If you are working in Windows and want to run more than twenty Render Nodes simultaneously, all the folders need to be set up on a machine that is running Windows Server because any other version of Windows will only allow twenty (ten in versions older than Windows 7) simultaneous connections at any given time. Make sure you always check the “Send Dependencies” option. If you are in Linux or Mac this problem does not exist.
When rendering animations, make sure that you have plenty of free hard drive space. Each MXI file can easily be 100+ MB in size, especially if Multilight is enabled, and will quickly fill up a small drive.
MXS saved with local texture paths
Unless you use the “Send Dependencies” option when adding a network render job, both the MXS file and textures used in the MXS should be placed in a shared folder that all nodes have access to. An easy way to accomplish this is using the “Pack & Go” feature in Maxwell Studio which will copy your MXS and all the textures used in it to a folder of your choice. Otherwise you may get a texture paths error.
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- You can keep your textures in a shared folder and when building your scene, load the textures from this folder starting from Network in the File Browser so that the texture paths are in UNC format.
For example, your texture folder may be c:/mytextures, which is shared. Your computer name is “renderbox1” which is part of the Workgroup named “farm”. Browse from My Network Places> Microsoft Windows Network> farm> renderbox1> my textures. The path for the texture will then be \\renderbox1\mytextures\texture.jpg
You can also type directly in the File name input of the File Browser: \\renderbox
and your mytextures folder will appear in the list of shared folders. In this case it is not necessary to also move your textures to the same shared folder as the MXS. - Or you can keep your textures in a shared folder and when adding the job through the Add Job Wizard, you can specify this shared folder in the “Textures” dialog.
Using a mapped network drive
In case you are connecting to a folder as a mapped network drive, make sure you have added this folder as a mapped drive to all the servers, using the same drive letter.
Firewalls
If you are having problems detecting the nodes in your network, disable your firewall.
The "Golden Rule" on networking
In order to ensure everything will be sent and stored correctly, we suggest to keep in mind the "Golden rule" on networking: The source files (the scene project) must be fully accessible for the MONITOR (ideally it is better if the project folder were located in the Monitor computer), while the output folder (where you want the final renders to be stored) must be fully accessible for the MANAGER (ideally it is better if the output folder were located in the Manager computer).
In fact, the most robust configuration is having the Manager and Monitor being the same computer. The Network obviously can work perfectly under any other configuration, but working this way you skip the possibility of access and path issues.
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This is a tricky hack, and you’ve got to adjust the write and read permissions, and be root to be able to mount the shared folders, but it works and can sometimes be the easiest solution.