RenderNode is horrible!
Donleavy
Posts: 34
Wow, this RenderNode that could save me so much time is horrible (v8.5).
- If I have multiple files on my Batch Queue it always crashes when the first file is done.
- Post effects don't work on the slave RenderNodes
- Sometimes it just crashes for fun.
I can't believe anyone would actually sell such a flawed product. Grrrr.
/Dl
Comments
I empathize. Whilst I don't use 8.5 (too many other issues), on 8.1 I've learned to work around the bugs.
1. Don't use volumetric lighting (very painful for me).
2. Always render one thing at a time in batch.
3. If you stop something mid render then restart the nodes, and restart the host carrara session. In fact I save and exit each time anyway to avoid won't reload issues.
4. Most scenes work, some don't. I just shrug my shoulders and render that one on one machine.
There are other golden rules, but these escape me now. Essentially it works 80% of the time. Still better than nothing, but not exactly fantastic.
Good luck!
Hi Donleavy,
I have no problems with the render node.
I work with Car 8 Pro and Windows 7 Pro on Intel and AMD.
Plugins must be installed on the render node also.
I render my animations into single pictures.
The things I really want the rendernodes for: effects that take a long time to render, are somehow always rendered differently on the nodes from the primary for whatever reason. Macs calculate things differently in Carrara than PC (certain axis on Macs get inverted for some obnoxious reason, some ordered lists are backwards), and Rendernodes seem to never have made the jump to proper scene scaling that happened in C6. That limits all volumetric fx, Including Primivol which is my favorite slow-to-render effect. Rendernodes have never calculated the same as Primary for these things....
It's really only useful for clean and light-weight animations, but even that crashed on me last week and made the ability to render overnight unattended irrelevant…. The new Node monitor is helpful, but still cryptic. I haven't tried the new render complete frames setting…. I seem to be the only person who finds the niche scene that crashes a PC before it crashes a Mac… But probably issues with my underperforming cheap PCs… As much as I want to be dual platform I find Mac nodes to be friendlier and more stable...
So THATS the reason. Nice one Holly. I wondered why.
This thread has inspired me to do a Carrara Network Rendering survival guide. I feel a tutorial coming on ...
So THATS the reason. Nice one Holly. I wondered why.
This thread has inspired me to do a Carrara Network Rendering survival guide. I feel a tutorial coming on ...
Well, I'm not *sure* that is the reason, but that's what it looks like to me… Always seems to be much brighter as if the core of the effect is scaled much larger (or smaller, whatever would make the volumetric act like it's effect spreads over more of the render .... No idea how to test that theory for a bug report.
I use C7.2 Pro.
My Mac nodes seem pretty stable. I can render multiple scenes in the Batch Queue if I make sure the longer, or more resource intensive animation is last in the queue
I do notice the issue with GI and sometimes volumetric clouds (if they intersect) having apparently different gamma. Strangely it's the Intel iMac that seems brighter. My G5 and MDD G4 seem to be in sync with the brightness. Maybe it's caused by a change in how the more recent OSes handle color management than the difference in processors?
I also notice that some randomized shader functions seem to work fine across nodes, but others do not. My G5, MDD G4 and the Intel iMac seem to generate their own unique randomized shader, instead of getting the data from the host. I do not use any plugins- Well, maybe the jiggle deformer by Sparrowhawke. ;-)