DR Rendering

[Jason Matthews]

Hello all. I am doing an animation here at my office. We have set up 5 machines to render out several animations. I have done a few of them on two separate machines, but now that I have a minifarm I would like to use it.

 

Right now all computers talk to each other. I have a host computer that has all files, licences, and maps on it. I have been running the two separate machines on two separate licencses and rendering the IR map as single frame. I have run backburner on all machines and all is good.

 

Is there a way to do the IR map with out saving it and have the slaves render it? I guess I am really asking if I need to save out the IR map first and then tell the computers to render from file.

 

Also, I get the following message "Server 192.168.1.60: Starting Frame 1002" and then a minute later I get the following "Warning: Render host desktop-60 (192.168.60) is not responding". And the other computers do not render, only the host computer does. Any advice?

 

Thanks,

[Jason Matthews]

Now my main issue is that my render slaves cannot read the maps and therefore do not render. All texture maps, max files, proxies, etc have been reassociated with the file by using the assett tracker. I have gone through and changed all files to path through my network places onto my harddrive, not through a username or account. Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

[luthias42]

are your maps saved on something like a Z drive instead of the C drive? If its on the C drive each computer is going to look on its own c drive for those maps. the only way around that is if you copy the maps on to the all the computers doing the rendering, making sure they are in the same location on each.

[Jason Matthews]

are your maps saved on something like a Z drive instead of the C drive? If its on the C drive each computer is going to look on its own c drive for those maps. the only way around that is if you copy the maps on to the all the computers doing the rendering, making sure they are in the same location on each.

 

I have one computer that hosts all the maps. The path is "\\Desktop-58\ProjectName\Textures".

All the maps have been saved that way instead of "C:".

[Jason Matthews]

I have gotten everything to work properly. I ended up using backburner for the animation instead of DR. I was having trouble with the textures which prompted me to use BB.

[aristocratic3d]

Is back burner is the final solution for network rendering?

Just wondering whats your thought?

[Jason Matthews]

Is back burner is the final solution for network rendering?

Just wondering whats your thought?

 

I believe so. It appears more stable and start up is much easier. Once you establish the first job the rest is easy. Just start BB manager on the main computer and start BB server on the render nodes. I will add though, with windows 7 homegroup you have to run the network as IPv6. BB 2008.1 only supports IPv4. you need to download 2008.2 to use on IPv6 homegroup. Second, I would advise not using homegroup. It is way too picky and does not like other windows platforms.

[avvid]

I have very few problems with DR. When the nodes don't respond like that, I find it's usually because of some file (texture, IES file, etc.) they can't access, as you've probably worked-out.

 

Are you sure the accounts you're using to log-in to the nodes have the proper permissions on your textures share? I'd recommend going to one of the nodes, clicking on "Start" > "Run...", then typing the exact path to the texture, as you see it in Asset Tracking on the host, then clicking "OK". If it doesn't open, then you know there's a problem with the path, which could be related to permissions. If it opens okay, then your problems aren't to do with access to the files.

[aristocratic3d]

Good point

I have very few problems with DR. When the nodes don't respond like that, I find it's usually because of some file (texture, IES file, etc.) they can't access, as you've probably worked-out.

 

Are you sure the accounts you're using to log-in to the nodes have the proper permissions on your textures share? I'd recommend going to one of the nodes, clicking on "Start" > "Run...", then typing the exact path to the texture, as you see it in Asset Tracking on the host, then clicking "OK". If it doesn't open, then you know there's a problem with the path, which could be related to permissions. If it opens okay, then your problems aren't to do with access to the files.