Table of Contents

This page provides information about the command-line application, or spawner, of Chaos Arena. 

Overview

The spawner is a command-line application that can be started from either Windows Explorer or from a Windows Command Prompt. Alternatively, you can run the spawner via a batch script (*.bat). 

Go to "..\Chaos_Arena\arena_server\" and double-click on "arena_spawner.exe". 

It provides you with useful information about:

  • The IP address of the machine on which it is running (for example, 10.0.0.106 )
  • The network interfaces available on the machine (for example, "Ethernet 2" and "Loopback Pseudo-interface 1")
  • The "Broadcast" address, which you might need for configuring Arena Server (to look for Operator and Render Nodes) on the respective network in case you use the Server Auto Discovery option.
  • The port on which the spawner is listening ( 20711 by default )
  • Example commands for running the spawner

The spawner can be started before or after the server. It acts like a service that can be started once and left running indefinitely until the current user is logged off, or Windows is restarted.


Windows Command Line options

In case "arena_spawner.exe" is started from the Windows Command Line, or through a batch file, there are a few command-line options that have to be passed to the spawner on each machine:

-server host[:port] [optional] - specifies the server address with an optional port. The default port is 20710. If the Server Auto Discovery is set, the spawners don't need to specify the server address, they can listen for the auto-discovery broadcast messages from the server and automatically determine its IP address.

-id id [optional] - the string ID of the spawner and the render instance. It must be a non-empty string and it must match the one in the server configuration. If this parameter is not provided, the spawner will be assigned an automatic ID containing the spawner IP address, as seen from the server when the spawner connects.

-vantage path_to_exe - path to the installed Arena renderer (vantage.exe).


Example command line for running the spawner with ID “center” and a server running on IP address 10.0.0.5 (assuming that your "Chaos_Arena" folder structure is located in the root of drive "C:\")

arena_spawner.exe -id center -server 10.0.0.5 -vantage C:\Chaos_Arena\arena_renderer\vantage.exe

Optionally you can set up a script or a configuration file for easy startup of the spawner with the server IP (or auto-discovery), renderer ID, and the path to the installed renderer (vantage.exe).


Using Configuration files for Spawners

A sample configuration file (“arena_spawner.json.template”) can be found in the arena_server folder.

To use this option make a copy of the file and rename it to "arena_spawner.json" (remove the " .template" extension). In this case the configuration file will be used automatically when the arena_spawner.exe is started.

Starting the Spawners

Open Windows Command Prompt and start Chaos_Arena\arena_server\arena_spawner.exe on each Render and Operator machine.

When the process starts you will see the Broadcast Subnet address in the printed messages, write it down as later it will be used for the Server configuration.