Distributed Rendering issues

[iToo]

My Forest objects render fine locally, but fail using Distribution Rendering. What is the problem ?

There are two common causes for this issue: the plugin is not properly installed, or there are missing textures/proxies. As first step, try this:

1) Create a test scene with a simple object (as a teapot) scattered with Forest. Don't use any textures in the materials.
2) Render it using Distributed Rendering.

If the object is visible on DR nodes, the plugin is installed correctly. In this case, go to step B), if not continue with A)

A) Installation error.

Probably the plugin is not properly installed in the render nodes, or it's from a different version. For each slave node:

1) Be sure Max and VRay Spawner (if using VRay) are stopped.
2) Delete all ForestVRay???.dll files from the from the Max root folder (you can find one or several files, depending of the Max and VRay versions), and ForestPackPro.dlo from "plugins".
3) Reinstall Forest using the setup program, or manually as described here.
4) Repeat the rendering test.

B) Missing textures/proxies.

If the teapot renders correctly, you should check that all textures and external references used in your Forest objects, can be loaded by the render nodes.

1) Textures not included with Forest (as HQ Plants or XFrog maps), must be added to the Max configuration using Customize->Configure User Paths->External files, or editing directly the file 3dsmax.ini. The ini file is stored here:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\3dsmax\<max version>\enu\3dsmax.ini
 
See the [BitmapDirs] section (you can copy it from a installed workstation). Repeat for each render node.

2) For VRay proxies, use always UNC paths. Be sure DR nodes have permissions to the shared network folders (if used). Anyway, with Forest it's not necessary to use proxies; you can use the geometry directly or as XRef objects. Internally all items are handled as native instances of the render engine.

3) In V-Ray 3 and above it's possible to transfer the textures directly to the DR nodes, without configuring the User Paths as described in step 1. To do it, just turn on Render Setup->Settings->Distributed Rendering->Settings->Transfer missing assets.