DR slaves pc's cannot find texture files

[Three D]

Hi. I've setup DR on 10 pc's over our network and it is working fine - so long as I'm not using any textures!! None of the render slaves can find my textures even though I have them stored on the server in a shared folder and I'm using UNC to find them. When I browse to the textures on any of the render slaves pc's using the UNC file path it finds them no problem but 3ds max and vray DR cannot find them when it comes to render time. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

 

One other thing. I read that backburner needs to run at least once on all slaves before vray DR will run. I have not run backburner on any slaves yet the DR still seems to work - apart from the missing texture problem above. Would not running backburner on these slaves have contributed to them not being able to find the textures? Thanks again.

[dbibb]

Run a job through backburner and then report back.

 

From the installation pdf: "Also note that, in order for the spawner to work properly, you must run at least one regular network render job with backburner on the render slave."

[Three D]

thanks derik. that would be the right thing to do for starters. i'll let you know how i get on. thanks for your help.

[dbibb]

Hopefully that'll work, but if it doesn't there are a few other things to try. What sort of os are you running on the file server?

[Three D]

thanks derik. we're running windows server 2003. i think i may have got to the bottom of it and its a bit of a DOH!! i'll confirm if i'm homer simpson later.

 

i had a look at your tangra website and your work is excellent. i was wondering if you could share your workflow on how you created the rock gabions (that's what they are called in ireland) on the berry residence job. they look great. i was trying something similar using displacement mapping and never got the look i was happy with. getting close alright but it may just be the stone texture i'm using. you look to have used a similar method. thanks again.

[dbibb]

We're running server 2003 here too, and it's very solid. We seem to avoid a lot of the problems other people have, and we use mapped drives without problems all the time.

 

Thanks for your kind comments

 

The gabion material was created by my coworker, Shaun. It's a hi-res photo of gravel, with a custom painted displacement map. The metal cage is 3d geometry. We used the ivy generator plugin for the ivy. You can get good displacement maps using crazybump, and then you just have to touch it up a bit in photoshop.

[Dave Buchhofer]

Also check to be sure that the service is running with credentials that have access to the server where the texture is hiding.

 

i've had problems in the past running my VraySpawnerService as the LOCALMACHINE credentials.. editing the service so that it used the DOMAIN\Login then worked.

 

Also i've had issues in the past (and still do) using mapped drives for textures. So we have to map all of our textures to the UNC address \\ to have them visible. (something in the computer setup, because its a problem in backburner also).

 

A few things to check.

[Casey Hawley]

Also check to be sure that the service is running with credentials that have access to the server where the texture is hiding.

 

i've had problems in the past running my VraySpawnerService as the LOCALMACHINE credentials.. editing the service so that it used the DOMAIN\Login then worked.

 

Also i've had issues in the past (and still do) using mapped drives for textures. So we have to map all of our textures to the UNC address \\ to have them visible. (something in the computer setup, because its a problem in backburner also).

 

A few things to check.

 

I had the same problem, but Dave's suggestion worked perfectly. Thanks dude! +Rep!

[josegomez]

Could you explain how to do this? I tryied in Administrative tools but still the textures are missing. Don't know what doing bad. Using Win7 x64.

Thanks.

[Casey Hawley]

Go to Start Button --> right-click Computer --> Manage

 

Management window:

Go to Services --> scroll down & right-click VRaySpawner --> Properties --> Log On tab --> select This Account, fill in user name that has access credentials to texture server (if there is none, make a user on server with password..must be the same as workstation wanting to do DR), add correct password, confirm --> click OK. Stop then Start VRaySpawner.

 

You may need to run 1 net render successfully with Backburner first, before DR will work properly.