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I installed the 2020.2.2 node on my 2nd PC... but I have no idea how to get my main PC to see it.
So much has changed over the years that googling is completely pointless. Can anyone steer me in the right direction?

Hi,
first of all, please upgrade both c4doctane and Render-Nodes to 2020.2.3.
Then please make sure to have enabled the Private Connections in Windows Firewall, for both Standalone and C4D in the Warkstation, and Standalone and daemon in the Render-Nodes:


Then, if you go to Live View menu Options/Network Rendering Settings panel, you should see the Render-Nodes listed, ready to be enabled fro Net rendering.

Looking forward for your feedback,
ciao Beppe

bepeg4d wrote:Hi,
first of all, please upgrade both c4doctane and Render-Nodes to 2020.2.3.
Then please make sure to have enabled the Private Connections in Windows Firewall, for both Standalone and C4D in the Warkstation, and Standalone and daemon in the Render-Nodes:


Then, if you go to Live View menu Options/Network Rendering Settings panel, you should see the Render-Nodes listed, ready to be enabled fro Net rendering.

Looking forward for your feedback,
ciao Beppe

No machines show up in the network preferences (except the main workstation of course.) I tried adding IPs manually, but that doesn't seem to do anything. (Everything is set up correctly in the firewalls, and The Node Daemon is running on the correct port.)

EDIT: nevermind. They started to show up. Thanks

bepeg4d wrote:Hi,
first of all, please upgrade both c4doctane and Render-Nodes to 2020.2.3.
Then please make sure to have enabled the Private Connections in Windows Firewall, for both Standalone and C4D in the Warkstation, and Standalone and daemon in the Render-Nodes:


Then, if you go to Live View menu Options/Network Rendering Settings panel, you should see the Render-Nodes listed, ready to be enabled fro Net rendering.

Looking forward for your feedback,
ciao Beppe

I do have a quick question. When rendering on the main workstation, it takes about 2:00 per frame (single 2080ti.)
When using the node machines alongside it (three machines, each with a rtx3070) it takes about 1:14 per frame.

adding three rtx3070 to the rtx2080ti doesn't even cut the render time in half? That seems off...

Hardware monitors shows GPU usage from ~70-90%... but idk, 1:14 per frame still seems pretty slow...

Hi,
what kind of network connection are you using between Workstation and Render-Nodes?

Everything is working as expected here with 2020.2.3 and Net Render, please have a look at this example with 10Gbit Ethernet:

- Workstation = ~400 OB = 3’:37” - Workstation (~400 OB) + 3x Render Nodes (~800 OB) = ~ 1200 OB = 1’:15”: ciao Beppe

I'm also using 10G network.

I wonder... since I'm rendering several passes into an EXR, if that might be why its so slow? Because the farm nodes don't contribute to that, correct? So they are just chillin' there waiting for the main PC to send them their next frame?

I'll do some tests later today when I have time, and see what the difference is when rendering without those extra passes.

Render Layer Masks are not rendered by Octane, but by Cinema 4D instead, on the CPU. If you are using Render Layers, that is your suspect.

jayroth2020 wrote:Render Layer Masks are not rendered by Octane, but by Cinema 4D instead, on the CPU. If you are using Render Layers, that is your suspect.

If I wanted to have the farm nodes render individual frames (instead of pooling together as they do now) that would require another stand alone (studio?) licenses for each, correct? Since I have two licenses of C4d, I may get a 2nd Octane license for one of them at the very least...

Hi,
as Jay said, if you are using the old Render Layer Masks, they are not supported in Standalone/Render-Nodes, or ORC/RNDR.

Old Layer Masks are not good, since are calculated by c4d internal render, so they cannot consider DOF or Motion Blur, and can only offer a brutal b&w mask of the geometry.
They were added in c4doctane plugin, when Octane did not have any pass related to Layer ID.

You should need to use Cryptomatte instead:
http://www.aoktar.com/octane/Cryptomatte.html
From 2018.1(v5), we have added the support to Cryptomatte masking system.

Cryptomatte is designed to obtain all the necessary masks in one go, and you can use EXR-IO to import the Cryptomatte passes in Photoshop:
https://www.exr-io.com/

For AE please have a look at this video here:
https://youtu.be/ejJA6-uj5rY

If you need only few specific masks, another option is to use the Octane Object tag, assign a specific color to a mesh or group of meshes, via Object Layer tab, and enable the Object Layer Color pass in the InfoChannel pass section:


it will give you all the masks in one pass, saving a lot of rendering time, and if you use pure colors, it is easy to isolate the desired mask in compositing.


About licenses in Team-Render mode, you need a complete OctaneRender license for each client.
If the machine has max 2x GPUs, a Studio license is enough, if the machine has 3x GPUs or more, you need an Enterprise license.

Happy Net GPU rendering,
ciao Beppe