User manual

Maxwell Render 2.5 User Manual

Chapter 11. The Network System | 91

First make some simple tests in your network before attempting a real project or nal

rendering to ensure that all the Render Nodes can connect and the output is written

properly.

11.06 The Merging process

Cooperative mode is a special mode that allows selected nodes to work on the same

frame individually and to merge the images they have created at the end of the rendering

process.

You can activate Cooperative mode by selecting it in the Wizard panel when a job is

submitted.

While rendering, multiple nodes will render the same frame with a different starting “seed”.

When the job is nished, the Manager will collect these results and merge them into a

single output le. It is possible to preview cooperative jobs while rendering by selecting

the job tree and pressing the Preview button.

11.06.01 Merging Manually

If the network fails or crashes at some point and the merging of MXI les is not completed

(you can check the Monitor nodes and manager for error messages), you can manually

merge the cooperative MXI les created during the render process. All the Render Nodes

save the current MXI le in their temp folder (accessible through Menu > Open temp

folder). The Manager also stores all the MXI les from the nodes in its temp folder, creating

a subfolder for each job so it is easier to nd the set of MXI les you are looking for and

merge them manually.

In order to make a cooperative render work, each MXI le must have a different starting

“seed” so that each render has a slightly different noise pattern. This random seed value

is given automatically by the -idcpu command; the user does not have to specify it himself.

11.07 Common Network situations and tips

If you are working in Windows and want to run more than ten Render Nodes simultaneously,

all the folders need to be set up on a machine that is running Windows Server because

any other version of Windows will only allow ten simultaneous connections at any given

time. Make sure you always check the “send textures” option. If you are in Linux or Mac

this problem does not exist.

When rendering animations, make sure that you have plenty of free hard drive space.

Each MXI le can easily be 100+ MB in size, especially if Multilight is enabled, and will

quickly ll up a small drive.

MXS saved with local texture paths

Unless you use the “Send Dependencies” option when adding a network render job, both

the MXS le and textures used in the MXS should be placed in a shared folder that all

nodes have access to. An easy way to accomplish this is using the “Pack & Go” feature in

Maxwell Studio which will copy your MXS and all the textures used in it to a folder of your

choice. Otherwise you may get a texture paths error.

Alternatively, you have two options to make sure all nodes nd the textures:

• You can keep your textures in a shared folder and when building your scene, you load

the textures from this folder starting from Network in the File Browser so that the

texture paths are in UNC format.