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    How to use the mental ray Distributed Bucket Render (DBR) or V-Ray Distributed
    Render (DR) feature with Qube!

    Please read this file carefully, if you would like to take advantage of mental
    ray DBR and V-Ray DR with Qube!

    [Prerequisites]

    • All worker machines need to have the following installed and working
      properly:

      • Qube core 5.1 or above
      • Qube Worker 5.1 or above
      • Qube 3dsmax Jobtype 5.2 or above
      • 3dsmax 8.0 or above
    • First and foremost, mental ray DBR or V-Ray DR for 3dsmax must be setup, and
      tested to be working properly, outside of Qube! Please consult your 3dsmax
      documentation for details on setting it up.

    • Because of the way mental ray DBR is implemented on 3dsmax, the jobtype
      needs to be able to write to the "max.rayhosts" file found in the
      "mentalray" subfolder, in the system's 3dsmax installation folder (by
      default, "C:/Program Files/Autodesk/3ds max 9/mentalray"). Accordingly,
      you'll need to make sure that all execution users on all workers have
      write-access to the file and containing folder.

    • Similarly for V-Ray DR, the jobtype needs to be able to write to the
      "vray_dr.cfg" file found in the system's 3dsmax installation "plugcfg"
      folder, which is something like:
      "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2011 - 64bin\enu]\plugcfg"
      Accordingly, you'll need to make sure that all execution users on all
      workers have write-access to the file and containing folder.

    [Usage]

    • Open or create a scene.

    • Make sure your scene is properly set up to use mental ray or V-Ray as the
      renderer.

      "Rendering" menu -> "Render" -> "Common" tab -> "Assign Renderer" rollout

    • Make sure to turn on "Use Placeholder Objects" in the "Translator
      Options" rollout of the "Processing" tab.

    • Make sure to leave "Bucket Order" set to "Hilbert" in the "Options"
      section of the "Sampling Quality" rollout of the "Renderer" tab.

    • The following caveats inherent to DBRs also apply to DBR on Qube!

    Icon

    Contour shading does not work with distributed bucket rendering. 

    Icon

     You cannot use distributed bucket rendering when you render to texture.

     

    Also consult the 3dsmax reference's, "Distributed Bucket Rendering
    Rollout (mental ray Renderer)" section for details.

    • Save the scene if changes were made.

    • Open the Qube! Submission dialog: "Qube!" Menu -> "Submit Render..."

    • In the "Parameters" section, select "mentalray" or "vray" in the "Enable
      DBR" pull-down.

    • In the "Qube Job Basics" section, specify the desired number of Subjob
      Processes.

    • Set up other parameters as necessary.

    • Submit the render, by clicking the "Submit" button.

    [Side-Effects]

    The jobtype will re-write the [max.rayhosts] file in the following
    location on the master node (i.e., where subjob 0 runs):

    Windows:
    $3DSMAX_INSTALLDIR/mentalray/

    where $3DSMAX_INSTALLDIR is typically "C:/Program Files/Autodesk/3ds max 9"

    The jobtype will try to back up the original rayhosts file, if it
    exists, before the execution of the job, and then restore it
    afterwards, but if the job dies in the middle, the restore may not
    work properly.

    [Known Issues and Limitations]

    • Workers will wait idle until the specified number of CPUs are
      collected for the job. For example, if a job specified 8 CPUs, the
      job will not start processing until all 8 CPUs are available--
      sometimes the first 7 CPUs can wait for a long time before the 8th
      one becomes available.

    • If renderers other than mental ray or V-Ray are designated, the job will
      render the only using the master node-- other reserved nodes will sit idle
      until the job is finished or killed.

    • Due to the inherent dependency on "max.rayhosts" file of mental ray
      satellite renders, attempts to run more than one satellite job
      concurrently on the same machine as a master node may cause serious
      instability in the system, and thus is unsupported.

    • All limitations of the 3dsmax jobtype apply to satellite rendering
      on Qube. For example, the scenefile must be located on a shared
      file-server path where all workers may uniformly access.

    • All limitations of mental ray and mental ray DBR for 3dsmax, V-Ray and V-Ray
      DR for 3dsmax, inherently apply. For example, if a slave node becomes
      inaccessible during a render, the entire job may crash, due to the nature of
      the rendering software.

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