Hi,
In reply to your questions.
1. Before sending to nodes, the working max file must be on a shared drive network which every node can access after that Scene file is sent to the temporary folder in DR nodes which is defined here:
https://bit.ly/3m0PZCBYou can also change its location if you like.
2. In Short "Parsing scene" basically means preparing scene to start rendering and this basically involves all the steps from opening the file, locating its textures, checking all proxies location, calculating any displacement present in the scene, etc.
3. Downloading asset means copying assets to the nodes.
So, if you see, there could be multiple factors why it takes a bit of time to start the rendering. Even if you have the world's best hardware but software and its factor also plays a huge role. Such as 3dsmax itself being single-threaded and will perform badly with the complex and heavy scene, other factors could be how many 3rd party plugins are used to create the scene. Also, if you have a million trees with high displacement on the scene will parse for a long time as it will try to calculate displacement on every single tree.
In short, there could be multiple factors that can cause slowdowns ranging from hardware to how scenes were created using the software.
If you have a scene in which you are facing any issue, you can always send it to us and we will try to troubleshoot why the slowdown is happening and we would be able to suggest the workaround/solution accordingly.
I hope this ans some of your questions.
Regards,
Avi