The nXt Render Farm

A Render Farm consists of a group of networked computers working together to complete large rendering tasks. Normally, render farms proceed silently, without graphically displaying the renderings as they progress. Rendering in this manner allows you to use more computer power for lengthy tasks at the expense of some interactivity.
Many third-party render farm products are currently available. The nXt Render Farm Software allows you to work with one of these, or you can set up a simple render farm just using the software provided. The nXt Render Farm Software is sold separately from the nXt platform plugins, such as AccuRender nXt. The software itself is platform independent; AutoCAD is not required on computers which will only be used for render farming.

The nXt Render Farm includes two basic pieces of software:

1. nXtFarmer.exe (nXtFarmer64.exe) is a small program that runs on each network rendering station and waits for jobs to be generated.
2. nXtFarmMonitor.exe (nXtFarmMonitor64.exe) is an applet that shows you the state of your render farm and provides some simple control tools.

The following procedures apply to nXt's included render farm. If you are planning to use third-party render farm software, some of these procedures will be different.

Create a shared folder for use by the render farm. All of the network rendering computers must have read/write access to this folder. The shared folder should have a lot of available disk space to store both data (input) and images (output.) 20 - 200 GB of available storage are recommended. You must perform the following four steps on each computer you plan to use in the render farm, including any nXt workstations which will submit jobs to the render farm:

1. Install the nXt Render Farm Software.
2. From the Start menu, run the Render Farmer on each machine. The Render Farmer will appear as an icon in the system tray.
3. Right click on the icon and select Restore. A window title nXt Farmer should appear.
4. Select Options→Path… from the menu and select the path to the render farm. The Farmer window can now be minimized to the tray.

The Render Farm is now configured. To verify that the farmer machines are responding run the Render Farm Monitor from the Start menu on any of the workstations. The machines should appear in the upper list box. If you wish to exclude a machine from participating in the render farm, you can select it, right click, and choose Suspend.

Updating the Render Farm Software

All participating computers must be updated before a new job can be submitted to the farm. Use the following procedure:

• Wait for any active farm jobs to complete before beginning your update.
• For each participating computer:
  1. If the render farm is currently running, close down the Render Farmer by right-clicking on the tray icon and selecting Close.
  2. Install the nXt Render Farm Software.
  3. Run the Render Farmer from the Start Menu. The tray icon should appear.

The evaluation version of the render farm allows two network machines (nodes) to work on jobs simultaneously. If you wish to have more network nodes running simultaneously you can purchase an unlimited node license here.

Once you have purchased your license and have acquired a Product Key, use one of the following procedures to license your farm.

Post-build 244 procedure (recommended):

1. Wait for any active farm jobs to complete before beginning your licensing.
2. Save your Product Key to a network location so you can easily cut and paste it into each node.
3. For each participating computer:
   1. If the node is currently active, shut it down by right-clicking on the Render Farm tray icon, and selecting Close.
   2. Run the Authorize Farm applet from the nXt Render Farm folder in the Start Menu.
   3. Paste in your Product Key and select OK. A message box indicating success should appear. If an error condition is indicated the licensing procedure has failed and tech support may be required. Click OK.
   4. Start the node by selecting Render Farmer from the nXt Folder of the Start Menu

Pre-build 244 procedure:

1. Wait for any active farm jobs to complete before beginning your licensing.
2. Shut down all network nodes first by visiting each machine, right-clicking on the Render Farm tray icon, and selecting Close.
3. Save your Product Key to a network location so you can easily cut and paste it into each node.
4. For each participating computer:
   1. Run the Render Farmer from the Start Menu. The tray icon should appear.
   2. Right click on the icon and select Restore.
   3. Select Options→Enter Product Key…
   4. Paste in your Product Key and select OK.
   5. Shut down the node by closing the window
5. Once all computers have been licensed you can restart each node

To verify that you are now running a licensed copy, view the About… box:

1. Right click on the tray icon and select Restore.
2. Select Help→About… to view the About box.
3. The word Evaluation should not appear after the version number. (If the version number indicates an Evaluation version, licensing has not been successful and tech support may be required.) Click OK.
4. Minimize the Render Farmer window to return it to the tray.

Currently, four types of jobs can be submitted to the render farm for processing by multiple computers: Single Images from WalkAbout, Batch Jobs, and 3D Slide Shows.

Single views can be split into smaller tasks and distributed to multiple machines. Once the job is complete, the images from these tasks can be reconstructed into a single image using the nXt Image Editor. Using the Path Tracer to render single images on the farm is not recommended at this time due to several known problems resulting in reconstruction artifacts.

Perform the following steps to submit a single image job to the render farm:

1. Launch WalkAbout and configure your rendering and view.
2. Press the Render Farm button on the WalkAbout toolbar.
3. Name the job or accept the default. The date and time is automatically pre-pended to the name you choose. A sub-folder for the job is created in the Render Farm shared folder. An Output folder is also created in the new job folder.
4. Choose to either run the job “now”, “later”, or “after” a scheduled time. If you choose “later” you will need to use the nXt Render Farm Monitor to manually start the job.

After the job is complete, output can be found in the job's Output folder. To reconstruct the output into a single image use the following steps:

1. Open the nXt Image Editor.
2. Load the first image of the sequence, 000000.nXtImage
3. From the menu, select Image→Arithmetic→Add for the standard engine –OR– Image→Arithmetic→Combine Path Tracings… for the Path Tracing engine.
4. Select all of the other images in the sequence (do not select 000000.nXtImage again or it will be counted twice)

Each batch task will be rendered by a single machine.

Perform the following steps to submit a Batch job to the render farm:

1. Configure your Batch tasks in the usual way.
2. Press the Farm… button on the Batch DB.
3. Name the job or accept the default. The date and time is automatically pre-pended to the name you choose. A sub-folder for the job is created in the Render Farm shared folder. An Output folder is also created in the new job folder.
4. Choose to either run the job “now”, “later”, or “after” a scheduled time. If you choose “later” you will need to use the nXt Render Farm Monitor to manually start the job.

After the job is complete, output can be found in the job's Output folder. The output format from Batch jobs is always .nXtImage.

Each transition between two slides will be rendered by a single machine. For example, a slide show with five slides will have four transitions and will produce four tasks for the render farm.

Perform the following steps to submit a 3D Slide Show job to the render farm:

1. Configure your 3D Slide Show in the usual way.
2. Press the Farm… button on the 3D Slide Show DB.
3. Name the job or accept the default. The date and time is automatically pre-pended to the name you choose. A sub-folder for the job is created in the Render Farm shared folder. An Output folder is also created in the new job folder.
4. Choose to either run the job “now”, “later”, or “after” a scheduled time. If you choose “later” you will need to use the nXt Render Farm Monitor to manually start the job.

After the job is complete, output can be found in the job's Output folder. The output format from 3D Slide Show jobs is always png. Your alpha channel choice will be preserved.

The animation will be split into tasks consisting of 20 contiguous frames.

Perform the following steps to submit an Animation job to the render farm:

1. Configure your 3D Slide Show in the usual way.
2. Press the Farm… button on the Animation DB.
3. Name the job or accept the default. The date and time is automatically pre-pended to the name you choose. A sub-folder for the job is created in the Render Farm shared folder. An Output folder is also created in the new job folder.
4. Choose to either run the job “now”, “later”, or “after” a scheduled time. If you choose “later” you will need to use the nXt Render Farm Monitor to manually start the job.

After the job is complete, output can be found in the job's Output folder. The output format from Animation jobs is always png. Your alpha channel choice will be preserved.