NetRender

Generate Session ID 1) Run Customer Utility. If you don't have it, download it from ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/updates/powermac/AM2003/CustomerUtility.sit 2) Pick the Customer:Get Session ID from the menu. A dialog will appear with the session ID number. Send this number to Hash so that we can generate the passwords to update your dongle. Update dongle 1) We will send you an RUS file, which is a text file with the passwords. 2) Run Customer Utility again. 3) Pick Customer:Update MacHASP memory. 4) Now pick File:Load, and load the RUS file we sent you. 5) And finally, click the Update MacHASP button on the MacHASP Information dialog. Your dongle should now be updated. If you get an error, check that you followed all of the steps correctly.

First off you need to download and install RUSInstaller, out of the current A:M folder, on the FTP Site. This will be located in Updates > Windows > A:M XXXX. This will install a program called Remote Key Updater. You then run Remote Key Updater and press the "Get ID" Button. This will generate a code. You then mail this code to order@hash.com. Please let is know before you do so though. We will then generate another code and e-mail it back to you, which you paste directly back into Remote Key Updater in the "Code" section. Lastly you will hit "Preform Update" and you are updated.

Make sure you are running the same version of NetRender on every machine, also use "ping" to verify that the machines are talking via TCP/IP (my guess is your TCP/IP isn't working...)

As far as I know it has been made more efficient as it doesn't have a heavy interface.

-Dan Shimmyo

First part of the question: I put a $10 cheap video card in my slaves because it would be a big waste of money otherwise. Second part: Not sure why but the only time I've seen a video card assist in rendering was during a quick render on A:M or hardware OpenGL render in Softimage 3D. In both cases the output looks like a preview and would not be acceptable as a final render.

-Dan Shimmyo

Each frame, when it's finished rendering goes to the location that was specified when you set up the job. I don't know if each frame first gets stored on the local drive before it is finished. Even if it does, the biggest frame I've ever rendered was probably less than 5 megs (still).

-Dan Shimmyo

Not quite. Yes, you need to designate one machine as the Netrender Server, but you should almost always -also- have a Slave process running on that machine. The netrender Server process takes up virtually no CPU cycles or memory, so dedicating a machine to it exclusively is a complete waste.

-Tony

OK, here's the extended answer to the original question.

Some of the PC users in this group have noticed that they are able to run Netrender Server and Netrender client on the same machine; and this is a very good thing to do. They are also able to use that same machine as a file server because of the way Windows file sharing works (slow but very flexible). And this works very well too.

So, we've established that we can run netrender on a network of one computer. Sounds funny but this is actually great if you want to utilize the batch rendering processes in Netrender Server. It's probably not worth the extra money for those who just want to render faster. With two machines it becomes more acceptable to purchase netrender for obvious reasons.

On the Mac side of things, it's a little more complex. On the Mac side, the netrender server has to run on a dedicated machine as does the file server AND all the clients. Why? Because Appleshare works that way. You can't find a volume on the network if it is on your local hard drive. In a hybrid network you can probably combine the fileserver and client on one CPU running some flavor of Windows NT or 9x. This is exactly why I've sent my ADB (Mac) dongle back to hash in exchange for the parallel port dongle. Because I want to use my WinNT4.0 machines for netrender and utilize each processor to its fullest potential.

Now this brings us back to the original question in which the user has a PowerMac G3 and a Windows PC. In his case, if he wants to spend the money on Netrender, he should set up his 10baseT Ethernet network using a crossover cable (or 10baseT Ethernet hub if you feel like spending more money) and run the netrender server/slave on the PC and use the Mac as a slave or modeling machine. He would also have to buy Dave on the Mac to complete the network.

-Dan Shimmyo

I'd recommend against a crossover cable. Hubs are cheap enough (even 100baseT) that you should buy one, and I'd suggest an 8 port hub. This way, if or when you get more hardware (like a cheap celeron or a laptop), you can just plug it in and it becomes part of your network.

Also, if you use your Mac to dial up to the 'net, I'd recommend against DAVE and go with PC-MacLan instead. Dave uses TCP-IP, and directs such traffic over the ethernet port, which means you can't dial into the 'net and connect to your own network at the same time.

I have three PCs and two Macs, with MacLan on the PCs, and have zero issues.

-Mike Caputo

You can run it all from the server machine assuming you've got rendermessenger in the startup folder on the other machines but you'll still have to shut them down at some point, there's probaly software which allows you to do this, but I've got my slaves and server hooked up to a second monitor with a switchbox which allows me to share the monitor and keyboard between them, fairly cheap from TechAmerica.

Matt Andersen

NetRender uses jobs, a job is a specific project, choreography, and camera, with a frame range and all the other stuff you set up in a normal rendering, you can set up multiple jobs, when the last frame has been started on 1 job the next idle slave then starts the next job.

-Matt Andersen

The multipass render method is much superior to A:Ms native motion blur, which is really fast but also inaccurate. It looks wonderful--but expect it to send your render times way up. It literally renders the scene a number of times (eight or so is usually the minimum for a good blur) and puts them together to create the blur. I use regular motion blur whenever I can get away with it, but for some fast motions multipass blur is really necessary.

--Raf Anzovin

Absolutely...I have a PC dongle. You have to make sure the macs have the drive where the project is stored mounted on the macs desktop so when Render Server tells Render-Slave where to go. . . it has permission to go there and can see all the files it needs to see.

Don't bother with NT server for the PC. What would work better and save you money is buying Dave. It's a set of extensions you install on your mac that mimic Windows networking. Very nice. That's all I have been using here.

http://www.thursby.com/products/dave.htm

-Billy Eggington

I run PCMaclan on all my PCs, instead of DAVE on my Mac, for one reason. I connect to the Internet using my Mac, and DAVE requires that TCP-IP be pointing to the ethernet port, not the modem port. Obviously, that's a problem, since I want access to both the 'net and my other machines at the same time, and don't want to have to be switching the configuration every hour. (If I'm wrong about this, please let me know!)

PCMaclan installed on the PCs gives me peer-to-peer access from each machine, to each machine.

I don't have a dedicated file server. Whichever machine happens to have the Hash project and source files is the lucky candidate. All I do when Netrendering is make sure of two things:

a) the Netrender server machine must see the drives of the remote machines that have the RenderSlave installed. (Basically, all I do is mount them in the Windoze File Explorer.)

b) the remote slaves must see the drives of the server that have the project file, source materials, and Hash software. (Again, just mounting is all you need.)

Once you get it configured, it's pretty smooth. My net looks like this (all machines are connected via 100baseT ethernet (aka "Fast" ethernet)):

• 200mhz Pentium Pro, 200mb RAM, Windows 95
• 266mhz Pentium II, 200mb RAM, Windows 98
• 500mhz Pentium III, 256mb RAM, Windows 98
• 400mhz Mac, 320mb RAM, MacOS 8.6

-Mike Caputo

Unfortunately, if a Mac slave crashes it's likely it will take the whole OS with it, since most crashes on a Mac (with any software) crash the whole system. It's just one of limitations of MacOS, and there's not much we can do about that.

-Ken Baer. Director Mac Product Development, Hash Inc.

Set up TCP with the TCP/IP control panel. You can use Ethernet or AppleTalk IP.

Set the Configure option to Manually so you can put in your own IP numbers for each machine.

For IP Address you can use these numbers. Each machine should have a different IP number. These numbers are unassigned on the Internet, and can be used for a local network.

192.168.0.1
192.168.0.2
192.168.0.3
192.168.0.4

Now set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0

Change Connect Via to Ethernet and Configure Using to Manually. right now you have it set up to use a modem.

Set these as indicated above.

These should be empty.

I'm not a total network expert either. Will Pickering is the network guru here, and I got most of this information from him.

-Ken Baer, Hash Inc.

The Network version is cool even even if you have one single processer cpu. It will take the worry away from large movie renderings (to .tga). It is actually three programs, one of which will watch to see if you crashed due to any problem and start up the render again where you left off automatically. If the computer stayed up and only AM crashed it will restart the NetRender engine automatically and continue, wasting no time.

If you've got a big production and a tight deadline, your only other option is to set your alarm clock for every 2 hours during the night. We didn't have many crashes, but we did loose at lot of sleep watching "baby" render. -Then every time we did sleep through the night THAT would be the time that there was a crash and many good rendering hours were lost.

I can't say enough good things about NetRender. :)

Glen

The Network version of the program does just that. It includes three extra programs:

1. Netrender Slave: This is basically the render engine, stripped to the bones
2. Netrender Messanger: This sits on the same machine as the Slave process, and facilitates communication over the network.
3. Netrender Master: This sits on one central machine and coordinates all of the rendering, as well as compiling the results.

Also costs a lot more. But if you've got lots of machines (or just hope to someday, like me :) it's well worth it!

-- Tony

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