User manual

© Next Limit Technologies 2010
Maxwell Render 2.5 User Manual
Chapter 11. The Network System | 87
Window:
Choose which panels you want to hide/ display in the UI.
Help:
You can consult the network section of the Maxwell Manual, or visit our tutorial website
via the direct link to THINK! where you can nd lots of free (video) tutorials to help you
understand the ins and outs of Maxwell Render.
11.04.02 The Jobs panel
View a list of jobs submitted to the render farm and complete information about them: ID
of the working node, Scene, Type of Job, Priority, Status, Current Time, End Time, Current
SL and Final SL. All the options can be also accessible through the right mouse button
menu.
The icons allow you to:
• Add a new job to the job queue
• Stop the selected job
• Edit the target Sampling Level or Time of the selected job
• Stop a job and remove it from the job queue
• Increase or Decrease the priority of the selected job
• Add certain nodes to the selected job
• Release the selected nodes from a certain job
• Release nished jobs from the job list
• Open the output folder of a job
• Preview the selected job
11.04.03 The Nodes panel
View the Render Nodes available in the network.
The icons allow you to group/ungroup several nodes into one entity to easily assign
different tasks to different groups.
You can also reset the selected nodes or Reset the entire network. This will stop its current
work and purge all its pending tasks. This can be useful to restore a node after a problem
without needing to restart the whole network.
You can also close the mxnetwork application in the selected nodes, to free those
computers for other tasks
11.04.04 The Console panel
Displays information and messages about the rendering process. If there are any issues
with a render job it will also be displayed in this panel.
11.04.05 The Display panel
One of the most powerful functions of the Maxwell Render network system is the Display
function. While the Nodes are rendering, you can select any of them and press the Preview
button to automatically display the image being rendered on that node.
The Preview button also supports instantaneous viewing of a cooperative job as merged
during the render progress. To do this, select the job tree (instead of just one server) and
click Preview. This way you can preview the nal result of the Nodes that are working
together on that frame (an instantaneous merging process is executed to perform this
interactive Preview).
You can even order a preview of an animation job, by selecting the animation job and
hitting the “Preview” button.
This will create a display for all the rendered frames of the animation, and will allow you
to play the animation using the Shift + right arrow key (play forward) or Shift + left arrow
key (play backward).