Maps/Materials on Network drive

[Geoffc]

I was considering buying a network drive (300 gig external w/ ethernet) for my home office to store my projects and some personal files on, so I can access them from my other computer and laptop.

 

I'm getting a copy of Max 8 soon. Is it feasible or possible to move my map and material libraries onto this server completely, so that I can work/render jobs on any computer, without constantly having to copy the updated map/material folders around?

 

Would there be any performance decrease? I thought I read that max loads all of its materials into ram upon render start, so doing this from a network drive wouldn't matter I would guess.

[Brian Smith]

Geoff,

You're partially right. When Max starts, it loads into memory only those materials that are applied to objects, not those just sitting in a material sample slot and not applied to any object.

 

As far as putting materials on a separate external drive, no problem. Having a single computer with all the materials on it is the only way to go as far as I'm concerned and I don't know why anyone would do it any other way. If the issue is whether it should be ethernet or not, ie wireless, I don't know. I guess it just depends on the transfer rate you have with it. Nothing wrong with it but I think there would have to be some loss in speed. I think the bigger issue (if it's wireless you want to go), is the errors you might get when network rendering and losing connectivity to your server, whether the materials are preloaded or not. Lossing path connections can cause errors to occur and Max to crash.

[Geoffc]

It would be wired ethernet, I'd never trust wireless.

 

What originally sparked this thought, was that DR in vray requires all of the textures to be on all the participating computers.

 

I just ordered a new Boxx workstation to replace my just crashed p4. So I'm working on our new core duo Vaio for now, which is actually pretty quick, and it'd be nice to be able to use it for network rendering (DR) once I get the new Boxx in.

 

OTOH, and perhaps I'm taking this too far, but on a 2nd pc, like this laptop, couldn't I just direct it to use the maps/mtl's on my main workstation through a shared folder on that workstation? I'll try this as soon as I get it in. I'm an Acad guy and used to redirecting system paths to shared network folders.

[Parker1]

What originally sparked this thought, was that DR in vray requires all of the textures to be on all the participating computers.

 

Who told you this? It is NOT true. We have a 100+ GIG network based asset folder (containing everything from textures, MatLIbs, IES light, HDRI, etc) and we use DR all the time with no problems. You just have to make sure that you configure your network paths in MAX using the complete DNS addresses. As for HDRI and VRay Proxies, you must hard code the DNS entry into the dialog box where you first select them. When you go to ASSET MANAGER in MAX you should see all of the resources for the scene and they should all be listed as full DNS entries. Do this and DR works great and you can keep all of your assets in one place on your network.

 

[Geoffc]

Awesome, thanks Brian.

 

I will have to go over this slowly and carefully and follow what you've said, because I really want to get DR working smoothly, and an efficient workflow in max with the materials.