CGTalk - Network rendering questions

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cheerfulskeptic

01-12-2006, 08:05 PM

Hello all,
I had a few network rendering questions. Currently my setup is my animation workstation and a render node.
They're connecting using a standard 100mps switch.
I can send render requests just fine using backburner, monitor, server, etc. but sometimes i get errors with texture paths.

My questions are:
1) both machines have identical plugins, the textures are stored on my workstation and not the renderer. Is this a good idea? if not, then how do i specify where they are stored? for each bitmap, do i have to specify the network path of the image?
2) if I have different 3dsmax configurations (ie, plugins INI files), how do i specify which INI file is loaded on the rendering machine

Hope I'm clear enough.. and thanks in advance!

Kenzor

01-12-2006, 10:35 PM

1)
Personally when it gets to the render stage I find that it's best to make sure that all images are set up as network paths. Fortunately if you look in the Utilities panel there is a tool called 'Bitmap/Photometric Paths' which makes it very easy to change all your texture paths on mass.

2)
It is possible to set Max to use different Plugin.ini files when used as normal versus as a render slave.

Just add -p <NewPluginFileName.ini> to the max.exe command line.

i.e right click on your max shortcut pick properties and change the target from

....\3dsmax.exe to .....\3dsmax.exe -p <NewPluginFileName.ini>

Check the max help under command-line options (starting 3ds max)

Unfortunately as far as i know you can only change the name of the normal max boot. The Render slave will still use Plugin.ini

N.B.

In theory you can also specify a network folder from which max will load plugins, although in the end this never seems to work for the plugins you really need, so you have to go and install them by hand on each machine....

whitehorse

01-13-2006, 02:41 AM

for the first question there is a tick box i use that say somthing like send map, or include texture maps, if you press that you do nto need to det up network paths for your textures.

cheerfulskeptic

01-13-2006, 07:58 AM

thanks a lot!
I'll give it a whirl

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