Remote Rendering

Iray for 3ds Max has built-in remote rendering. Two methods are supported: Network Render, which uses Iray Server for offline rendering, and Remote Streaming, which uses a live remote connection to give fast direct images within 3ds Max. Currently, NVIDIA’s Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) is fully supported. Autodesk® Backburner™ also works but is not yet officially supported.

Network Render

Network Render provides 'offline' rendering, enabling you to create rendering jobs to be submitted to Iray Server. Once submitted, you can close 3ds Max or continue working on your project and download your finished renders from the server on completion. Iray Server can be used to render on another machine that you may own, and is perfect for teams to share the rendering power of other machines in the workplace.

The Network Render rollout can be found on the Rendering > Render Setup… > Settings tab.

To launch the Queue Server click Submit to Queue… You can also launch directly from the 3ds Max menu bar, via Iray > Submit Network Render…

The Queue Server dialog provides Iray Server connection details and information on your pending rendering job.

Server Settings:

• Address: the IP address of the Iray Server node.
• VCA: if you are using an NVIDIA VCA, this will enable VCA-specific settings.
• Username/Password: your authentication details.

Create Job:

• Job Name: provides a title to Iray Server to identify your job.
• Priority: sets the priority of your job on a scale of 0 – 100, where 0 is the highest priority and 100 is the lowest.
• File Name: prepends each of your rendered frames with this name. This differs from the filename that you may have chosen under Render Setup… > Common > Common Parameters > Render Output.
• Format: Iray Server supports PNG, EXR, HDR, PSD, TIF and JPG formats. This differs from what you may have set under Render Setup… > Common > Common Parameters > Render Output.
• Color: choose between RGB or RGBA. (RGBA includes an alpha channel in each frame.)

Render Settings: provides details of compatible parameters that are applied to the pending job. This includes parameters such as Time Output, Frame Completion, Output Size, etc.

Status: shows submission progress. Be aware that you will not be able to use the 3ds Max until either the pending submission is complete or you have cancelled the job.

Open Server Manager: opens your web browser and launches Iray Server to let you see the progress of your job and download the result once complete.

Submit: submits your job to Iray Server.

Close: cancels your job submission and closes the dialog.

Remote Streaming

Remote Streaming lets you use a live, remote rendering connection directly from within 3ds Max. Remote Streaming can be found under Rendering > Render Setup… > Settings > Resources.

Current Resource:

Local: uses rendering resources set in the Local group (see below). This will be selected by default when you are not connected to a server. No remote resources will be used when this is selected.

Remote: uses remote resources set via the Streaming Server dialog (see below). This will be selected automatically when you connect to a Remote Streaming server.

Local:

Iray works on CPU but is greatly improved by using NVIDIA CUDA GPUs. You can choose to allocate all or only some of your GPUs to Iray.

• Use CPUs: allocates your CPUs to Iray rendering. You may want to keep them free for smoother operation of 3ds Max and other resource-intensive applications. If you do not have any GPUs available for Iray for 3ds Max, this option will be disabled.
• Use CUDA GPUs: gives choice over which GPUs are allocated to Iray rendering. GPUs used by Windows are clearly indicated.

Remote:

Remote status allows you to connect to remote rendering devices. To launch the Streaming Server, under Remote Streaming, click Settings…

The Streaming Server dialog provides Iray Server connection details and additional settings to control VCA utilisation and streaming performance.

Server Settings:

• Status: the connection status of the remote streaming server.
• Address: the IP address of the remote streaming server.
• VCA: if you are using an NVIDIA VCA, this will enable VCA-specific settings.
• Username/Password: your authentication details.
• Connect/Disconnect: toggles connection to the remote streaming server on or off. This checks your connection but (on a VCA) does not actually reserve nodes for usage until you also press the Reserve Nodes button.

VCA Settings:

• Nodes: the number of Nodes available and the number of nodes that you have reserved.
• Reserve Nodes: lets you reserve some or all rendering resources on the VCA.

Streaming Settings:

These provide fine-grain control for image quality of remote streaming. This is useful for optimising workflows that use the Iray+ Interactive renderer on remote servers, where speed of feedback may be prioritised over image quality.

• Compression: gives choice over image compression types (Video, JPEG, PNG), or lossless (EXR).
• Bitrate (Mbps): specifies the amount of information to be processed (Megabits per second) when Video is selected as the compression format. The default is 5 Mbps.

See Also:

• Settings

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