Workflow for some computers (not distribution)

[astudio]

Hi there. There was a lot of requests for a distribution render, but as for me it's less important theme. I need to manage 5-6 projects per day with some camera views everyone, so I always have job for other computers.
The option, which I'd really want is to manage render on other computers from my main workplace.

Something as a button "send render to computer No 3" as to standalone corona node. Without need to have 3d Max there. May be with coping to temp directory all needed bitmaps, ies, proxies and so on, which will be deleted after render. And main thing is to get back to my main computer a WFB of other computers with redrawing every 5, 10 or 20 paths. Is it possible theoretically?

It looks funny, but the main time which I loose in usual workflow is to move from computer to computer, from scene to scene. I sure it's not only my problem. :)

[Ludvik Koutny]

I think Backburner together with remote desktop and shared network drive does exactly this. You simply send the scene to render on any computer you select, and then connect to that computer via remote desktop to check the progress. And you store your assets such as textures and proxies on the network drive, and connect that network drive as same letter on all of your computers :)

[astudio]

After 10 years using bitmaps on network drive with vray, I understood that it much more faster to use local drive with synchronization program in background. Just because long transforming vertex process. You wait some minutes for transforming vertex, and after 10 sec stop render to change something. So never use network drive for bitmaps if you need a speed workflow. ;)

With remote desktop you don't need even backburner, but there is some problem to use it (may be psychologic, don't know. In fact nobody use it), but you need 3d Max anyway.

My point was not to have 3d Max on every computer. Here we really need to buy soft, and this is much more expensive then hardware. And if I need to have 3d Max only for Corona, in my mind  I need to add 3500$ to Corona price.

And if you send render to another computer, may be it's possible to get back WFB window (even popup WFB every 15-20 min if you forget to check it).

By the way it's hard to explain, why there is a problem to do three steps to another computer to check the render, but there is a fact. Usually, when I work, I see that render failed only after one-two hours. So may be in this case even fire siren will not be superfluous. Artists - they are such artists. :D

May be "You don't need to take off your ass from the armchair" will be the best advertising to Corona. ;)

[antanas]

 Well, I thought about that (or similar) method a while ago , even wanted to post it in feature requests but you were faster :) .The method itself would not be too bad to have as a feature for sure, but it itself can be quite cumbersome as it is for example it is in Maxwell render. I personally would prefer to have the ability to render only on network machines without the main one yet directly from max - and to be able to work using all my main pc resources for modeling etc. at the same time as render goes on network pc's and see the updating vfb placed on second monitor - well or something like that :)
 
for that :
"After 10 years using bitmaps on network drive with vray, I understood that it much more faster to use local drive with synchronization program in background. Just because long transforming vertex process. You wait some minutes for transforming vertex, and after 10 sec stop render to change something. So never use network drive for bitmaps if you need a speed workflow. ;) "

 I would not agree (or not fully agree to be more precise) , if your network speed is 1gb or above - there will be no totally intolerable delays even on quite texture/geometry heavy scenes , at least in my case there are no too frustrating ones. I would suggest using the method I use - no network drives at all or at least no network drives in a way as most people use them. The method is quite simple and the most easy for me to manage :

Main pc :

drive C: - windows and all other non networked apps photoshops etc.
drive D: - maps, models, 3ds max itself - it could even could be softlinked to a folder on a more speedy ssd drive C: - it is in my case at least
drive E: - projects and all stuff related to them from drawings and photos to project specific x-refs, proxies or some maps
   
Network pc's :

drive C: - windows, apps and 3dsmax
drive D: - none physical, but disk d: from main pc connected and mapped as a D:
drive E: - none physical, but disk e: from main pc connected and mapped as a E:

 Well may be that' the exact "network drive" usage method you are frustrated about but as I'm not, I decided to specify that I'm talking about. This is my default method for at least 10 years or so too :) and it had newer let me down especially after upgrading my network to 1gb/s a few years back. Of course your D drive should be fast or even be some kind of RAID configuration but even using some quite old 2tb wd black (my case) it works perfectly on scenes such as some city aerial/closeup still renders with something like 5gb in textures with and tons of x-refs and proxies . Your method is of course faster but in my case too cumbersome to manage , not to tell how many 2tb drives I would need :) There are one definite benefit in using your method (beside some speed improvements) - constant and many backups. :)
 
hope that helps in some way  :)

for that :
     
 "My point was not to have 3d Max on every computer. Here we really need to buy soft, and this is much more expensive then hardware. And if I need to have 3d Max only for Corona, in my mind  I need to add 3500$ to Corona price."

Hmm as far as I remember, vraySpawner can run even on unactivated 3ds max'es or even expired trials without any problems - in vray 1.5 that worked for sure , here http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Installation-Licensing/3ds-Max-amp-render-farm/td-p/2835195 people say that you can legally use 9,999 :) PC's as render nodes with a single 3ds max license only for the main one (that need thorough checking) and vray 2.0 too have at least 10 free rendernodes as written here http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vray.html , but I should probably say it had cause in v3 they changed their pricing policy most notably regarding render nodes , yet the greedier they get yet more people will lean towards Corona :) and I truly hope it will have some decent number of free render nodes (at least 5) when it will be sold and there will be no need to pirate it . :) 
 
 Hope that helps too :)


 

[elindell]

My point was not to have 3d Max on every computer. Here we really need to buy soft, and this is much more expensive then hardware. And if I need to have 3d Max only for Corona, in my mind  I need to add 3500$ to Corona price.

You don't need a full license of max to use backburner on your available computers, you can install a slave version and as long as you are sending from the machine with the license you should be good. It should be exactly what you need, you can have backburner server manager on your main and client servers on the others and send jobs to specific machines.

[Ludvik Koutny]

Exactly. You do not need 3ds Max licence for slave machines. You install 3ds Max like you normally do, but do not enter licence and instead install trial. You will not be able to launch 3ds Max (aside from trial period) but rendering via backburner will still work without any licence.

[Ondra]

as others said, you dont need 3dsmax licence for net render. You can use backburner/deadline to dispatch the jobs. And one other crucial problems: renders outside 3dsmax do not match those inside, because of the texmaps implemented in 3dsmax. These are the reasons I wont implement this usecase.

[astudio]

2 Keymaster. If render doesn't much it's enough not to do it.

2 Rawalanche and elindell. I'm not sure, but I think using max trial license for slave - it's not a way. What's happen if you need to change preferences, gamma, paths, or just to add plugin after trial period?

2 antanas. I have 1gB network and still have a big speed improvement. Today I synchronize projects, maps, xrefs hard drives are cheep. Just try to open project of 1 gB with hdr of 500 mB from network and local, and you'll feel it. Any time you push render button, you send your project to slaves by network. It's lot of time, which you just loose. I use Allway Sync program and happy with this. Check it.