9

180 Chapter 17: Rendering
File dialog starting with Save In > My Network
Places. Then navigate to the output folder,
specify a file name and output format (Save As
Type), and click Save.
9. In the Render Output group, turn on Net
Render, and then click the Render button.
The Network Job Assignment dialog appears.
Network Job A ssignment dia log showing all the server
station plus the manager station that is running Server.
10. Enterajobname(it’sagoodideatochange
the default name) and then click the Connect
button.
The names of all Servers appear in the Server
window to the right. Those with green dots
next to their names are ready to start rendering.
By default, all the Servers that are listed wi ll
take part in the rendering job. To assign a
specific Ser ver to render a job, first turn off
UseAllServersintheOptionsgroup,andthen
highlight the server that you want to render
the job.
11. Click the Submit button.
The Manager submits the job to the Servers,
which begin rendering .
At this point, you c an load and submit
additional scenes. When the first job is
complete, the next job will automatically be gin
rendering on the Servers.
How Network R enderi ng Works
Rendering networks are sometimes called “render
farms.”
In the s oftware, one computer is set up as the
network Manager. The Manager "farms out"
or distributes the work to rendering Servers.
You can also have the same computer function
simultaneously as both Manager and Server, so
computing cycles don’t go to waste.
Once rendering is under way, the Queue Monitor
program lets you directly monitor and control the
operation of the network rendering workload. The
Queue Monitor allows you to edit job sett ings as
well as to activate, deactivate, and reorder b oth
jobs and servers involved in your render farm.
Impor t ant: When rendering using a render farm,
it is recommended to render with single-frame
formatssuchasBMPorPNG.Moviefileformats
such as AVI output all frames into a single file
which cannot be split between different servers to
take advantage of network rendering.
How Work Is Div ided
The software breaks up the task of network
rendering among the rendering Servers, assigning
one frame at a time to each Server. The completed
output of the Servers accumulates in a common,
shared directory.
Rendered frame fi les can a lso be written to a
local directory on each machine, if the same p ath
defines the director y. Frame files are sequential ly
numbered, making them easy to assemble later.
The Manager takes a number of different factors
into account in determining how to assign frames