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


Overview

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.



UI Path

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

 


Distributed Rendering

Enabled – Turns Distributed Rendering on and off.

Mode – Selects between Classic DR and Swarm Mode.




Swarm

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.


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 latest V-Ray Swarm 2 version and see the Release Notes here.

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.


V-Ray SWARM ( ) – Opens up the V-Ray Swarm web interface of the current machine. Alternatively, it can be accessed by typing in the IP address of the current machine on the default 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 to configure the render node machines, tag them, or monitor their resource utilization while rendering.


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

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.



Tags

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 SketchUp.

For example, tags can denote whether this machine is one of a few with a powerful GPU or if it is not a workstation 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.





Classic DR

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.

– 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.


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.




Render Node Setup

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

Installing V-Ray Standalone


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


Installing V-Ray Standalone


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


Running V-Ray Standalone as Server


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


 

Obtaining Server Port


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


Obtaining Server IP


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).




Don't Use Local Machine

When enabled, the local machine is not used for rendering, while the other Swarm nodes are rendering the image. 




Footnotes

  • Overall Bucket image sampler is recommended for production distributed rendering jobs.