Distributed Rendering - An Introduction

Introduction

Distributed rendering is using the computer resources at your disposal to speed the rendering of frames across a network. If you have access to several machines, they can all be pressed into service as render slaves. It means that your main workstation can get on with more creative work while machines that are going unused get on with rendering.

LightWave 2018 added a rapid, modern network render controller (NRC) that intelligently seeks render nodes across a network and applies them to the task of rendering your scenes.

Machines do not need the full LightWave installation to act as render nodes for an NRC render farm. When installing LightWave there is an option for installing purely the aspects needed for a render node. Any machines on your local network can be pressed into service when there's rendering to be done.

Layout ScreamerNet Controller is now deprecated in favor of the NRC system, but instructions are left for people wishing to troubleshoot existing ScreamerNet installations or create new ones.