For multi-platform compatibility reasons, all the network paths in Maxwell Render are in UNC format by default. Mac OSX cannot handle UNC paths natively and so some transformations are needed. These transformations cannot always be done automatically, so keep the following tips in mind to make network rendering much easier when using Mac OSX.
Checking Using the “send dependencies” option will be “Dependencies Path” option with a UNC network path is usually faster and more reliable in most cases. In a multi-platform environment, it’s preferable to use Mac OSX machines only as render nodes. When launching the render from a Mac OSX machine (and if the Manager is not in the same machine as the Monitor), the output path must be understandable and accessible from the Manager machine. If the Manager is running on a Mac OSX machine, selecting a local path will save the file in the same local path (if it exists) as where the Manager is running. Using the "Retry" button of the local path warning dialog will convert this local path to a network path. This means the files will be saved in the referring path, but the selected local path must still be located in your user folder (or in any of its subfolders) or in any secondary drive. If the Manager is running on a Windows machine, you must specify a network UNC path to the MXS file, or a Windows shared folder must be selected in the dialog, which all nodes must have direct access to. If you are saving the MXI/Image output on the same computer that the Manager is running on, you can specify the MXI/Image output paths as local paths. Otherwise, if the output is ment to be saved to a different networked computer, use UNC paths for the output paths. The Manager must have access to this networked path/folder in order to save the final output. If it doesn't, the Manager log window will output a warning that it couldn't save the files to that location, and you can instead find the output in a local path specified in the Manager log window. When "Send Dependencies" is not selected, you must should specify a UNC path in the “Dependencies Path” box that points to the folder where the scene dependencies (textures, IOR, HDR, IES etc. files) are located, which all nodes must have access to. A second option would be that when you create your scenes and load textures for materials, specify HDR maps for environment lighting etc. that you load these files from a networked folder using UNC paths. So, all the dependencies paths for all scene assets would already have UNC paths, in which case you don't have to specify a networked folder for these assets in the Add job wizard.
TIP: To quickly gather all the scenes dependencies into one folder, you can use the Pack & Go feature found in Maxwell Studio, and also many of the plugins. In case of Studio, simply open the MXS file, go to File>Pack & Go, and choose a folder where all the files will be copied, including the MXS file. It works in the exact same way in the plugins, please read the plugins documentation to see where this feature is located. |