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moviemaker
07-09-2008, 12:19 PM
Hi there,

(At first, sorry for my bad english. I hope you understand me ;)

I've got the following problem:
I set up three workstations for networkrendering. I saved my Mayafile in a shared folder in our companynetwork and startet the commandline renderer on these workstations. On every renderclient i used the "-rep 0" flag, so that no renderclient replaces a rendered image.

My renderstring is:
render.exe -rep 0 -s 1 -e 1 -r file \\FILESERVER\NetProjects\szene.ma

AND: It works great ;)

The problem is, that when i want to render Mayafiles including mentalray based layers (like occlusion or so), rendering does not work anymore, because the mentalray render does not know this flag (-rep "0"). It only works when i delete the flag.

Do you have a solution for this? I really would like to continue this kind of rendering. Or do you know a simple and free network-renderclient? (I don't like these big packages like Royal Render, etc...)

Thanks guys!
newuser2008
07-09-2008, 02:13 PM
One idea would to use a command line tool called pstools to exectute a remote command on each one of your render machines via a batch file and set start end frame for each machine.

like

[insert pstool command here + specify machine] render -r mr -s 1 -e 2 \\server\file.mb
[insert pstool command here + specify machine] render -r mr -s 3 -e 4 \\server\file.mb
[insert pstool command here + specify machine] render -r mr -s 5 -e 6 \\server\file.mb

(cant remember proper pstools command out of memory buts its a very simple tool so should be easy to look up)

If you build a simple python interface for that one with wxpython or similar you have essentially built yourself a renderfarm software :)
moviemaker
07-09-2008, 10:58 PM
Thank you for your answer but that's not automaticly enough for me. I also know the PsTools but I don't use it because the renderclients are very close to each other ;) But thank you for that advise.

No ideas left (without using 3rd party tools)?

Greetings, moviemaker.
ghostlake114
07-10-2008, 03:00 AM
Simply specify the render engine for each case with layer name. That solve the parameter thing.
moviemaker
07-10-2008, 12:52 PM
Simply specify the render engine for each case with layer name. That solve the parameter thing.

Mmmhh, no. When I do that, the render returns "Invalid flag: -rep". Because MR don't know this command. Or did I understand you wrong?
render.exe -s 1 -e 1000 -rl pass_occlusion -r mr -rep 0 \\FILESERVER\NetProjects\szene.mb

I think there isn't a solution the way i want to do it. Only MR Satellite, but it's too expensive (real nonsense). Currently I try to do it with frantics deadline. It's free for two render clients and much cheaper than MR Satellite.

But when you know how to tell MR to check if a file exists or not, please tell me ;)

Greetings, Richey.
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