Vista 64 aswell, has a Quadro FX 1700, and Quad Core processor with 8GB Ram.

 

Time to set it up to be a render slave.

 

Do I need to have a full licensed install of both Max and Vray to get this to work?

 

I would have skipped the Quadro card for the renderslave. You could have just used on board video or a cheap 256mb geforce card.

 

But to answer your question about the license. You can DR 10 computers with one Vray license and for animations with max/backburner I think you can go to 10,000 computers. It's might be higher, who really cares

[danb4026]

I have followed all instruction to get managers and servers set up for backburner.

 

I am trying to get DR to work. On my Manager machine I have the 3ds Max file that I want to render up. On my slave machine I am trying to get VraySpawner to run. When I open VraySpawner it shows in the taskbar and then disappears, over and over again. It also is not called "vrayspawner90", it shows up as "untitled" max file. My understanding is that it should sit in the taskbar as vrayspawner90.max.

 

I went ahead and cleared out the Backburner/network folder and left just the "nres" file on both my manager and server machines to start fresh. I then reset up backburner by opening Manager and Server on my main machine. Seemed fine. I then open "Server" on my slave machine. Seemed fine. Everything seemed to connect fine.

 

I hit net render, to get a backburner operation done as per the literature. But after that, everytime I try to open Vrayspawner on the slave machine, it simply opens and closes over and over again.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[danb4026]

Eric, when I try to run that script you sent me I get a errore message ""Unknown property: "current" in undefined""

 

Also, if using 2 quad cores (total between the 2 machines) should the "n" equal 4 or 8?

[gfa2]

Daniel, are you running max or VIZ? Also do you have the vray license info set up correctly on your slave computer? I'm guessing that this is your problem. Try sending an actual backburner job to the slave machine...you know, using the netrender option in max/VIZ. Make sure DR is unchecked for this.

[danb4026]

Usung maz. All is set up ok..license and all. Used net render and , both

Machines show as available. Seems no faster than normal

so not sure how its working

[gfa2]

both Machines show as available.

 

Did you send an acutal job to them though. This is an important step. You need to have your slave computer complete a backburner job before you can DR something.

[Eric Sosa]

Daniel, when you start your spawner (on any machine), yes it bounds from the bar task to the screen and back. Indeed, the spawner HAS to remain shown at the bar task (bottom rigth corner of your screen), if it's not there permanently, then the spawner has not started...properly.

 

we have max and vray installed in all 6 machines and all have the spawner running when rendering with DR.

 

very important: after pressing "resolve renders", in the DR settings, you need to see the computers IP SHOWN, besides you need to MAKE SHURE the slaves CPU reaches at one point 100%!!! .if you did follow the procedure step by step, you should see the "buckets" with their pc ID when rendering.

 

I'm thinking...did you hit "enter" in the NUMBERS keyboard?...if you did hit it in the letters keyboard it won't work.

 

the text shown at the "vray messages" is not always precise, what I mean, it sometimes says that the "slaves" machines were not identified , but still the DR works and all machines uses the rigth CPU and make the render withouth any problem...bit untrustfull, therefore using DR is, unfortunatelly...tricky

 

can't think about anything else ....we run windows 32..dunno if vista needs other settings.

 

you have only 4 cores...USE ONLY "4" AT THE END OF THE SCRIPT, no matter how many machines are connected on the network.

 

regards....Eric

Edited May 16, 2008 by Eric Sosa

[danb4026]

well I submitted it to render and it rendered.

But nothing told me which machine was

doing what. I thought that the buckets

Would perhaps show which machine was

working.

[Eric Sosa]

well I submitted it to render and it rendered.

But nothing told me which machine was

doing what. I thought that the buckets

Would perhaps show which machine was

working.

u got to see the pc's ID in the buckets...or DR is not working properly

[danb4026]

When I render thru DR, it only shows my main/client machine's ID in the buckets. It never shows my render slave machines ID. I have VraySpawner on on the slave, although the max file's shows up as UNTITLED not VRAYSPAWNER90, as it's supposedly should. In setup under DR, it shows both computers IP addresses too and the resolve fine.

 

I have run a Net Render with backburner and it renders fine, but once again I cant tell which machine is doing what or if the slave machine is contributing at all.

 

Why is this so difficult to understand? I cannot DR to work right.

[danb4026]

I got it to work!!! Turns out the license server was not running....what a dope.

 

BUT still have a problem....areas in the render that are going to the slave are coming out dark. I do not have default lighting in the scene, so thats not it.

 

What could it be?