so i was thinking that the crowd-render addon would handle sending texture files from one machine to the other, so its my first crowd render on 2.8 using the latest version of your clearly incredible addon, but it would seem that the node i have set up did not receive any of the texture files, does this mean i need to set up a shared folder on the network and re target all the texture files ? or does each machine need the same file paths ? also even though all the textures did not get copied over the render took about 3 minutes longer.
I will be chipping in as soon as I can because your addon is excellent, so here is the strange thing. The blend file was packed, and when I swap node one and the local machine it rendered fine but not on the machine it was made on. It's the darndest thing
Hi @ottowells :), ok so short story is;
1. All external files need to be packed before you connect to a node, if you have already used this file with your render nodes, then you'll need to pack the textures, then you'll need to press "resync" to upload the blend file again and replace each render node's local copy of your project with the new file that has the textures packed into it.
2. Slow performance is expected on the first render. Our load balancer is, well, not a good design. We're working on a new one.
Ok, now for a slightly longer answer.
1. We had a go at crowdfunding some of the missing features such as automatically handling external dependencies in May last year. Sadly we didn't do that well. Because of each of that were working on the project had to find day jobs since it was clear that there was not going to be enough funds to allow us to work on Crowdrender full time. We're still working on the project, but we have far less time now we're working to pay our expenses at other jobs.
2. Similar to 1. the load balancer was going to be replaced as part of the crowdfunding project, we're still designing and working on our beta, which is a significant upgrade in every possible way to the current alpha software. However, its very slow going.
Good news is we're not giving up, we'll still develop the software as much as we can. We're also planning to launch a revamped campaign to get community support on an ongoing basis to fund the costs associated with running and developing crowdrender.
With time and with many supporters we're confident that Crowdrender can be the best render farm software there is, since this is our goal. We're committed to making great software, but, we are limited in our time.
So watch this space and if you're feeling inclined to support us, a regular monthly donation of even a few dollars would really help ;).
Kind Regards
James