Single Frame Net Rendering

[grafix]

Hi Pretorian,

what you are asking for is an inbuilt feature of mental ray. However, you need to have the standalone verison of MR installed at least on your render nodes. Better is to render native .mi files with the standalone renderer both on the host and slave machines. Neither the maya renderer nor the hardware renderer can do that. You could only render regions and stich them together by hand or by using a script. Another (but expensive) solution would be to use Pixars Renderman with the Alfred server.

You may read the sections about

Paralleism (http://localhost:4446/Maya6.0/en_US/RefGuide/node6.html#SECTION4) in the mental ray user guide and

Parallel network rendering (http://localhost:4446/Maya6.0/en_US/Rendering/parallelnetworkrendering.html) in the Maya docs

(links should work if you have the Maya doc server installed and running)

- Grafix

[alexx]

rendering like that is quite easy.
but it depends whether you use a distributed renderer like muster or not.

if not: you have to set up the render on each machine seperately usng the command line and then specify sube regions that it has to render. later you have to combine those images in photoshop to the final sized image. i think there even have been some shareware tools that can combine the images.
if you have a hand on shake you can easily write some expressions that do it automatically.
if you do any of that be sure to render some overlapping (3-5 pixels), because otherwise you will get glitches in anti aliasing.

if you do that more often go for something like muster. that distributed renderer allows single frame splitting and it even combines the slices for you after they are rendered.. that is a quite fast way to render single images with maya software renderer.

cheers

alexx

[Pretorian]

Thanks on both answers!

Grafix: I already read Maya docs, but that's, like you said, a "hand made" work. I was looking for something automatic. Something like you send it to render and the manager does all that job! Like a net render, Muster, Smedge, etc... Even going to send the scene in each machine, after the render, I have to "build" the image back in Photoshop, for example. I'm very curious to see how a script will make this automatic. But I still prefer something that does all the process, from the beginning to the end. But thanks for your help anyway!

Alexx: I know about Muster, but could never make it work. It say that has finished the job but when I check the image directory no files are there. This is one case, the other is to render only one frame. I saw that it can render with "Maya Software", but, how can I render the same way using "Maya Hardware" and Mental Ray? For now, Mental Ray Standalone version is a little expensive for me, so I was wondering if I can use Maya's Mental Ray. If I have understood, Muster can slice the image and send to the render nodes, ok, seems that's for "Maya Software". But, how can I make the same with "Maya Hardware" and Mental Ray (without using standalone version)? Else that, wich will be the "hand way"? You said about using "some shareware tools that can combine the images", wich will be these tools? About the Shake script you said, wich one will be and where can I find it? Or, does exist any MEL script or any plugin for Maya that can make that? Better then that, a script or plugin for Maya that can make all that job (slice it, send to render nodes, render, take them back, combine the images and build them again)?





Again, thanks for all help of both of you! :thumbsup:

[KimSe]

Hi, Pretorian!


If you render the sequence, distributed rendering will be slower than rendering one frame on each machine.
On Unix systems (IRIX) you can use Dispatcher to render single frame over the network with Maya Software

[Pretorian]

Thanks!

What I was looking for is to net render one frame only. I mean, to slice the image into the number of nodes to render. Example, 10 render nodes, then, the render slice the image into 10 pieces, send each one to each render node, they render, send it back and the render server build the image again. Is there a manager software that can do that automatic, without "roue hand", with Mental Ray and "Maya Hardware" renderers?

By the way, I'm using Windows XP and 2000. :)



Thanks!!

[Osaires]

Here are a few tips on how to setup the mentalray network rendering http://www.lamrug.org/servertips.html

But as sayd befor you need a mentalray standalone version for every render node

[Pretorian]

Thanks on that link!! I saw it and it makes things clear in Mental Ray Standalone network rendering. :)

But, I was thinking on this: if you have 5 machines running Maya for example, how would you render just one frame slicing it in 5 pieces and sending each piece from 5, 1/5, to each render node running Maya? I would like to make that without Mental Ray Standalone version, just Mental Ray that comes with Maya. This is possible using the command line, as I saw. But you have to make this by hand, going in each machine and typing the command line in each one. So, I was looking for something more automatic. Example, in one machine, you send the job to render, just that, and the "program" (don't know if it exists, I was wondering in one) takes the scene, slice it in 5 pieces as the example here, and send 1/5 to each one, they render the piece and send them back to the server and the "program" build the image into the full image. So, you have rendered one single frame in 5 diferent machines. That's what I'm looking for, a program that can makes that with "Maya Software", "Maya Hardware" and Mental Ray for Maya (the one that came with Maya). I know that Muster can do that, but only with "Maya Software". Is there anyone that can make with the other renders?



Thanks for all help till now!!! :thumbsup:

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