PRS

Public Rendering Service

There are two ways to configure rendering farms:

  • A client can list the host names (or IP addresses) of the workstations, which are running the network rendering daemon. If the network configuration changes, client's render settings must be changed accordingly.
  • A client can use a Public Rendering Service (PRS) to find network rendering resources.

Usually PRS is the recommended solution. It greatly simplifies management of rendering farms. It is a network service, which connects clients needing rendering services and servers, which provide them. It does not need any parameters or settings to do this job - you just start it in a workstation, which is available for the management work. Despite of the simple nature of this service, PRS is a very powerful tool:

  • A client does not have to know the host names or IP addresses of the servers that will be used for rendering.
  • The configuration of the rendering farm is flexible and can change any time.

Because network rendering daemons (RendD) can use PRS nodes to find sub rendering resources, it is possible to build a hierarchical, worldwide, constantly changing rendering network, which is managed by local administrators and users, who add their idle workstations to the network whenever they find suitable.


En example of a shared, flexible rendering network


Example

Let's imagine you have a LAN consisting of a large number of workstations. The LAN configuration or availability of its computers for rendering purposes changes constantly. As usual, it is best to use the PRS to manage the network rendering.

Start Public Rendering Service in one of the workstations, which is constantly available for the job. Let's assume this workstation has a name 'host5'.

Start the network render daemon in all workstations (including 'host5') as follows:

RenD -pubhost host5

If you use the RendW program instead of RendD, define the PRS host name in its control window:


In the render settings of the client application, for example a view window of Realsoft 3D, enter the PRS host name and port host5:10051 and enable the 'Use Public Rendering Service' option: