what´s the main reasons to buy mr standalone

[hot chip]

hi,

what are the main reasons to buy the standalone version. More shader, more memory, can you tell me what the difference?

[mustan9]

hi,

what are the main reasons to buy the standalone version. More shader, more memory, can you tell me what the difference?

Difference: The main differences is that the standalone uses MI (text files) to render an output image. It requires some sort of converter to generate MI files (example: MayaToMR, or 3D Studio Max's output MI feature). It's the renderer only and doesn't have the 3D application has an overhead. It also requires a technical understanding of a basic render pipeline to correctly use it.

Here are some good reasons to use standalone.

1) The 64-bit option allows you to render jobs that require more then 3Gigs of ram. Which is the 32-bit memory limit for Windows XP. (the new version of Maya and Max now solve this problem).

2) Studios that use standalone often have more then one 3D application feeding MI files for the render farm.

3) There are more hardware options for the farm. You don't have to buy 100 Windows XP machines, or you may have an existing farm that the standalone will run on.

4) Most studios will require a full-time render TD to just manage the farm, standalone machines, and MI processing.

5) The idea of handling MI files sounds exciting, and you enjoy getting into the really technical workings of a render farm.


Alais (noew Autodesk) has a special version of the MR standalone that works with Maya. It's the standalone version that comes with the extra extensions required by some Maya shaders and features. You should use the normal standalone, but that special version if your using Maya. The pricing setup is per CPU, and if you are running dual-core you will require two extra standalone MR lics. per processor.

3D Studio Max does not require the standalone. Unless you have one of the above listed reasons to use it.

XSI can be used with the standalone, but I do not know if there is a special version that includes all the extensions.

[CTZn]

but I do not know if there is a special version that includes all the extensions.
That's the point !

I'm talking as a Maya user here. We can not have control on sum nor diffuse for Final Gather using mrfM, these are set automatically by the renderer, even if we specify a limit for FG depth... I guess one could find more examples like that...

Here's an example illustrating what I say:

Say I'm lighting a scene using FG only, no GI is involved at all. I'm using:

Trace depth 16
Trace reflection 8
Trace refraction 8

a bit crazy settings for a diffuse sphere and plane but that's an illustrative example :D

The renderer returns:

RC 0.5 warn 082069: finalgather diffuse depth 16 too high set to reflection 8 + refraction 8
RC 0.5 info : option: finalg. depth reflection 8, refraction 8, diffuse 16, total 16
RC 0.5 info : wallclock 0:00:34.26 for rendering

Now I set:

Trace depth 4
Trace reflection 8
Trace refraction 8

The renderer returns:

RC 0.5 warn 082069: finalgather diffuse depth 4 too high set to reflection 8 + refraction 8
RC 0.5 warn 082087: finalgather trace depth 4 too low set to diffuse 16
RC 0.5 info : option: finalg. depth reflection 8, refraction 8, diffuse 16, total 16
RC 0.5 info : wallclock 0:00:34.44 for rendering

But no, wait ! I've set the depth to 4, how is it it is forced to reflection+refraction ? And anyway, I wanted a diffuse of, say, 6 ! How and where can I set this within Maya !? Not to mention:

RC 0.5 info : option: finalg. scale 1 1 1 1
RC 0.5 info : option: finalg. secondary scale 1 1 1 1

omg, I'm a poor guy :eek:

Am I "beside my shoes" (french expression, hehe) when I assume I can't set these up in mrfM ? These options are scene based, aren't them, not shader based !?

That would be a big "pro" for just a single user to get the standalone version I bet...

[matt]

things might've changed since i last looked (about a year ago), but you can do renderman style ribboxes in standalone mr, but not in the bundled versions.

Eg, say you have an insanely complex object, and you need to render thousands of them, but maya can't load them all at once. Instead, you export a single copy of your object as an mi, then make a scene full of locators, then tell mr standalone to replace each locator with the full complex object when rendered.

from memory it was a little more complex than how ribbox works, but gave you much more control. this is all heresay from a mr guru I know. :)

[hot chip]

thanks for the answer. I hope i have this right understand. When i have a renderfarm this linux system, can i build the mi-file on my windows-machine 3dmax and rendering an my linux-system and it is possibility to generate instance objekt or high-low resoultions objekt for better memory-management. Oh that´s great. Can standalone mr use all shader from max, for example the "falloff-map" !?

[mustan9]

3D Studio Max outputs an MI file that contains references to the plug-ins for 3D Studio Max.

Mostly the shaders, lights, and some other things.

It is possible to render the MI files outputted from 3D Studio Max, but it will require manual editing of the MI files.

Unlikely Maya there doesn't appear to be a special version of the standalone that will work with Max.

It's such a waste of money to farm MR standalone when your using 3D Studio Max. When it comes with 9,999 free render nodes for MR right out of the box!

[dagon]

The pricing setup is per CPU, and if you are running dual-core you will require two extra standalone MR lics. per processor.


this is not true, the price is per-cpu not per-core
the Autodesk site it's quite clear:

Multicore Awareness

Take advantage of the latest CPU offerings now with mental ray 3.5 Standalone multicore-aware licensing. Only one license is needed for a multicore processor, giving you even more rendering power for the dollar.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=6837592

1 dualcore = 1 licence
1 dual-processor= 2 licences

[dagon]

It's such a waste of money to farm MR standalone when your using 3D Studio Max. When it comes with 9,999 free render nodes for MR right out of the box!

and this is another BIG mistake :D you haven't infinite nodes with 3d max

this is also quite clear on the Autodesk site:

mental ray Satellite
Contains the same functionality as the integrated mental ray renderer.
Assists in distributing render jobs over processors located across a network.
Eight licenses free with each seat of 3ds Max.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8108755

;)

[mustan9]

Take advantage of the latest CPU offerings now with mental ray 3.5 Standalone multicore-aware licensing. Only one license is needed for a multicore processor, giving you even more rendering power for the dollar.[/I]

That's not the case in MR 3.4, so they just changed that.

You still need two lic. for dual-processor systems.

[mustan9]

mental ray Satellite
Contains the same functionality as the integrated mental ray renderer.
Assists in distributing render jobs over processors located across a network.
Eight licenses free with each seat of 3ds Max.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8108755
;)

That's "satellite", and I think the limit of 8 is the same for Maya.

You can farm 3D Studio Max up to 9,999 render nodes with each node having up to 8 processors when rendering with the MR render engine.

[dagon]

how can you farm a distrubuted rendering with mental ray and without satellite?

[mustan9]

how can you farm a distrubuted rendering with mental ray and without satellite?

Well, satellite is an internal feature of MR used to connect other processes via a TCP/IP connection. Each TCP/IP connection passes packets back and forth to the main computer that is performing the rendering. You can scale your computers performance by adding additional computers to MR's list of rayhosts. There are performance issues with this method. Computer A + Computer B does not give you A*2 performance. It's more like A*1.5 since MR must send 3D data back and forth between the computers. Alias claims to have improved this performance in their latest release of Maya, but I haven't had a change to run the numbers.

A queue based render farm works by having a central repository of render jobs in a database. As a computer becomes available it picks out a job from the queue, launches a slave application such as MR, Maya, XSI or Max. Each computer works 100% on that task. So rendering is A*(number of slaves on the network). Assuming over head for loading, and machines are the same performance.

In the queue based approach. You need a lic. for each MR standalone that runs. Where as, with 3D Studio Max you are allow to run up to 9,999 for each copy of 3D Studio Max you own.

This is the same with AfterEffects, Combustion, Maya Software Renderer, and Cinima4D.

It's just that MR for XSI, and MR for Maya don't have this feature.

[dagon]

In the queue based approach. You need a lic. for each MR standalone that runs. Where as, with 3D Studio Max you are allow to run up to 9,999 for each copy of 3D Studio Max you own.



where i can find informations about this?
it sounds interesting, but you need also a manager for the jobs, something like royal render?

[mustan9]

As for queue management software there are a few.

BackBurner ships with 3D Studio Max. Allows you to submit jobs for 3D Studio Max only.

BackBurnder also comes with Combustion.

Frantic Films has a great render queue manager called Deadline. http://software.franticfilms.com. It works with Maya,XSI,Max,AfterEffects and a few more.

There are also some high-end render pipeline applications you can get for Maya. Very $$$$.

[dagon]

As for queue management software there are a few.

BackBurner ships with 3D Studio Max. Allows you to submit jobs for 3D Studio Max only.

BackBurnder also comes with Combustion.

Frantic Films has a great render queue manager called Deadline. http://software.franticfilms.com. It works with Maya,XSI,Max,AfterEffects and a few more.

There are also some high-end render pipeline applications you can get for Maya. Very $$$$.

but i still cant find information about these infinite render nodes in max, also in the 3ds max reference they talk about backburner and satellite (together) for distributed render

this is from the manual
Note: The number of machines you can use depends on the number of machines running licensed copies of 3ds Max. You are able to use only eight external (or satellite) CPUs per licensed copy of 3ds Max: four dual-processor machines or eight single-processor machines (or equivalent).

[mustan9]

this is from the manual

That is correct. You are reading the MentalRay documentation section for Distributed Bucket Rendering. Which is an internal feature of MR. This is the part that tells you how to setup the rayhost file used by MR.

It does talk about BackBurner, but it is just stating how to deal with jobs that require satellite machines and relate to the render queue.

Here is something from the manual goes with that I'm saying.

The mental ray renderer supports network rendering via Backburner and the command line. The steps for setting up and submitting jobs are exactly the same as those you'd use for the scanline renderer. No additional licensing or fees are necessary.


Also, another reference to the unlimited rendering feature. (Mind you, they state it as unlimited but it really is just 9999 nodes).

Network rendering of 3ds Max scenes (MAX files) with mental ray via Backburner and the command line is no longer bound to a single license. Therefore an unlimited number of CPUs can be used, effectively behaving exactly as with the 3ds Max default scanline renderer. Standalone licenses are still required when rendering MI files (using ray.exe).

Again,

3ds Max has been installed on all machines to use as rendering servers. Note: You needn't license the software on machines to be used only as rendering servers.


Hope this helps.

[dagon]

aaah great! :D now it sounds clear
you can split animations in many .max files and manage it with backburner? is it useful even for the stills?
seems very interesting for a low-cost renderfarm

thanx :)

mat

[MasterZap]

Backburner automagically sends different frames to different hosts.

For "single frame" speedups, satellites are generally better (i.e. to improve your "interactive speeds" during tweaking).

I DO NOT KNOW if backburner has some form of "render parts of an image and assemble" them feature or not.

I'm not really an expert there....

/Z

[mustan9]

I DO NOT KNOW if backburner has some form of "render parts of an image and assemble" them feature or not.

It does.

That is best used when your rendering very large image sizes, since there is less memory used for the virtual frame buffer. Only the active scan lines are kept in memory.

You can use this feature even with just one machine when you have an image size that's too large to do in one pass.

[dagon]

cool!
great times to buy a renderfarm :)

[IanBolton]

so then, what's the chance of autodesk allowing maya users to do this (unlimted renderfarm nodes) as well then?

[Spacelord]

cool!
great times to buy a renderfarm :)

hehe Hi Dagon, FuriousD here.
This exactly why I move from XSI and brought 3dsmax instead of Maya.
The unlimited render nodes for rendering Animation,
saved me big bucks !!

[Spacelord]

so then, what's the chance of autodesk allowing maya users to do this (unlimted renderfarm nodes) as well then?


Well I thought these latest releases of Maya and XSI (Maya 8 and XSIv6.0) were going to add more rendernodes but they didn't.

I read that XSI are quiet happy with there mental
ray render node plans.
The companies make a lot of money selling render nodes.
I think in the future things will change, once theres more 3rd party renderers for XSI and Maya, like Vray.
They will have to adopt different pricing schemes to keep
new users to stay with Mental Ray.
I would have stayed with XSI if it came with 10 or so render nodes. But I very happy to be back 3dsmax9 :)

[IanBolton]

It's not often that I feel like switching to max but this would help me loads. An extra £1500 a render node makes quite a difference if you're trying to build up a decent size farm.

I'm very hesitant about commiting the cash as they may or may not bundle it free soon.

[leha_sokol]

The initial topic of the thread has moved to money-performance related issues. But at the moment i m more interested in other aspect of the mrfm and mrstandalone differences...
Does anyone has an expierience of writing and testing/debugging mr custom shaders on mrfm only?
or mrstandalone is must-have for that? At the moment i m reading MR Handbook+Programming books by Mental Images and i d like to have a tool at hand for testing the things im learning...

[mustan9]

Does anyone has an expierience of writing and testing/debugging mr custom shaders on mrfm only?
or mrstandalone is must-have for that? At the moment i m reading MR Handbook+Programming books by Mental Images and i d like to have a tool at hand for testing the things im learning...

I've played around a little with C coded shaders in MR, and it appears exactly the same if it's standalone or if it's a MR that's part of an application.

I do know that Maya can see shaders automatically, and 3D Studio Max requires an interface to be exposed in an MI file.

If your working on a very complex shader. It may be faster to use a standalone render engine, because you could "debug" and place break points in the shader's source code. Where as, I'm not sure this is possible with the 3D application's MR engines.

Now, some C compilers can't mix debug build DLLs in a non-debug application. So I'm not sure how much debugging ability you would have. I would be very interested in know if it's possible to get a debug build version of a standalone MR.

Now that would be cool. :)

[haggi]

things might've changed since i last looked (about a year ago), but you can do renderman style ribboxes in standalone mr, but not in the bundled versions.

Eg, say you have an insanely complex object, and you need to render thousands of them, but maya can't load them all at once. Instead, you export a single copy of your object as an mi, then make a scene full of locators, then tell mr standalone to replace each locator with the full complex object when rendered.

from memory it was a little more complex than how ribbox works, but gave you much more control. this is all heresay from a mr guru I know. :)

Well... if you are a little bit experienced with shader programming, you CAN use mi files in the plugin versions. It requires that you code you own parser and because mentalimages gives you the complete syntax of mi files in the manuals it is not too hard. This enables you to have a lightweight scene and render complex geometry.

Of cours it does not may any sense with deforming geometry but you can do almost the same thing that rib boxes do.