[animation_man]

Please help me with this.

Sorry, I have a lot of questions about Maxwell Render. It seems like every time I use the software I get these errors that I don't know what to do with or how to fix them. It seems like there is a workflow that has to happen with MR to get everything to work properly, and I can't find the answers anywhere.

I am using Maya to handle most of my scenes.

1) When I perform a Pack and Go and a scene export. Does MR like to have all of those files in the same folder to work right or can things be in sub folders. In they can be in folders how does MR like things set up? The reason I ask is because I get errors then I try to put the dependencies in their own folder.

2) Where is the optimal location for my render files?

3) If I try to set my image and .mxi paths to a different folder then the file that contains my mxs and dependencies I get errors. Do I have to render to that folder or are their other place I need to render too?

4) I set up my render files in the Network Job Manager. I set my Progressive rendering to 2,4,8,10,12,14,18. I didn't render a .mxi. Maxwell rendered everything at SL 2 then when it went back to frame 1 it stopped and said it couldn't write .MXI output. Do you have to to render .MXI files to do Progressive rendering????????

5) I am using the network Monitor, Manager and render node to render my animation on 1 computer. Why do I get a error that my files do not have a Network Path? How do I fix this, or do I even need to worry about this error?

6) I MR does not finish a job, but it stops because of an error, MR will not let me remove that job and start over. I seems like I have to shut down my Manager, Monitor and nodes then restart everything. Why is this?

7) If I have to restart MR because of a failed render to I need to Purge the Temp files?

After MR finishes a frame, it moves the files from a temp folder to the destination folder. When this happens, I sometimes get this weird error that the .mxi file cannot be moved. What is going on and how do I prevent this in the future????????????

The more help I get on this the better. Thanks.

[hatts]

I'll do my best at this...

1) Don't restructure your dependencies BEFORE packing. Just let MR do its thing.
2) "Optimal" for speed? That would be a local drive. Network locations are typically slower. But if you're doing network renderings then of course that changes things.
3) No, you can output anywhere. Check for other problems.
4) I believe you must enable MXI output for progressive rendering.
5) It's an error because the network assumes you're trying to do proper network rendering. It's just an annoyance, you can ignore it.
6) Maxwell Network Render isn't as stable as simple local rendering. But in the future, if things get stuck, try only restarting the Manager. Bear in mind this might require a force-quit.
7) Not necessary
8 ) Check permissions on all the folders you're dealing with. Make sure you don't have MXIs open in other locations, etc.

[animation_man]

Hatts,

Thank you very much! That helps a lot.

Things went smooth in my render once i turned on multilight and turned off the shadow pass option. But when it got to the end of my first SL progression I got this.

Error:[Computer name].Local has failed while sending/receiving dependencies. Trying to recover.
Error. It is not possible to restore dependencies after this failure.

What is this? Any idea how to prevent this?

[hatts]

That could be any number of read/write problems. To be safe, have your dependencies in a reliable location, AND check "Send dependencies." Maxwell is smart enough to look in multiple locations for dependencies, so if sending them from the host computer doesn't work, it will check a few other locations.

[animation_man]

THank you very much!