Team Render for single image?

[niedzviad]

Hello, I have problem with team render, I'm trying to render one single frame (5k res) at two identical computers. (Same CPU, RAM etc.)

Im starting render and after an hour only half image appeared (very noisy). Screenshot here - > https://imgur.com/a/bKLE0ll half is black.

Both has this version - > Version: B2 daily Aug  6 2018 (core 3 (DailyBuild Aug  3 2018))

[TomG]

Does the "Team Render Machines" dialog show that all machines can see each other? Was this TR to Picture Viewer (rather than a job submitted to Team Render using the web page server version?) What happens if you run just a few passes with TR and locally, do you get the TR data sent across from the other machine in that instance (and does it work normally when rendered locally)? Which C4D version?

[TomG]

Another question comes to mind - rendering to pass, noise or time limit? Sorry for all the questions, but need to know all the details to see what might be going on.

[TomG]

Some observations from some tests

- With a small res test render, it looked to me like the Picture Viewer didn't update to show the results of Denoising. The Corona VFB did show those results, and the PV updated if I adjusted the Denoising value at all.

- With a large res render like the 5K, it took a VERY long time for the chunks to come across, in fact much longer than the render time. Could be that the automatic settings for TR in the Corona menu need reworking on our side if they aren't working well for large resolutions, not sure; meantime, could be that manual settings for the packet sizes work better, as the default appears to be 2Mb (which is a very small part of a 5K image). Haven't let it run to completion yet, but my 5K test seems to be doing better with a Manual setting, with 20s for the update time (since on a 5K, not much will have happened in rendering in the default 5s) and a packet size of 256Mb.

[TomG]

The one with the Manual settings did complete. Turns out I also had quite a few LightSelects in this scene which at 5K caused the "Team Rendering postprocessing" to go on for a long time as each layer got Denoised.

So for now I'd suggested changing the Corona TR settings to higher values like I did for high res images (I think an even higher Update Interval and Max Packet Size would in fact be even better for images of this size compared to the values I used). Let me know if that resolves things for you!

[niedzviad]

I setted up: noise lvl 3% and denoising 0.3; Resolution is 5000px x 2600px; TR to Picture Viewer, C4D r18

Machines sees each other in team render, with Vray works fine.

Lan is 1000MBPS.

Rest of settings is default. No light mix.

I'll try your settings and let you know :)

[niedzviad]

It took a while, and we have Corona released, I still cant make the TR for single image working. The same conditions I described in this topic.
I set up image 5000px x 3550px, pass limit 3 just for test.
Solo -> render time 22min 30s
TR (client update 60s, max size 100) -> 32:17

I don't get it what Im doing wrong ;)

[TomG]

Probably the size of the batches of data being sent across the network. This can be tricky to optimize. Also on the pass limit, that can be an issue too, if it is reached before the other machines have time to join in.

On the size of the chunks sent, head into the Render Settings, Corona, Team Render tab, change Configuration to Manual, and try a different size of packet - the larger the resolution the larger the packet needs to be in general, and the default is set for 1920 wide images (as much as we can set a good default). Could try something like 250. Could also reduce the update interval, maybe every 10 or 20s, to save flooding your network (which would also slow things down).

Best judge is just how large a "strip" you see when something is received from the client machines, if it is tiny, then it will slow things down vs rendering solo, and you need a larger packet size.

[niedzviad]

So Do you suggest to setup the noise limit instead passes?

In the evening I will use interwal 15s and 250MB.

[TomG]

Hi! Well, same thing applies with Noise Limit too, it all depends on how quickly the scene finishes rendering vs. how long it takes for the scene to be sent over, geometry and scene to parse on the client, and the client to start rendering and send something back to the master machine.

In this case, since the scene is taking 20 to 30 minutes, there should be more than enough time for TR to have kicked in. Just mentioned it because 3 passes is not very many, and for some scenes the render would likely have finished on the master before the clients received the scene, got it set up and started contributing, so I just wanted readers to be aware of that :) The thing to look at is how long the parsing geometry etc. takes for the scene on the master machine. If that is just taking 1 minute or something, then slaves should have plenty of time to do that and join in here.

So in this case, the change to the packet size is likely all that is needed - but for others reading this, keep in mind that 3 passes may not be enough for TR to really kick in and show benefit. (You can watch the C4D Client messages and see how long it takes for the client to say it is sending some of a render pass back to the master).

[HFPatzi]

Don't know if it helps, but here are my settings for 9000x6000 images, rendered on 11 machines: Refresh Time: 20s, Packet size between 50 and 100 MB. Even though i have a pretty high plocount on my objects, parsing times are not that long (between 0-30 seconds). It still takes a little bit of time sending back alle the junks after rendering has finished but not exorbitantly. But i have a feeling, that the settings for packet size and refresh time depend also on how many clients do render.