Network rendering, any help?

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Jahun
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Post by Jahun »

:)

*runs off to check NiGMa's *posts *
Last edited by Jahun on Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
NiGMa
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Post by NiGMa »

Also, after doing alot of testing yesterday, I realised that PRERENDER is no good for animations. I turned it off as a test on an animation that was half way through, and the render time went from 59secs to 44secs a frame! and the frames rendered identical.

Keep in mind this is when using "Shared for all frames".
Jahun
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Post by Jahun »

Hmm well I will surely test your method, ehm.. now :)

But I still think that they will only load the GI file when you start them to do the actual rendering, and then never share the info anymore. Not sure..

Problem is, I may have like 9 nodes.. and 3 are of a seriously slower type. So when they finish their frame, they'll work on one quite a bit different so its history of what it already did is then not so usefull and not in view perhaps.. So it will need to do all again.


But if this takes away the errors.. I am all for it :)
Do you see those errors Direwolf?


edit: running the anim render now, will see in a bit how it works. I assumed you switch the Shared for all Frames, back to LOAD for all after doing the first frame, right?
NiGMa
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Post by NiGMa »

No, always keep it on BOTH
NiGMa
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Post by NiGMa »

when its on BOTH, it saves and loads.

I see what youre saying about the slower machine, I have yet to find out it they do keep updating the GI File at each frame, you would think you would have some file sharing issues huh?

Either way because you press 'Render sequence' on the first machine for the first frame every machine using this GI will have the same photon map layout, which is the most important for animations, unless you use a super high number of photons. If you know what I mean?
Jahun
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Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:55 pm

Post by Jahun »

You are right about BOTH doing save and reload in the case of a single machine.. but I wonder if they do it now.

Actually my fastest machine (the quad core) is on the slowest connection. So it has a slow time updating the 50'ish Mb GI file which is on a very fast connection to the other nodes..

More probable is that all load the GI file at the start and do all the additions in memory untill ends or aborted and then save result. (file sharing issues but then it doesn't matter anymore)

So if you are right and they get their photon map layout similar it will negate the errors.. and they do the caching internally each. (making it harder on the slow nodes :) they are info starved)
If this is true, perhaps specifically for a fast network it would be interesting to have them all reading eachothers GI info in each memory.

But they are running now, let's see how they do :)


ps: an octal core machine sure looks interesting now...
NiGMa
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Post by NiGMa »

Jahun wrote:More probable is that all load the GI file at the start and do all the additions in memory untill ends or aborted and then save result. (file sharing issues but then it doesn't matter anymore)
Yes! This is exactly the conclusion I came to aswell. I wonder if someone on the inside can confirm this? SilverLW? Jure?
Jahun
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Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:55 pm

Post by Jahun »

Looks perfect smooth to me what I have now :)
And it rendered +- at the exact same speed as before.

No anomalies at all. Thanks!



ps: they all saved their GI end solution to the file :) one after another, so I guess that part is useless :P
jure
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Post by jure »

Guys there's one new command G. forgot to mention in OB5:

savegimode 1;

this will force KRay to save GI to file after each completed frame (instead of waiting till the end of anim).

Now this could work with a simple BOTH mode and several nodes could use same GI file over network.
What I don't know yet is what will happen if 2 nodes want to writte to the file at the same time... Needs some testing I guess... Let me know!
- Jure
Jahun
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Post by Jahun »

hmm interesting..

Don't have much time left to test this though.. if you could get hold of him to check that would be greatly appreciated :)
NiGMa
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Post by NiGMa »

Wow, that is interesting! I will be checking it at work next week.

Thanks Jure!

How many other awesome features are we unaware of? lol
jure
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Post by jure »

Well uhm, quite a few probably. Because even I get suprised again and again by what G. is hiding in his code... ;)
- Jure
Jahun
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Post by Jahun »

Ieks, now I really really got an issue with the rendered animation:


From frame 1, a viewer walks through a sun lit hall around a corner into a corridor. All is fine at first but as soon as the viewer is in the corridor the lighting gets really really flickery or what's it called.

At that point I guess the indirect Lumi polygons take over from the sun as being the brightest thing around. So before it was all very smooth but in the corridor it is not usable at all.

I'd be very happy if someone could give me a quick answer to this, I got time for an extra run.. but not much more....




To sum it up:
Rendered 900 frames over 7 nodes
Had 1 node start the sequence and save the GI to file, then had all others use that file on BOTH. (as NiGMa suggested)
Main light comes from a area light(sun) outside) and a few lumi polygons on the ceiling providing light in the darker spots.

Screenshot of my settings:

Image


Could I have something like too little global photons? Is there a max number.. anything else wrong? Is this a lumi polygon set to indrect issue?

ps: When my animation end sin another room at the end of the corridor, there is some sunlight again, and the flickering is subdued a bit again.


Any pointers? I could really use them..
silverlw
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Post by silverlw »

How does the irradiancemap look like in the corridor? Full of black holes (to low amount of photons) or? Is the contrast going from low to intense in the corridor so FG rays cant keep up? (to low values/density). What if you use direct mode does it look god then? (try auto so it can switch)
Jahun
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Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:55 pm

Post by Jahun »

Hmm well there are no black holes in the irradiance map.. and the contrast looks fine too.

I rerendered a part on just 1 node and that part is completely stable. The things that do flicker are the slight amount of splotches I have left. I can't easily get rid of them without sacrificing too much rendertime I think.

So I guess I'll have to divide the animation and have the different nodes work on their own part.....


(is it common that the splotches are different for the nodes?)
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