Network rendering with mental ray

[amer abidi]

Hey all,

 

I seem to be having a problem rendering This mental ray scene on my farm. The systems all have the same specs and render fine with all other files, and all other plugins, except for mental ray!

 

The error i get on backburner reads pmat.cpp #260

 

I've searched high and low for an explanation of such an error, butt to no avail. This is the first time i use mental ray, and i need to utilize my farm as its a big scene and the deadline is just around the corner.

 

Am i missing something?! need i install the satelllite service? Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Amer

[Justin Hunt]

what version are you using?

[amer abidi]

Using Max v9 Sp2. Dual xeon 3Gb workstation renders file fine, but the similar renderers do not! all give same error, even funnier, is that when i send the job through backburner and launch server on the same workstation, it renders fine throug backburner, but all other machines give the same error: pmat.cpp #260

 

I\m going to try and render another mental ray file through backburner to see if the problem is from mental ray, network, or the file itself.

 

But isn't there a reference somewhere where one could find out what these errors stand for and mean?!

[tmacbriar]

Amer

 

Have you tried checking the "Include Maps" box in the Network Job Assigment interface when using backburner. Unless all your project specific materials are loaded onto each render node hard-drive, the job will fail because the render node can not find all the materials... unless you check this box.

 

I have not seen that particular error message, but it could be worth a try.

[amer abidi]

I have all my maps stored in one directory on the main server..all the render nodes find their maps from that single directory. But i will double check again. thanks for your input... besides, shouldnt it give a 'missing map' error if that was the case?

 

I just installed max 2009 on all the machines.. and same problem..except this time it gives 'am unexpected error has occured in the network rendering'.

 

It's just so frustrating that after this day and age and level of technology it still gives a vague 'unexpected' error!

[amer abidi]

well, it wasn't the maps.. couldnt figure out what the reason was actually!

Problem solved itself when i started a new max scene and merged in all the objects into the new file. All i had to redo was the environment and render settings.

 

It is now rendering perfectly on all 32 machines!

Thanks for your help.