2024
 
1.0

Shared Plugins Directory

WIP
Last modified: 18 March 2025

If you are running a render farm on a network of homogeneous operating systems - all Windows PCs or all Macs - the following explanation is not needed. You still need to make sure your nodes all have access to the shared plugins directory over the network.

Managing plugins should be a simple task of verifying that all render nodes have access to the shared plugins directory. If, however, you are running a render farm over both platforms, you should know that LightWave needs a config file for plugins (Extension Cache-64 on the PC, Extension Cache on the Mac) to tell render nodes where to find the plugins they will need for operation.

NRC-heteroplugins.gif
Make sure that the "cross-platform" switch is checked for mixed platform render farms

In this example, a drive shared between Windows and OSX machines in this network contains the configs, content and plugins necessary for operation. As previously stated, the configs directory contains the config files from both platforms, since the names don't collide. The plugins folder has two subdirectories - osx and windows and each contain the entire support directory from the LightWave installations on the respective platforms.

NRC_hetero.gif
This animated GIF shows paths for configs and plugins on a mixed platform farm with a Windows controller

Our goal is to ensure that the plugins can be read from their directories and to do so requires editing of the extension cache config file. NRC will do this automatically, backing up the original configs.

NRC-heteroplugins-apply.gif

At the end of the animation we can see a warning that the original Extension Cache file will be overwritten. The starting version of this file is retained and called Extension Cache.original.