Jump to content

Distributed Rendering


Recommended Posts

Hi,

I have few question which maybe first one answers all others but i need anyway some advices from you for future setups.

Is apprentice version not allowing distributed rendering?

I tried to add "-H otherpeecee1,otherpeecee2" in mantra ROP but nothing happens. the only machine that renders is the one with opened scene itself.

Could you please give me guidelines for distributed rendering over a network of bunch of machines? which is better when you have couple of available machines (maybe -H is enought?) and which is better when you have a farm (maybe a render menager like many out there even free?)

Thanks a lot in advance for any of your answers.

I read/search a bit on the forum and found that path must be the same on every machine.. what i dont get is if I need to copy the "database" on every rendering machine.. or if i need to "mount or map" the network drive to my own machine so that the path is the same... I'm used to MentalRay distributed rendering since years.. but its first time I need/try with Mantra and didnt found a lot in the Help.

cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well we distribute rendering in a different way, rather than using multi-procs on one image we generate ifds and then use a single proc for each ifd. Therefore a multi-proc machine might be rendering two images at once rather than one twice as quick. This is basically because we had so many problems in the past when multi-proc rendering would break.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well we distribute rendering in a different way, rather than using multi-procs on one image we generate ifds and then use a single proc for each ifd. Therefore a multi-proc machine might be rendering two images at once rather than one twice as quick. This is basically because we had so many problems in the past when multi-proc rendering would break.

25459[/snapback]

nice.. and interesting... so i need to investigate on such ifd files.. how to generate 'em .. and correct if i'm wrong since its first time i'm "carying" about this .. are such ifd.. like .mi files for mentalray?

could be a render manager like "royal render" used then with such ifds and mantra via shell? (since royal render supports every command line render engine considering their "product detail") ..

then.. how to render such ifd ? :)

thanks sib.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well we distribute rendering in a different way, rather than using multi-procs on one image we generate ifds and then use a single proc for each ifd. Therefore a multi-proc machine might be rendering two images at once rather than one twice as quick. This is basically because we had so many problems in the past when multi-proc rendering would break.

25459[/snapback]

Are you using windows or linux? In other software (XSI) rendering is much more stable on linux.

I sort of count on rendering one image on multiple machines, it could speed up lighting setup and rendering for print.

Is it worth it or does it only produce problems?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I'm on windows, I'm sure Linux its more stable but we setup our pipeline a long time ago and now it's kinda set. For doing render tests etc yes we do often use multi procs. On windows you have to watch your path variables are all unc paths like //server/data/...... and there are issues with where otls are and image maps and stuff

Ifds are easy to generate just turn on generate script file on your output rop.

To render an individual ifd file with mantra you use this commandline

mantra < yourifd.ifd

try mantra -h for more options

For print res stuff we sometimes just chop the image up into chunks and render those bits seperately but that more of a memory management thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

are such ifd.. like .mi files for mentalray?

don't know about mental ray, but ifd's are the equivalent to ribs for renderman.. A complete description of your scene for that frame so that the renderer can interpret it and spit it back out into an image..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

don't know about mental ray, but ifd's are the equivalent to ribs for renderman.. A complete description of your scene for that frame so that the renderer can interpret it and spit it back out into an image..

25469[/snapback]

ok then... mostly .mi files for mental ray then.

thanks for all the answers... i'll start around next month about the real setting for everything ... licenses have to be bought yet ... so i cant make any tests yet ... but I'll keep you updated about Royal Render and Mantra...

cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i should probably back step my thought there and note that ribs/ifds don't have to be a complete description.. it could only contain your geometry for example.. it just all depends on how you generate them..

25472[/snapback]

again same as for .mi files then :) ... so you mean they could even conatin the textures data?... cause with .mi you can generate pretty big files but with textures included...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I sort of count on rendering one image on multiple machines, it could speed up lighting setup and rendering for print.

Is it worth it or does it only produce problems?

25466[/snapback]

Don't forget we have ipr rendering too which speed things up a ton when setting up shaders.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget we have ipr rendering too which speed things up a ton when setting up shaders.

25480[/snapback]

here i must admit.. i pretty always turn it off... OR.. i'm "using" it badly.. cause when doing VOP shaders.. it wont update correctly most of the time and I have to "clear IPR cache" often.. so where am I doing wrong there? (using IPR viewer in my VOP "desktop".

cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree.. but certain times i need to tricks back the VOP network (I'm experiencing this right now that i'm working on the Fire tests) and its nice to have previews from mantra.. since VOP viewer doenst really gives me the correct feedbacks since my geometry is way different from a sphere or a torus :)

cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For distributing I use this simple technics yet:

>hscript -q YOUR_HIP.hip frange.cmd

where frange.cmd is:

opparm -d /out/YOUR_RENDER f

quit

this command returns frame range for selected output for selected hip. Next step is dividing this range by number of render hosts and making the following scripts:

renderA.cmd

opparm /out/YOUR_RENDER f (fromA toA 1)

render -V /out/YOUR_RENDER

quit

where fromA and toA are subsequent range for host A

and finaly:

>rexec -host A hscript YOUR_HIP.hip renderA.cmd

Mario offer automatization of this process by using SunGridEngine and his own scripts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...