The mental ray service name is based on the version of mental ray that ships with XSI. The version number specified in the documentation may differ from the actual version of mental ray that you are using.
How Distributed Rendering Works
Distributed rendering is started automatically once a render is initiated on a computer. The initiating computer is referred to as the master and the other computers on the network are referred to as slaves. The master and slaves communicate via a mental ray service that listens on a designated TCP port and passes information to mental ray.
Distributed Rendering Types: Satellite vs. Standalone
You can configure two types of distributed rendering: Satellite and Standalone.
• Satellite distributed rendering requires an XSI license for the master machine. No additional licences are required for the slave machines. Instead, the master has a fixed number of Satellite tokens, each of which can be used for a render slave processor. On multi-processor machines, each processor requires a separate token. The number of available Satellite tokens varies depending on which type of XSI license you have.
Satellite distributed rendering only works when rendering using XSI (interactively or from the command line).
• Standalone distributed rendering requires an XSI license for the master machine. Each slave processor requires an additional rendering license (XSI|Batch Universal or standalone mental ray). On multi-processor machines, each processor requires a separate license.
Standalone distributed rendering works when rendering using either XSI or the mental ray standalone.
During the setup process, you can configure one or both types of distributed rendering. Each type uses its own service that listens on its own port. Keep in mind, however, that they cannot be used simultaneously. If you’ve configured both Satellite and Standalone distributed rendering for a single setup, you’ll need to choose one of them prior to rendering. You can do this by editing the .ray3hosts file, which lists the render slaves.
For more information about configuring the .ray3hosts file, see Defining a .ray3hosts File.
Distributed Rendering Components
Both Satellite and Standalone distributed rendering rely on a number of components that must be configured correctly. These components are described in the following section.
The mental ray Service
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The mental ray service name is based on the version of mental ray that ships with XSI. The version number specified in the documentation may differ from the actual version of mental ray that you are using. |
• On Windows systems, the distributed rendering service listens on the TCP port and runs an associated batch file.
- Satellite distributed rendering uses the raysat3_5_7_12server service, which runs the raysat3_5_7_12.bat batch file on each computer.
- Standalone distributed rendering uses the ray3_5_7_12server service, which runs the ray3_5_7_12.bat batch file on each computer.
These batch files set the environment variables required for distributed rendering through setenv.bat and then run the mental ray renderer (ray3.exe or raysat.exe). For more information on how to manage the mental ray service on Windows, see Managing the mental ray Services.
• On Linux systems, the xinetd.conf file reads the raysat3_5_7_12 and/or the ray3_5_7_12 service configuration file from the /etc/xinetd.d directory. The services are configured to call the ray3.sh script file, which sets the environment variables required for distributed rendering and then runs the mental ray renderer (ray3 or raysat).
.ray3hosts File
In a distributed rendering setup, be it Satellite, Standalone or both, the master machine reads a local ray3hosts file, which lists the slaves to be used for the render. The image to be rendered is broken up into segments (tiles), which are placed in a queue. Each computer, master or slave, requests tiles from the queue to render.
Once a tile is finished, it is sent back to the master and another tile is requested from the queue. The master assembles all the tiles to create a complete rendered image.
For more information on how to configure the .ray3hosts file, see Defining a .ray3hosts File.
linktab.ini File
During distributed rendering, the master also sends any extra information the slave might need to accomplish a render, such as texture names and paths. When your render slaves use a mix of different operating systems, you can use a linktab file to coordinate file sharing. For more information on defining a linktab file, see Defining the linktab File.
In a Standalone distributed rendering setup, the SPM server handles the allocation of mental ray renderer licenses when distributed rendering is initiated.
It is recommended that you use a dedicated computer to act as the SPM license server: this computer should not take part in the network rendering or any other memory-intensive tasks. If a computer’s connection to the SPM license server is lost during rendering, the render image will be corrupted.
For more information about the SPM license server, see Licensing in the Setup & Licensing Guide.
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