Apple Shake Distributed Rendering User Manual

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Shake Distributed Rendering

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:

m“Sample Setup for Part-Time Rendering on Desktop Computers” (page 3): This setup is for 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.

m“Sample Setup for a Full-Time Render Farm” (page 6): This setup is for an environment 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 client computers). The client computers do not have to do any of the rendering, and they can all be used for creating and sending Shake jobs.

Use this guide as a supplement to the Shake documentation and the Shake Qmaster User’s Manual (accessible from the Help menu in Shake Qmaster and Shake Qadministrator). The Shake documentation and the Shake Qmaster User’s Manual give you both the background 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.

Shake Qmaster Network Essentials

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

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

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

mA cluster must contain only one computer acting as the cluster controller, and at least one computer acting as a service node. One computer can be used as both a cluster 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.)

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

mAll 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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Apple Shake Distributed Rendering User Manual

Sample Setup for Part-Time Rendering on Desktop Computers

 

FireWire

 

drive

FireWire

FireWire

drive

drive

 

Network

FireWire

FireWire

drive

drive

Each computer acts as:

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.

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 startup .h file. As described in the Shake documentation, the startup .h files, located in the startup directory, are used to customize Shake settings (similar to setting preferences).

To turn off the UNC setting, do the following on each of the computers:

1Log in as the user who will use Shake on the computer.

2Double-click the Terminal icon in /Utilities/Applications to open a Terminal window.

3Enter these two command lines in the Terminal window, pressing Return after each 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 Finders Go menu to mount each media volume.

On each computer, you need to:

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

mChoose 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:

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

mUsers place the Shake scripts on a mounted media volume.

mAll 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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