Rendering with several computers

# 1 04-09-2003 , 08:51 AM

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Join Date: Jul 2003

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Hey guys

I have 5 computers at home, connected through a router.
I was thinking why not use them all to render with Maya ?
user added image

I do have a few questions about it though:

1. General question: does RAM have anything to do with rendering or is it all on the CPU? if yes, what is the minimum RAM recommended to be on each computer? I currently have 256Mb minimum and up to 1Gb maximum on my computers.

2. Do I have to install full Maya on each computer? I have heard that there is an external program that is required to activate network rendering.. is that true?

3. Where do I tell Maya that I am rendering with a network of computers? does it detect it automaticaly?

4. My computers are installed with Win98 SE, Win 2000 and Win XP Pro, does that pose a problem, having a few operating systems?

5. CPUs range from P3 800Mhz to P4 2.8Ghz/800. any problem with having different CPUs?

I appriciate your help on this one, thanks! :p

-Gurt

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# 2 04-09-2003 , 02:58 PM

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1. RAM does have alot to do with rendering, if the computer has to swap to disk while rendering your rendertimes will skyrocket. The more the merrier, depending on your scenes.
2. I don't know, looking forward to an answer too.
3. There is no built in network render command that I know of in Maya. I think there might be third party programs though. Mental Ray for maya is supposedly network render friendly, but I don't know much of that.
4. If maya runs, all is well.
5. Shouldn't be a problem.

Björn 'santa' Fredriksson

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# 3 04-09-2003 , 06:01 PM

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If it is maya 4.5 or above windows 98 will not recoginze it as a valid program- you need 2000 or later

Grinning Idiot Films

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# 4 18-11-2003 , 02:08 AM

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So has anybody had luck getting network rendering to work yet?

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# 5 18-11-2003 , 07:10 AM

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Well, I haven't been able to do it myself user added image

-Gurt

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# 6 18-11-2003 , 01:26 PM

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2) Yes youre gonna have to install Maya on each machine but there is a legal problem right there if you only have one copy... you can't install the same copy on all the machines as you're gonna need a separate licence for each one

4) As far as I know, maya ONLY works on NT machines .. i.e. windows 2000 or XP...

-Emo

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# 7 18-11-2003 , 03:09 PM

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MayaBatch.EXE and Spider are all...

My (limited) understanding is that you only need to install mayabatch.exe on each of your rendering nodes. You'll then need a network render manager such as Spider to manage the breakup of your rendering job across your 5 nodes.

You can find spider at:

https://www.stationx.com/index.htm

In this configuration you cannot render directly to AVI or other compressed movie formats as each machine will be working on a frame-by-frame basis. Each node will produce its frames as single images (you'll be able to specify the image type). Once the render is complete, you'll then have to use a tool such as VideoMach to create a movie file from your images.

My disclaimer: I have only researched this as I plan on implementing this system myself at some point in the near future. Therefore, I'd be VERY interested in hearing about your experience.

That'll do donkey... that'll do...

Last edited by rich; 18-11-2003 at 03:12 PM.

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# 8 18-11-2003 , 03:20 PM

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Processor speed wont prevent you from doing this as each node acts independently rendering its frames one at a time.

I dont know a great deal about Spider yet, but reading the limited docs it looks as though you can select the machine priority for receiving frames, therefore you should be able to give your most powerful machine the highest priority so that it will receive more of the frames. This should prevent your total render time being dragged out by your slower machines.

Both MayaBatch and Spider require an NT/2000 operating system so WinXP should be fine. Windows 98/95 machines will have to be upgraded to an NT based o/s.

Spider can also split frames up and distribute them around the network for rendering. This means you should be able to render one frame across your entire "farm" - speedy!

That'll do donkey... that'll do...

Last edited by rich; 18-11-2003 at 03:22 PM.

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