Distributed Rendering

This page provides information on distributed rendering (DR) in V-Ray for Cinema 4D.

Overview

Distributed rendering is a technique for distributing a single render job within a single frame across many computers in a network. The idea is to reduce render time by dividing different parts of the rendering pipeline and giving each participant different parts of the job. A network of computers that perform distributed rendering is sometimes called a render farm. 

V-Ray supports distributed rendering (DR). While there are many ways to do DR with V-Ray, the most common way is to divide the frame to be rendered into small regions (buckets) and give each machine a number of buckets to render, then the machine that started the process gets the results and combines them into the final image.

Organization

In V-Ray, DR is done completely through TCP/IP protocol, which is the standard protocol of the Internet and thus the most common protocol that is supported by the hardware. V-Ray itself does not need additional file or directory sharing to perform DR. However, you might need some file/directory sharing for the bitmaps or other additional files used during rendering. The distribution management is divided into a render client and one or more render servers.

Render Clients

The render client is the computer from which the rendering is started. Cinema 4D and V-Ray for Cinema 4D must be running on this computer in order to start DR. The process initiated by the render client divides the frame into rendering regions and distributes them among the render servers, and later collects the results. In any DR job, there is only one render client.

Render Servers

A render server is one of the computers in the network that does the rendering work. A render server requests render data from the render client, processes it, and sends the result back. In any DR job, there can be many render servers.

Distributed Rendering Settings

For information on Distributed rendering settings in Cinema 4D, please see the Common tab page.

Step by Step DR Setup

1. Set up the render servers. You can do this in two different ways.

a. Start the render servers as specified in the table under Installation Notes.

b. Start the V-Ray Standalone and enter the "vray -server" command in the command prompt.

2. Set-up the Render Client. In the Cinema 4D interface, bring forth the Render Settings and in the Common tab under the Distributed Rendering group. Add all the Render Servers by inputting their IP's in the  Add Server name or IP  field and click on the Add Server button. You can include or exclude the servers in the list in the current rendering by selecting them from the list and toggling the Edit button.

DR Check tool

The DR Check tool can be used to query the state of render slaves, the number of processors on the slave machine and the V-Ray version of the slave.

Location:

Depending on your OS, the vraydr_check executable is located as follows:

Windows –  Start Menu > All Programs > Chaos Group > V-Ray for Cinema 4D nn > Tools or alternatively start the .exe in a command-prompt from C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Cinema 4D nnnn\bin

Note: nn is the Cinema 4D version

Usage:

vraydr_check -host=IP -port=num

Note: IP is the IP address of the machine that is running a V-Ray slave and num is the number of the port (by default it's 20207). Example: vraydr_check -host=10.0.0.100 -port=20207

Return values:

In case a connection cannot be established with the slave, the tool will print this message:  Failed to connect to server 1.0.0.100:20207

This could mean that either something is blocking the connection, or the slave is not running at all on the specified IP address.

Notes