The LightWave Render Farm
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LWSN host setup
Sharing
Right, back to ScreamerNet. We're now going to help you set up your Host machine. We're assuming that your network is basically sound and already working, ie., you are able to connect and share documents between computers. [an error occurred while processing this directive]Fig. 4.1 shows the Sharing settings of OSX. You'll find these in System Preferences. On the Host machine, simply make sure that the highlighted items are switched on. That is all you need activated to run LWSN.
Also make a note of your Username and Password as you'll need those later.
You should make sure that you have Administrator access to files and folders on your Host. If not, go to: System Preferences > Accounts, and make anynecessary changes.
Fig. 4.1--Personal File Sharing and Remote Apple Events should be on.
LWSN Hosts Setup--Create an LWSN Folder
If you've followed the previous sections, you'll now understand that LWSN is the main network rendering application for LightWave and that for every Node on your network, you'll run a separate instance of LWSN with its own copy of the LWSN cmdLine file. (See Concepts.)
We're now going to create a folder in [Programs] within the LightWave installation which will contain everything necessary for Node01 to work correctly.
We've called it [LWSN01] (rather sensibly) but you can call it what you like.
Inside this folder go all the files you see in fig 4.2. These can also be found in the [Programs] folder of LightWave. However, you must remeber to DUPLICATE them, not simply move them.
Fig. 4.2--A folder [LWSN01] we've createdcontaining everything Node01needs.
LWSN Host Setup--LWSN CmdLine
Inside our new [LWSN01] folder is a copy of LWSN cmdLine. Open this up in TextEdit (remembering to turn off that pesky automatic .txt extensionin Preferences).
On our system, the default LWSN cmdLine looks like the one below.
-2 -c"WOA_System:Users:AdminWorm:Library:Preferences" -d"WOA_System:Applications:LightWave 3D 7.5:Content" job1 ack1
This is a single line of code, similar to our other cmdLine files, but with a few noticeable differences:
-2 tells LWSN to work in "Mode 2"--Don't Ask!
-c begins a path to the original Configs folder(Preferences). We've changed this path now in our other cmdLine files, so we'll do it here also.
-d begins a path to our current Content Folder. We're working with a project called [the-worm], so we'll need to re-path our cmdLine to there in a moment.
job1 ack1 tells LWSN which CPU number it is designated. By default, you have a maximum of 8 available CPU's and each one must be given a different number. This is the only element that needs to change for each instance of LWSN. We'll see this demonstrated shortly.
With this knowledge, we can now alter our LWSN cmdLine for Node01.
-2 -c"WOA_System:Applications:LightWave3D 7.5:Configs" -d"WOA_System:**PROJECTS**:the-worm" job1 ack1
Do the same for your own LWSN cmdLine file, making the paths correct foryour system.
LWSN Host Setup--LightWave Setup
In a moment we're going to duplicate our folder [LWSN01] once for each extra Node on our network. However, if we've made a mistake in our original, this would become replicated over and over. So we first want to test [LWSN01] to ensure it's working properly. In order to do this, we first need to set up LightWave.
LightWave itself is also used during network rendering, but only as a controller. There are standalone commercial ScreamerNet controllers on the market; however LightWave is crude but effective! It won't be doing that much during rendering, but it is the place where you rack up scene files and start/shut down your LWSN Nodes. This is why it is referred to as the "Controller" during network rendering.
The LWSN cmdLine file needs to know the location of LightWave's Configs. But we need to make sure they're correct, which we do by running LightWave, altering settings as necessary and then quitting it again (which forces the Configs to be rewritten). There are just three things we need to doin LightWave.
- Make sure our current Content Directory is set to the project we wish to render from (press 'o' on the keyboard to bring up General Options).
- Make sure our Command Directory is also set to our current Content Directory (within Rendering ->Network Rendering). See fig 4.3.
- Initialize ScreamerNet to create a nice new blank setof Job files (also within Network Rendering).
Fig. 4.3--Path the Command Directory to your current project and Init ScreamerNet.
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