Renderfarm FAQ

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Renderfarm Main Quick Walk-through Workflow Frequently Asked Questions Advanced Topics



How do I map a network drive to the render farm

Note that you must be connected to the TU Delft network. If you are outside the TU Delft network, you can use VPN to connect to the TU Delft network.

Open the Windows File Explorer. In the left navigation pane click on This PC. In the ribbon choose Computer » Map network drive.

Alternative: right-click This PC in a File Explorer window and choose Map network drive...

Windows Map Network Drive.jpg

For Folder enter \\renderfarm.bk.tudelft.nl\public and tick the box Connect using different credentials

Windows Map Network Drive netID Username.jpg

Use dastud\YOURNETID (WITHOUT @ TUDELFT.NL OR TUDELFT.NET)

Click OK and File Explorer will open with the mapped network drive.

How do i map a networkdrive to the renderfarm on OS X

Note that you must be connected to the TU Delft network. If your outside the TU Delft network, you can use VPN to connect to the TU Delft network.

In Finder choose Go > Connect to Server

OSX connect to server.png

Enter the address: smb://renderfarm.bk.tudelft.nl/public

OSX connect to server credentials.png

Enter your credentials: netID with the @tudelft.net suffix and enter your netID password. You may choose to add these credentials to your keychain, so you don't have to re-enter the the next time.

When the connection has been established, you should find an icon to this location on your desktop (called public).

What is image slicing?

Image slicing splits the image in several (vertical) parts. This enables the images to be rendered on several computers, preferably in parallel. This should speed up the render considerably when rendering large images.

Image slicing is not very useful when the render finishes within a few minutes. The time spent on 'overhead' is probably larger than the gain.

If the Final Gather or Global Illumination stage of your render takes takes most of the rendering time, slicing your image will not be very effective: this complete stage has to be done for each slice. Slicing only yields significant gain in render time when the final rendering stage is the biggest part of your render.

What are the limitations with image slicing?

Image slicing cannot be used when you submit a job with more than one renderable camera (ie: more than one camera selected in the render interface). If you want to use slicing in this case, you should create multiple scenes, each with only one renderable camera and submit each job individualy.

Glow: Image slicing should not be used when using 'Glow'. Alternatively you can add glow using Photoshop and a low-res mask.

How about particle caches, furDescriptors, image sequence textures, etc?

Special files will not be published automatically by the renderfarm connector script. Some examples:

  • particleCache files from baked particles. (Baking is required)
  • furDescriptors: UV textures to control fur
  • image sequences for file textures

So these files have to be copied manually. Proceed as follows:

  1. Publish your project the normal way. Your project structure, scene files and most textures are copied to the renderfarm server.
  2. Open your file explorer and browse to your folder on the renderfarm server (on the mapped network drive)
  3. copy any file that would not be copied automatically (as mentioned above) from your local project folders and copy them to the corresponding folders of the project on the renderfarm server.
  4. You can now proceed to submit the render job.

How about IES/Elumdat files?

There's a problem with IES-files: the location (relative to the project structure) is not re-evaluated by Maya when opening the scene. The renderfarm will thus be unable to locate these files, because the location is still pointing to the absolute location on your computer. This is a confirmed bug/issue in Maya (bug# 347506).

  1. Download the "Fix IES location" MEL-script from the TOI script database and place it in the MEL directory of your project, named toi_fixIES.mel.
  2. Make sure all your IES-files are in the sourceimages folder of your project. Do NOT place them in sub-directories.
  3. enter toi_fixIES() as a pre-render MEL command in your render settings.

As soon as the renderfarm loads your scene, it will execute the toi_fixIES() command before rendering (loaded from the toi_fixIES.mel script in your projects MEL folder). This will fix the file locations for all lightProfile nodes in your scene.

Note that your ies-files and MEL-script should be automatically published by the renderfarm connector.
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