Is it possible to select a master machine that will control the Vray distributed render?
At the moment we have 2 main servers that take on the distribution job and assigns certain nodes to work on it. It would be good to be able to assign which one to take on the job, rather than just the free machine taking it on.
Also, when a vray dr job is started in Deadline 8/9, does the vray spawner get started as well for the job if the slave is active?
We have the spawner starting and stopping via script at the moment so it doesn’t interfere with rendering on user workstations during the day, but if the spawner is only started when the slave is active then this looks like something we can get rid of and just let Deadline manage everything.
Hi,
In short, yes and yes. In Deadline 9.0, you can select which machines via blacklist/whitelisting UI in SMTD will become the DBR master machine before submission. Yes, DBR off-load non-master machines all automatically run up V-Ray Spawner for you and shutdown Spawner when that job is completed.
Is it possible to get a preview of the image being rendered when using the Offload to V-ray DBR option?
I’ve tried using the 3dscmd/non 3dscmd & force workstation option in SMTD but can’t see anything happening. The slaves seem to be doing something, but the Whitelisted slave (the master) just has this in the log and no 3dsmax instances are running.
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Configuring Distributed Render Job…
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Dynamic Start: False
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Plugin Config Settings to be applied to local file: vray_dr.cfg
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Port Range: 20204
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Use Local Machine: True
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Transfer Missing Assets: False
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Use Cached Assets: False
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Cache Limit Type: None
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Cache Limit: 100
2017-03-27 11:31:20: 0: INFO: V-Ray DBR: Waiting for all job tasks to be dequeued before starting distributed render
What am I doing wrong?
I’m hoping the master slave gives a preview and all the other slaves chip in to render.
I will update this line to say “Deadline 9.0” instead of “Deadline 8.1”:
(EDIT: this has already been updated internally and will be published in first SP of 9.0)
With the above enabled, then it will start rendering as soon as you have just 1 machine available. If you are going to use more than 5 machines, you will probably want to set: “Local Machine: False” as the master will blowup/go funny during DBR communication. The VFB should be visible once rendering starts, assuming your not running as a service. However, I would need to see the full log report to see what is going on here.
Everything seems to communicate now and sort of works.
The node designated as the Master will always render it’s own DR bucket a different brightness, like it is ignoring the gamma settings of the files.
I have tried a few different scenes and they all do it - the master is different, even if it is using 1 slave or 10
The test machines I have are all the same, with fresh installs of max2016/vray and deadline.
I’ve merged all xrefs/collected all files etc but no change.
This looks like it can be sorted when turning the ‘Use Local Host’ option to false in the 3dsmax/3dscmd plugins in the Repo, but won’t the Master pc not contribute to the render when this option is off?
Could you confirm whether you are using the “3dsmax” or 3dsCmd" plugin? Could you also tell me the exact version of Deadline, 3dsMax and V-Ray you are using? (Down to SP/point release). Thanks!
I am using SMTD (Deadline 9 option), then under Vray DBR,
Vray DBR (Off-Load) Enabled
Slaves 5 and
Use 3dsCmd Plugin Enabled (this is needed so it doesn’t take a 3dsmax license when rendering)
Ok, pretty sure this a gamma issue. Are you using any vray gamma override? Post effect? What gamma are you expecting on the final image? And finally, what is the gamma settings on the master machine?
No gamma overrides are set or post effects. Everything is just default at 2.2
The master machine is just the default gamma. If another master is used then that will be brighter so I don’t think it’s machine specific.
I sent some tests last night with colour mapping options (on/off/on with gamma in the vray colour mapper) and used different nodes as the master, but everything that each master rendered was lighter.
Attached a render in progress where the wood should be dark, and the sample gamma settings used in vray.
We explicitly set gamma when using the 3dsCmd plugin, so let’s try this. Open this file in your repo:
“<your_repo>/plugins/3dsCmd/3dsCmd.py”
line: 570
change this line from:
gammaCorrectionPart = " -gammaCorrection:false"
to:
gammaCorrectionPart = " -gammaCorrection:true"
we should then respect the gamma setting as saved in the 3dsmax scene file. I need to check my notes as I know we force it here to handle other errors that can occur elsewhere. But let’s first see if this fixes the issue for you.
Cool. Yeah, you can leave as is. However, I need to figure out a way that is going to work for you, as its fixed for you, but broken for other users now, due to edge cases regarding the use of different versions of different renderers combined with different versions of 3ds Max. So much fun. Anyway, not for you to worry out, this is my problem.
What happens if you don’t pass the CLI option at all?
(Hint: Depending on your exact version of 3dsMax, it doesn’t do what you expect!)
Intent is to discuss this more internally, as there is a few ways we can go with this. However, we want to try and help as many use cases here as possible.
