Network Rendering

[Ian Stark]

I wonder if anyone can point me in the direction of any topics that cover network rendering in Vegas 5 in more detail than the manual/on-line help (which are identical).

I believe I have set both machines up correctly but I am having no success. The render seems to start on the remote machine but falls over within a few seconds.

I think the supplied documentation of this functionailty is weak, especially in the area of troubleshooting.

Network rendering would be SO useful to me at the moment as I am up against some very tight deadlines. However, I think the benefits it might have given me have been trashed by the amount of time I have spent trying to get it to work.

Anyone got any experience with this?

Thanks! Ian . . .

[Edward Troxel]

I have an entire article devoted to that in the next issue of the newsletter. It should be out within the next 2 or 3 days. Jeff Basch wrote the article and explained the process very well.

[Ian Stark]

Thanks, Edward.

Look forward to seeing it (although I need to have these videos put together for 9am tomorrow morning so it may be a case of too little, too late!)

Of course, I don't actually mean 'too little', I just couldn't think of an appropriate phrase! I'm sure it will be very useful!.

[Ian Stark]

I am CONVINCED I have set up network rendering correctly but it is still falling over.

I am beginning to wonder whether there is a time out setting that causes the remote render to fail because it hasn't (yet) found the network mapping.

It sometimes takes a whileon my two machine network, even in Explorer, to access a directory on one of the other machines but I am not skilled enough to know how to resolve this.

Anyhow, here is the log from the remote machine if anyone can offer any guidance. Thanks!

Log: Loaded Settings File: C:\Documents and Settings\Ian Stark\Application Data\Sony\Vegas\5.0\VegSrv.settings
Log: Starting Vegas Remote Render Service: (tcp://advent16:53704/NetRenderService.rem)
Label: Beginning Render Job: C:\Documents and Settings\Main\My Documents\Retail Solutions 2004\Labour For Love\Rendered Elements\Labour for Love Dialogue - Smith 2.avi
Error: render job 'office:53704/1' failed: Project not found: C:\Documents and Settings\Main\My Documents\Retail Solutions 2004\Labour For Love\Rendered Elements\Labour for Love Dialogue - Smith 2_1.veg
Label: Finished Render Job: C:\Documents and Settings\Main\My Documents\Retail Solutions 2004\Labour For Love\Rendered Elements\Labour for Love Dialogue - Smith 2.avi

[Edward Troxel]

I think I would start by trying a shorter path. "C:\Documents and Settings\Main\My Documents\Retail Solutions 2004\Labour For Love\Rendered Elements\Labour for Love Dialogue - Smith 2.avi" is a really LONG path name.

What if it was more like: c:\renders\lfld-s2.avi

[Jacob Ehrichs]

I would also mention that when I network render from any program (AE and 3ds MAX specifically) that the render cannot be a 'video' file but needs to be seperate still frames, be it bmps tiffs or whatever lossless format you've got.

I'm not familiar with Vegas' abilities so if it can do AVIs that's sweet, but you may try rendering it as seperate frames and then it's a piece of cake to put those into another render into the final video.

[Ian Stark]

Edward: Sadly, I tried that already, with no success. You're quite right - a LONG filename. Unfortunately (?) I grew up being taught the discipline of careful filing and as this project is so complex in terms of the volume of materials (they're animations in which I composite a human mouth over an inanimate action doll then animate the lot against a background that also moves and has other props etc - hundreds af different stills for each character/prop) I want to be realy, REALLY organised. The only painful part I found in having a long name was having to type it in the drive mappings field in Network Renderer! Is there a technical reason why it might not be so good?

Jacob: Thanks for the sugestion - Vegas's network render is specifically to allow rendering of video materials over the network - great idea - but I can't get it to work!! To be honest, if I was to render individual bitmaps locally then send them off to be stitched together on a remote machine, I don't think I would be gaining any more time. Thanks anyway!

[Magnus Helander]

Networking is just he** on XP, and don't get me started on "enable simple networking" checkboxes in the explorer options window or inherited permissions.. anyway

In XP, and in win2k, there are two places for file permissions, one button on the "sharing" tab you get when rightclicking the folder, and one when selecting the security tab in the same window
- does your render-machine have full and all privileges to the files and folders it needs to access, both on the "permissions" and the "security" page?
- are you sure which account the render-machine is connecting as? Does that account have full and all privileges?

Just a thought..
Good luck,
Magnus

[Ian Stark]

Thanks for the suggestion Magnus. I only seem to have one tab "Sharing and Security" - there doesn't seem to be another tab available (other than "General" and "Customise"). I'm using XP Home.

I agree that, at least in my case, networking with XP seems flaky to say the least. It takes up to 45 seconds sometimes to access a mapped network drive. And when most apps default to the previously used file save/open location next time you save/open a file, I often mistakenly think the pc has fallen over.

One day I must rebuild and plan the network more efficiently as I am sure I must have done something wrong. I can't believe Microsoft would release ineffective functionality to the world ;-)

Thanks again.

[Magnus Helander]

We are running XP Pro in the studio, and I'm at a win2k machine right now, but I'm wondering if you don't have:
- In the windows explorer, check under "Options" and see if you can find a checkbox named "Enable simple networking", which is selected - deselect it
- possibly reboot
- now you can fire up the coffee brewer on extra strength, call wife/friends and tell them you will be home late, and then check if you have a "security" tab under sharing, and just make sure you have "added" the account the render machine is connecting as under both "permissions" and "security" for the folder...
Possibly add a new user acocunt "render" and make sure your render box is logging in as that user...

Here's how to do the permissions part...
http://compnetworking.about.com/b/a/085876.htm
Here is some more links...
http://ecross.mvps.org/

An advanced degree in networking and computer science is helpful when dealing with this stuff and it's very odd to find something called "security" on a microsoft product...

/magnus

[Ian Stark]

Thanks again for your afforts Magnus. Sadly, I am running XP Home and the advanced file sharing (at least as sugested by the links you kindly ofered) is only offered by XP Pro.

Back to the drawing board! I really do think that there is a set up issue with my network - access to some network folders is almost instant, whereas with others it takes 30 -45 seconds!

When I have time I'll rebuild. Thanks again.

Ian . . .

[Rob Lohman]

XP security might be like hell, but it is that for a good reason.
Security.

I think you should be able to access one XP home computer
from another XP home without too much trouble. I'm only running
XP Professional, so I'll have to see how much we can "fix".

What is your exact problem Ian? What are you trying to do and
how are you doing that?

[Ian Stark]

OK, I have now resolved the slow network connections issue, thanks to a tip which you can find here :

www.earthv.com/tips_detail.asp?TipID=24

Whether this helps my network rendering issue remains to be seen. As soon as I have a chance I will try it out again.

Rob, I guess your question is related to the networking issues rather than specifically network rendering. If that's the case then I seem to have resolved the problem, thanks!

[Ian Stark]

Sob. Still no joy. I now have a whizzy network which is great, but I cannot get network rendering to function.

OK, here is the detail of the issue again, in case anyone can shed some light.

1. I have two PC's, 100mb networked through a router. No problems with the network that I can see.

2. PC A hosts Vegas 5 and my project data in a shared folder off the root of C:\

3. PC B has the network render client installed.

4. On PC A, I have configured the network render client with the correct name of the shared folder, both local and it's network name.

5. On PC B (the render host) I have not set up any shared drives as I understand this not to be required.

6. The render is initiated in Vegas on PC A, using PC B as the render host. The veg is called test.veg and the output (wmv) is called test.wmv. Both the veg file and the output destination are the shared folder on PC A.

7. There is activity on PC B in that the render is firstly queued, then appears to start rendering, then immediately fails.

8. The log shows that the render has failed because it cannot find the project file test_1.veg.

9. Test_1.veg is an exact replica of test.veg and it is created in the same folder.

OK, so why is test_1.veg being created and why can't the render client see it?

Clearly the network render clients on either machine are talking to one another OK, otherwise the render wouldn't appear to begin on PC B. It just seems to be having trouble finding the project. I have tried distributed and non-distributed renders, both with no success. Everything points to a problem with folder sharing but I can't see what, if anything, is wrong there.

All suggestions greatly appreciated!

Thanks . . . Ian . . .

[Curtis Rhoads]

This may help, this may not....

When I was over at friends house helping him and his roommates install their network, we noticed that we had to have the GUEST account enabled before folder sharing would work properly. And this is after going through a step by step network install document that Microsoft Tech Support sent my friend.

We ended up hiding the GUEST account, so no one knows it's there, and besides, it is just in their house, but.....