Network rendering, any help?

[direwolf]

And here's an image of one of the errors.

[direwolf]

Lots of AA and motionblur can reduse this effect. But sometimes there's no time.

[NiGMa]

Jahun: The way youre describing the error, it would happen on one node wouldn't it?

I have done renders that go through multiple rooms without splotches but one done with one node. I have yet to do a thorough test of it though.

I have tried various ways to get splotch free renders and the way I described to you from the

I don't use the savegimode cmd, I only learn't of it recently and I agree with you about the way it works, the other nodes never benefit from it except from any that are started later on.

[Jahun]

NiGMa: the error I described would not happen on 1 node.. at least I never noticed.

I'll test it more thoroughly later again. Seems that I need to do another long render run in some time.

If the only solution is making sure there are no splotches te start with, that will be time consuming

[Haven1000]

Hi guys,

I've done some limited network rendering testing with the savegimode 1; and have found that it works extremely well, ie no flickering between frames.

I'll share my work flow to compare with those who were having problems with this mode and see if there is a difference.

1. Using lightmap mode I rendered out, with 1 machine, the sequence on every 50th frame without AA in GI "save'" mode to get a GI file (BTW savegimode 1; needs there to be a pre saved GI file to start the render sequence). The GI file was saved to a shared network directory so all nodes will be able to read ( on the Mac at least this shared directory must be on a machine which will not be a render node as all the nodes file paths for the GI file and rendered frames must be the same, this may be different on a Windows network).

2. Once you have rendered out the previous step change to both mode and add the savegimode 1;. Setup your AA and leave all other FG, and photon settings the same and save the scene. I moved my LW content directory to the shared directory so all the nodes will read the same scene. Then load all the nodes and hit render sequence. All the nodes would then read and write to the same GI file and the result is a flicker free animation.

Whether or not that you need to render out the whole sequence as per the 1st step I'm unsure, but I will be testing that next, you may just need to save the first frame in the animation to generate the GI file.

This is a very simple scene so most of the GI would have been generated on the first render pass, whether this would be as successful on a more complex scene, I'm unsure.

Anyway below are the resulting animations.

http://www.covellmatthews.co.uk/stuart/ ... testb.divx

This animation uses the savegimode 1; command, with 5 render nodes and took 12 hours. There are some bump map errors which I think are due to the OS difference on the 8-core Mac, you'll see flickering on the picture and brown table.

http://www.covellmatthews.co.uk/stuart/ ... _test.divx

For speed comparison this animation uses the original 1 machine sequence method with FG and photon settings at 0. It took 36 hours.

(BTW ignore the render times on the frames, their incorrect due to the kray UB timer bug)

[Jahun]

Hmm nice info there Haven!

I will need a Kray animation again soon, so I'm happy you delved into this

[_mats_]

Ok, I did EXACTLY the steps mentioned above, and still getting artifacts and GI issues when rendering, any ideas?

file attached

Matt -

[Haven1000]

Hi mats,


Looking at your settings you have shared for all frames set at load, you need it to be set at BOTH for savegimode 1; for all the nodes to load and save to the same GI file

You also have set all of the FG rays and prerender to 0% therefore no new GI will be calculated, leave the FG settings the same so all nodes can add to the FG.

BTW you don't need the dithersimple command, this bug was squashed a while back (OB4 I think).

I hope this is of help

[_mats_]

Thanks Haven !

I am testing this right now, btw these screens show the settings for the 2nd pass.

I assume for the 2nd pass we keep it at both still?

[Haven1000]

I assume for the 2nd pass we keep it at both still?

1st pass on 1 machine in SAVE mode

2nd pass with network nodes in BOTH mode

You could probably skip the 1st pass and let all the nodes generate the GI as they come to it, this is something I haven't got round to testing. I did the two pass method with savegimode 1; to compare with the old 2 pass method with 1 machine.

What I have found is that when rendering a sequence in savegimode 1; there needs to be a GI present before kray will render, so you must save out a least 1 frame to generate a GI file.

Keep us updated with you progress

[_mats_]

Hi Stuart -

I still cannot seem to get a clean GI for the anim..

I attached a small QT file, if you see the column inside the bar there is a flicker there.. I am rendering this on 2 exactly the same nodes, with the same settings that you posted.

I got rid of savegimode1 for the 1st pass and added savegimode for the second pass.

I am sorry but do you think you can post the EXACT steps and configs for both passes? I am cross referencing quite a few posts and I am not sure if I am missing something.

Very much appreciate your time Stuart !! Hope I can be of help in anything

Matt -

[Haven1000]

Hi mats,

I still cannot seem to get a clean GI for the anim..

if you see the column inside the bar there is a flicker there..

I don't think the flickering has anything to do with the GI, the GI in the foreground looks fine. I think it maybe something to do with the reflective/ transparency of the surface's flickering, this is something which I've noticed becomes worse if there is a heavy bump map also. If you increase the blurring accuracy in kray and see if the flickering is reduced.

Other reason's for the flickering could be to do with different OS, LW, Kray versions and processors types of the nodes.

You could "override surfaces" and network render your scene to see if you've got clean, flicker-less GI.

I don't think I missed out anything in my previous post regarding the workflow, if you need clarity just ask.

1. Using lightmap mode I rendered out, with 1 machine, the sequence on every 50th frame without AA in GI "save'" mode to get a GI file (BTW savegimode 1; needs there to be a pre saved GI file to start the render sequence). The GI file was saved to a shared network directory so all nodes will be able to read ( on the Mac at least this shared directory must be on a machine which will not be a render node as all the nodes file paths for the GI file and rendered frames must be the same, this may be different on a Windows network).

2. Once you have rendered out the previous step change to both mode and add the savegimode 1;. Setup your AA and leave all other FG, and photon settings the same and save the scene. I moved my LW content directory to the shared directory so all the nodes will read the same scene. Then load all the nodes and hit render sequence. All the nodes would then read and write to the same GI file and the result is a flicker free animation.

BTW, network rendering is something which is being heavily investigated ATM by the internal beta team, so hopefully we can give a definitive (dare I say it) tutorial in the near future.

[_mats_]

Thanks again Stuart -

Yes I think its something else, like you say.

I gave up and rendering this animation on just one node for now, they were exactly the same nodes (same parts by part actually) same OS, etc.. so must be another setting.

As much as I love Kray over modo for a million things, I do like their click and forget approach to network GI with the "walkthrough mode" maybe G can reverse engineer it?

Thanks guys -

Matt -

[Pavlov]

hi, dont you have any issues in haveng multiple PCs access and write the same GI file ? Usually when a file is open on a PC, it's read-only for all others...

Paolo

[_mats_]

Ciao Paolo -

Long time no post.

I did not seem to have any issues thought, it all worked OK, I am sharing that LW main work volume on a mac and given it 100% permissions to all the machines to access, I don't know if it would be different if the volume was on a PC?

I will have to try the new GI modes yet, been doing stills mostly lately.

Matt -