Distributed Rendering - An Introduction

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This page is a part of continuing efforts to make the LightWave documentation complete. If a link takes you back to the main page, it leads to a page that hasn't yet been created. Let us know if you find one!

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.

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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.

• NRC Installation — Installing NRC for Windows and Mac with additional options

• Preparing Scenes for NRC rendering — Before you start trying to render on a network, make sure your scene will work

• NRC Interoperability — Running NRC in a heterogeneous network

• Screamernet

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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.

NRC Tutorial

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Contributed by Richard Feeney