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Somebody has tested the network render already?
I dont know how to do it

I have done it successfully on a Win XP platform (at work). But on the Mac it does not seem to start a job.

It should be pretty straight forward, after everything is installed run mxcl-manager first on one of you machines, then run mxcl -server in all the ones that you want to render. You should see the terminal window that is running manager state "Start New Connection (IP of render serers)"

Then run mxcl -d in one of your machines and go to the network tab. Under options make sure that you have the ip of the machine running manager, then click connect. You should see all of your render clienst on the list at the bottom.

This is where it gets weird. On Win XP I can add a job and set command line parameters and as soon as I click OK the rendering starts on all of the machines. On the Mac however, I select the job file and set the parameters but when I click OK nothing shows on the jobs list and nothing happens, it just dissapears into thin air.

Can you try this procedure and see if it works?

Thanks,

I got it to work on the mac. kind of... well not really. read on

I start : mxcl Manager -p:low , then mxcl -d -p:low, then mxcl Server -p:low (in that sequence as I have learned in this forum)

I connect and everything works good.

Manager recognizes my 2 machines MAC :

1 G5 Ghz 2,5 dual (running: manager + -d + server)

1 PowerBook G4 1 Ghz (running: server)

I assign a job, and both my servers recieve the file mxi (or whatever?) to render.

it renders and displays "Render succesfull" after 2 minutes (-t:2) in server terminal on both machines.

then it says (only on 1 server) "Waiting for merged file" or somthing similar

but nothing.

mmmhhh

the cooperative.mxs get created on Both machines, but no merged.mxs

So doesn't work for me until now. don't quite get it, guess I'm doing something wrong?

this was with a scene with no textures.

as soon as I throw in textures it doesn't find them on the server which doesn't host the source files and textures. I can't imagine that the solution is to manualy copy a folder to all machines. with 2 servers=ok, but with more...

Maybe someone on the MAC side can make a small tutorial, step by step for us dummies on how to properly make COOP Render work on MAC

Thanks a bunch

Sunmade,

You can move the two cooperative.mxi files into the same folder (by renaming of course), and manually merge them by selecting cooperative form the file menu in mxcl.

To get the server which soes not host the textures to render you have to use the -b:path switch to tell the server where the bitmaps are.

There seem to be a lot of glitches with the cooperative rendering in both Win and Mac platforms. I am not sure that it is working yet, because when I do as I describe above, everything looks like it works, but I can't see much difference from a rendering done by one machine and one rendered by just one.

We'll keep our eyes open for a patch I guess.

Thanks very much dyarza!

The -b:path is what I was looking for.
Must have missed it in the manual.

Yes, I guess you are right.

We will have to see with next 1.x updates if coop rendering will improve.
Or everything is in place and NL or A / B Team members will make some tutorials to shed some light.

cheers
chris

dyarza:
how does the exact -p path look like?

have You an example of what writing there? (with all the slashs)

have You an example if the file is in a folder is on a comp with a specified IP?

this would be great!

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deadalvs

Sorry to take so long, I've been working more with the WinXP version just because it seems more predictable.

I can't remember right now how I set it up and I have my mind scrambled with WinXp and Mac paths so I'll have to play with it and post back. This should work, but I'll double check when I go home tonight.

The command line will ook something like:

-t:240 -th:0 -res:1000x800 -o:"/dev/folder/file.jpg" -mxi:"/dev/folder/file.mxi" -b:"/dev/textures_path"

I think right now on the Mac you can't have spaces on the path for some reason. Also, if you are doing cooperative render you do not need to use the -o switch but I find it useful to see the progress as it renders. Of course, that output file will not be merged, but ratehr the output from one of the servers.

Please correct me on the path syntax if I got it wrong, i am going from memory here. I'll verify when I get home.

great!

thanks anyway until here!

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deadalvs