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Hi. Me again. Well, now I have something new that's not working. I am trying to cooprender a mxs. I start mxcl, mxcl-server and mxcl-manager on my macpro 8 core. I then start mxcl and mxcl-server on one of mx macpro 4 cores. So far so good. I am able to connect them and see the computers in the render farm window.

NOW. As soon as I add a job to the manager and hit ok, the servers on both machines crash simultaniously along with the system message that mxcl-server just crahed.



WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG HERE? Am I doing something totally wrong here?

I turened the firewalls on both computers off and enabled personal file sharing and the network connection works fine also...

Any ideas from you guys?

Thanks

Q! Berlin

There are two things you must also do:

Select files and folders clicking the folder icon in the mxcl where you launch the render. It automatically modifies the path to be network friendly. Select also the texture path where it should look for them.

Get sure all the files needed for rendering are in the primary hard disk of the machine/s they are located.

nachob

Also be sure you can access the other machines with appleshare. With the 10.4.8 and 10.4.9 OSX version apple broke AppleShare in some intel machines.

That means, try to connect them from Finder in the "Go" menu -> "Connect to Server..." and type "afp://<your-remote-machine-name>" or "afp://<your-remote-machine-ip>". If it connects then it should work, if it fails and Console.app reports afp_mount crashed then your system was broken in any of the system updates. Contact me and I'll send you a system library that does not have this problem.

nachob

Thanks nachob

I turned on "Apple Talk" on both machines and now it started rendering.
GREAT THANKS SOO MUCH......

BUT!

Do I have to give the render outputfile on all macs the same name?

For example: on the macpro 8 core I name it default.png

And on the macpro 4 core also default.png in order to let mxcl know which file to merge later on.

Or do I have to name them like default.png, default_1.png (an so forth on the other macs I am using?)

How does the mxcl manager know which files to merge?

Q! Berlin

WELL. I guess I just have to name the file once. In the mxcl-manager. Right? Am doing a test right now and both macs started rendering without naming the file on the server .

Correct?

Hello,

I personally recommend to put the output file in a remote path, not in local, so you directly have the final image and you don't have to open the final mxi and get the image from there.

So, the merging is done automatically with mxi files MXCL write and you don't have to care about. But, just for the record they are written in local installation folders under a common name (merge, cooperative or similar).

But I strongly recommend to specify an output MXI in a remote path.
This way you have all the advantages of having an mxi instead of a png. Besides, this won't take longer as it is going to be made anyway (for the automatic merging), but with the advantage of keeping the final MXI.

carstenquilitz wrote:WELL. I guess I just have to name the file once. In the mxcl-manager. Right? Am doing a test right now and both macs started rendering without naming the file on the server .

Correct?

I don't follow you. You have to specify the name file in the display MXCL where you are adding the job (it can be manager or server).

If you don't specify output files and names, you either get an error at writing or get the file under a default.png generic name.
Besides, not specifying output files (png or mxi) in remote paths is useless, it will take you longer to search for the final merge.mxi than it worths.

I am about to start diving into this Coop render stuff and while I can get a netwok going on OSX, I am not 100% saavy on alot of this stuff. I have an 8 Core Mactel and a G5 Quad. The quad doesn't even have a monitor at the moments, so I dont want to be bothered with having to deal with it if possible, I just want to have it running and be able to use its CPU cycles. I am certain I may be postng further inquires, but with the info I have I have a couple questions at the moennt:

Can I leave my library on the Mactel and can I maintain all the file outputs (from both machnes) to this machine to minimize the need to disconnect adn reconnect monitors?

If my network is wireless, does this cause significant slowdown for coop rendering? Am I better off just setting up ethernet connection? Will it be noticeble to use either 100base t or Gigabit over wireless? I guess I assumed that the trnasfer of data between machines might be limited to the start and finish of the render, so maybe wireless is not an issue.

More questions to come later, i am sure.

I'm totally lost here. This is what I do:

• Start manager and server on my machine
• Start server on other machine
• Open mxcl and connect – everything connects OK.
• Add job, specify folder and file locations.
• Chek "cooperative"
• Click Ok

I get crash of manager and servers. No firewall. Computers connect ok.

Both machines are 8 core Intel Mac's with 4 gb ram. Please help.

Claus

NachoB indicates that appleshare must be on on both machines. Double check that.

claus:
Do you have Apple talk turned on on all your macs? That's what chrashed my servers also after I hit the render button in manager.

daniel: seems like we have almost the same setup. I got it to work finally( 1 macpro 8 core, 2 macpros 4 core and 1 G5 Dual core), so if you need help let me know.


Q! Berlin

Daniel Hruby wrote:I am about to start diving into this Coop render stuff and while I can get a netwok going on OSX, I am not 100% saavy on alot of this stuff. I have an 8 Core Mactel and a G5 Quad. The quad doesn't even have a monitor at the moments, so I dont want to be bothered with having to deal with it if possible, I just want to have it running and be able to use its CPU cycles. I am certain I may be postng further inquires, but with the info I have I have a couple questions at the moennt:

Can I leave my library on the Mactel and can I maintain all the file outputs (from both machnes) to this machine to minimize the need to disconnect adn reconnect monitors?

If my network is wireless, does this cause significant slowdown for coop rendering? Am I better off just setting up ethernet connection? Will it be noticeble to use either 100base t or Gigabit over wireless? I guess I assumed that the trnasfer of data between machines might be limited to the start and finish of the render, so maybe wireless is not an issue.

More questions to come later, i am sure.

hi daniel

first, just a tip for managing remote macs (over LAN or over internet), bacuse you can use VNC for controlling/ monitoring the screenless mac! i'm doing this successfully here with those 2 open source utilities:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/ (client) and
http://sourceforge.net/projects/osxvnc/ (server)

the setup on the macs is very simple. basically, on both macs, under 'sharing', open 'services' and 'firewall' for apple remote desktop. under 'services', check all items in the special 'access privileges' dialog (and set a password for VNC access!). the rest of the settings in both VNC applications is quite straightforward.

as for the maxwell specific question about using wireless or wired ethernet: if you can, go for the wired connection, because there might be a considerable amount of data transfered for each rendering.

markus

My test object renders with both machines. Success! But my real projects just crash MXCL Server on the Quad. I am assuming this is because the file contains several textures in many of my custom MXM's that don't reside in the textures folder I am pointing to. They reside in my project folder.

Can the path just be set to drive with no path and that way it will search everywhere for every texture? Or do I need to be more diligent about placing ANY texture I used into the textures folder in the Materials Database?

Will alias's work if they are found in a path and point to a location outside that path?

Carsten -

SEE http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 859#230859


Do you have any input on this that might be similar to your setup? I managed to get a simple scene to render, but I can try it again and get nowhere but server crash. Can you illustrate the file paths you have set?

Thanks!

Dan

Hi Daniel

Sorry I answer so late, but since upgrading to version 1.5.0.2 recently I can NOT connect or start the server app of maxwell on my macpros 2.66 anymore. MAN THIS SUCKS BIG TIME.

First I loose all my materials in my scene, and that seems to be a problem for quite some people here too, and now I have the above mentioned problem.

I have all my materials on a network drive and have direct access from all machines to this drive and I have turned on apple talk on all my macs. That way coop rendering used to work. Not anymore though....

As soon as I found a way out of this mess I will post here again.

Q! Berlin