Apple Shake Distributed Rendering User Manual

Shake Distributed Rendering

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Setup Guide

This document takes you through the basic steps involved in the creation of two different
sample setups for Shake distributed rendering with Shake Qmaster. You can use it to get an
idea of the kind of distributed rendering environment you want to create, and as a guide in
setting up that environment.

The setup that resembles the kind of network you need depends on how much rendering
power you want, and the kind of hardware you have:

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“Sample Setup for Part-Time Rendering on Desktop Computers” (page 3):

an environment that uses desktop computers. We call it “part-time” rendering because each
computer acts as someone’s workstation, but at the same time is also part of the rendering
cluster. The bulk of the rendering jobs can be submitted with Shake Qmaster at the end of
the day, so that the computers are busy processing a large queue of distributed rendering
batches after everyone has gone home.

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“Sample Setup for a Full-Time Render Farm” (page 6):

that includes one Xserve and a number of Xserve cluster nodes in a rack. The Xserve and
cluster nodes form a Shake Qmaster cluster that is completely dedicated to rendering jobs
sent by user workstations (called
do any of the rendering, and they can all be used for creating and sending Shake jobs.

client

computers). The client computers do not have to

This setup is for an environment

This setup is for

Use this guide as a supplement to the Shake documentation and the

Manual

Shake documentation and the
concepts and the details involved in using Shake and Shake Qmaster, while this document
helps you set up and use the network environment on which they will run.

(accessible from the Help menu in Shake Qmaster and Shake Qadministrator). The

Shake Qmaster User’s Manual

Shake Qmaster User’s

give you both the background

Shake Qmaster Network Essentials

Before you get started, you need to be aware of the following rules for any network that uses
Shake Qmaster:

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All computers using Shake Qmaster must be running Mac OS X (or, for servers,
Mac OS X Server) 10.2.6 or later.

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The network must support the Apple Rendezvous technology built in to Mac OS X.

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A cluster must contain only one computer acting as the
one computer acting as a

service node.

One computer can be used as both a cluster

cluster controller,

and at least

controller and a service node. (The rendering is distributed across a cluster, which
contains a cluster controller that manages the cluster, and one or more service nodes,
which perform the rendering.)

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The cluster computers (cluster controller and service nodes) and the client computers
(user workstations) need to be on the same local network (subnet).

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All the computers in the setup need Read and Write access to any volumes that will be
specified as the source location or output destination for files, including Shake scripts.

The best way to configure this access, depending on whether your plan is for part-time
desktop computer rendering or full-time render farm rendering, is addressed in the
sample setups that follow.

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Sample Setup for Part-Time Rendering on Desktop Computers

FireWire

drive

FireWire

drive

Network

FireWire

drive

• A Shake Qmaster client that sends Shake jobs for rendering

• A service node that performs distributed rendering

All source and output files are stored on the FireWire drives.

Each computer acts as:

FireWire

drive

FireWire

drive

In this sample setup, five computers act as both the clients (user workstations from which
users submit Shake jobs for distributed rendering) and the cluster computers (which do the
rendering). Each computer has an additional volume, such as a FireWire drive, that is used
for media before and after it is rendered, and for the associated Shake scripts.

The steps that follow describe how to configure the desktop rendering environment shown
above. They assume that these computers are already connected to each other on a network.

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Step 1: Install Shake and Shake Qmaster

The necessary components of Shake and Shake Qmaster need to be installed on each
computer. For instructions, refer to the

Installing Your Software

booklet that came with Shake.

Step 2: Make sure each computer has a volume dedicated

to media

Give each computer a second volume, such as a FireWire drive, that is used for media. Each
computer will use this volume for all source and destination files associated with Shake
scripts, including the Shake scripts themselves.

Note:

Each media volume should have a different name.

Step 3: Turn off the UNC (Universal Naming Convention)

setting for Shake

In order to make sharing and volume mounting work smoothly in this setup, you need to
turn the Shake UNC setting off on each computer. The UNC setting uses the entire file
pathname, with the network address, in a convention that starts with

//ComputerName/DriveName/path.

You don’t want Shake to use this filenaming convention

because it conflicts with the file sharing and volume mounting used in this setup.

In the three steps below, you make this change in a Shake
Shake documentation, the

startup

.h files, located in the

startup

.h file. As described in the

startup

directory, are used to

customize Shake settings (similar to setting preferences).

To turn off the UNC setting, do the following on

Log in as the user who will use Shake on the computer.

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2

Double-click the Terminal icon in /Utilities/Applications to open a Terminal window.

Enter these two command lines in the Terminal window, pressing Return after each

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each

of the computers:

command line:

mkdir -p ~/nreal/include/startup/
echo 'script.uncFileNames = 0;' > ~/nreal/include/startup/UNC_off.h

Step 4: Turn Personal File Sharing on

On each computer, open System Preferences, click Sharing, and turn on Personal File
Sharing. This allows the computers to share the media volumes.

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Step 5: Mount all of the media storage volumes

On each computer, log in as the administrator. (The first user account you create when you
set up Mac OS X is an administrator account.) Then, on each computer in the group, use the
Connect to Server command in the Finder’s Go menu to mount each media volume.

On each computer, you need to:

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Enter another computer’s name in the Connect to Server dialog.

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Choose the associated media volume (FireWire drive) as the volume you want to mount.

Do this until all of the computers are mounting all of the media volumes in the cluster.

Step 6: Use Shake Qmaster to create a cluster

First, use the Shake Qmaster pane in System Preferences to enable cluster controlling on one
of the computers and enable the Unix Processing service on all of the computers (making
them service nodes). Then, use Shake Qadministrator to assemble these computers as a
cluster. See the

Shake Qmaster User’s Manual

for detailed instructions.

Submitting Render Jobs in the Desktop Rendering Setup

After you finish the final step above, each one of these computers can be used to submit
Shake jobs for distributed rendering.

Because of the way access has been configured in this setup, all file pathnames are
conveniently consistent and simple for the purposes of specifying them in Shake scripts and
in Shake Qmaster, assuming that:

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Users place the source media on a mounted media volume (one of the FireWire drives).

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Users place the Shake scripts on a mounted media volume.

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All folders and files on the shared media volumes have Read and Write access enabled for
everyone (for Owner, Group, and Others). You can make this access setting by selecting
the folder or file and choosing File>Get Info.

The above three assumptions are important. They ensure that all of the computers have Read
and Write access to all of the media source files, Shake scripts, and output destinations.

Specifying the Media File Locations in Shake Scripts

In the above setup, all the Shake render scripts should specify their source media (File In)
locations and output (File Out) destinations as /Volumes/

MediaDiskName.

For example, /Volumes/Media3.

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