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This page provides details on the Swarm Distributed Rendering rollout in the V-Ray Asset Editor.


Overview

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Distributed rendering is a technique that utilizes multiple computers to render a single scene or image. This approach can significantly accelerate the rendering process, particularly for intricate scenes with high-quality textures.



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||V-Ray Asset Editor|| > Settings > Distributed Rendering

 

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Distributed Rendering

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Enabled – Turns Distributed Rendering on and off.

Mode – Selects between Classic DR and Swarm Mode.

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Swarm

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The new V-Ray Swarm is a web-based distributed rendering system. It’s a simple, yet powerful way to split your rendering across multiple computers.

 


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Each machine participating in the render job requires a V-Ray Render Node license. This includes the workstation initiating the rendering process.

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||V-Ray Asset Editor|| > Settings > Swarm rollout

Swarm

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V-Ray Swarm 2 has released a new version:2.0.17. This update makes the setup process easier by removing the need for an Origin node. Download the latestV-Ray Swarm 2version and see theRelease Notes here.

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V-Ray Swarm 2.0.17 is incompatible with the previously released 2.0.15, i.e. all Swarm instances in the cluster should be updated.


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Enabled – Turns Swarm, V-Ray's web-based distributed rendering system, on or off.

Goal Slider – Sets the desired percentage of utilization of available resources. Computers added or removed to V-Ray Swarm are taken into account automatically.

V-Ray Swarm ( Image Removed ) – Opens up the V-Ray Swarm web interface of the current Master Node machinecurrent machine. Alternatively, it can be accessed by typing in the IP address of the current Master Node machine current machine on the default port 24267. This allows port 1113. This allows you to see the swarm render node machines available for rendering jobs in your network. You can see which of the render node machines are connecting to the particular machine that is casting out the render to the Swarm by the IP address next to its status. This interface also allows you also to configure the render node machines, tag them, or monitor their resource utilization while rendering.


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Each machine participating in the render job, including the workstation initiating the rendering process, requires a V-Ray Render Node license.

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It is important to prepare the network of nodes that take part in the render job before beginning the rendering process. To set up your origin node, follow the steps on the How To Set Up Swarm Clusters page.

If there are multiple origins, remove the redundant ones by closing the Origin script command lines on all machines except for one. Then, make sure to restart the Swarm service on the non-Origin machines.

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Tags

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Tags allow you to tag this node with a descriptor that defines something about the machine, which we can later use to selectively control from inside of SketchUp.

For example, tags can denote if whether this machine is one of a few that have with a powerful GPU , or if a machine it is not a workstation and or a node on a render farm.

For information on how to use Tags, see the  Swarm Configuration page. 

 

Once the render process is initiated, machines marked with the selected tags load the scene and assist with the rendering. This is noted in both the Progress Log and the Current Usage bar located in the Swarm settings section.

All scene assets need to be transferred from the local machine to each render node machine before they can begin working on the job. If a render node machine's V-Ray version differs from that of the local host machine, V-Ray Swarm uploads the needed builds automatically and ensures that all the render nodes use the same V-Ray build.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blue marker displays what part of all available machines are rendering the job, and the red marker shows the machines currently occupied with another job. More detailed information on the Current usage bar is displayed upon mouse-over. 

The Goal slider beneath the bar can be adjusted dynamically to add or remove assigned machines during the rendering process. 

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Classic DR

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The new Classic DR feature allows you to configure their Distributed Rendering setup manually. To use this mode, you have to set the V-Ray running machines in server mode as render nodes, and to configure the client UI with the Host names and ports of those nodes.


+ – Adds a new host to the host list.

Image Added – Enables or disables hosts for rendering. This checkbox allows the host to be kept in the list without participating in the DR process.

IP/Name – Displays the host IP or name.

Port – Displays the host port. The default port is 20207.

x – Deletes the host from the host list.


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Host information is stored at system level and made available across projects of the same installation, so it does not have to be configured for every project.


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Render Node Setup

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To use the Classic DR mode, all render nodes need to have the same V-Ray version installed. Here is how to enable this.

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Installing V-Ray Standalone


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Run the V-Ray Installer. On the Host App Version screen, uncheck all versions. Click the Advanced button to continue.

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Installing V-Ray Standalone


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On the Additional Components screen, select V-Ray Standalone and complete the installation. 

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Running V-Ray Standalone as Server


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This installation provides a Windows shortcut that can be used to run V-Ray directly as a server. 
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Obtaining Server Port


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Start the V-Ray Server and locate the port displayed in the command output.
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Obtaining Server IP


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The IP can be obtained by executing the ipconfig command in a separate Command Prompt. There might be multiple IP addresses depending on the configuration of the machine. Which one to use depends on how the server is accessed (wireless, Ethernet, etc).
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Don't Use Local Machine

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When enabled, the local machine is not used for rendering

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The Network Discovery settings control how a Master Node is selected. By default, V-Ray Swarm's Network Discovery is set to use auto-discovery.

If the Auto-Discovery option is turned on, V-Ray automatically assigns the machine with the greatest network visibility as a Master Node and uses it for render-job management. The Master Node machine is automatically changed if a different computer reports that it can communicate with more nodes than the current Master Node.

Alternatively, the Network Discovery settings can be adjusted through the V-Ray Swarm web interface.

Master Swarm Node IP – Manually sets a network machine to be the Master node which is used for render-job management.

For more information on Network Discovery, see the Swarm Configuration page.

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Cap CPU Utilization

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This setting is not available when the GPU is enabled.

Limits the utilization of the local machine CPU to a maximum of one thread. Enabling the option lets you continue using your computer without noticeable slowdown, while the other Swarm nodes are rendering the image.

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Footnotes

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  • GPU Bucket is supported in Swarm. Overall Bucket image sampler is recommended for production distributed rendering jobs.