Mastering LW ScreamerNet

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Foreword

Updated for LightWave 9.3.1 ScreamerNet UB & DLI_SNUB-Launcher!

In order to facilitate configuring and launching LightWave 9.3.1 ScreamerNet UB I’ve created a new Aqua GUI front end for ScreamerNet UB named DreamLight® SNUB-Launcher™ that allows you to interactively build your command lines and launch ScreamerNet UB in a Mac friendly error-free manner. Download the Free Lite Version today!

I’m very pleased that NewTek has included most of this DreamLight Insight: Mastering LightWave ScreamerNet for Mac OS X, in the LightWave 9 manual in chapter 26. They have included pretty much everything up to the basic network rendering using the built-in Screamernet panel. They didn’t include the section on advanced network rendering using third party controllers though, which you can still read here on DreamLight.com.

I used a Mac LightWave ScreamerNet render farm set up as outlined in this DreamLight Insight to render my award-winning LightWave 3D animated short film: BlastOff!

LightWave’s LWSN (LightWave ScreamerNet) allows standalone, batch and network rendering across multiple platforms including Mac OS X. Successfully using LWSN on the Macintosh has typically proven rather difficult due to a number of serious issues.

• ScreamerNet relies on arcane command line and config files that can prove rather tricky.
• The supplied documentation was for Windows, with very little Macintosh information.
• The Mac OS X implementation varies from Windows and was largely undocumented.
  (LW9 includes an earlier version of this DreamLight Insight as the Macintosh LWSN documentation but LW9.3’s ScreamerNet UB remains largely undocumented and adds a whole new set of wrinkles to the process.)
• There were a few bugs and pitfalls in ScreamerNet for the Mac.
  (Most of the bugs have been fixed in LW8 and beyond however.)
• The built-in network rendering controller is rather limited.

I originally wrote Mastering LightWave ScreamerNet for Mac OS X from my many notes that I took as I encountered, isolated and worked through all these issues when setting up our own DreamLight Interactive in-house render farm back on LightWave 7.5. I decided to publish this tutorial to help other Macintosh LightWave users avoid some of the frustration that I encountered. After all, ScreamerNet was named for the speed of network rendering, not for what you do when struggling to set it up... ;-)

Mastering LightWave ScreamerNet for Mac OS X will take you through setting up and using ScreamerNet for standalone rendering, batch rendering, basic network rendering with the built-in controller and advanced network rendering with much more robust third party controllers including RenderFarm Commander and ScreamerNet Controller for Mac OS X. These are the controllers that we use to run our DreamLight Interactive in-house render farm. I also cover advanced topics such as using SharePoints to publish your Content Directory from an external hard drive with limited user access and even harnessing render nodes across the Internet.

Each section builds upon the knowledge learned in the previous sections, so for best results you should work your way through this entire tutorial from the beginning, rather than skipping right ahead to the network rendering sections. This DreamLight Insight is not intended to be a simple quick-start tutorial. It’s intended as a very in-depth, detailed discussion of all aspects of ScreamerNet rendering on Mac OS X to allow you to really master it by fully understaning what’s going on under the hood. By really understanding what’s going on, it’s far easier to troubleshoot and keep your render farm rendering.

If you find this DreamLight Insight: Mastering LightWave ScreamerNet for Mac OS X helpful, please consider supporting our continuing efforts by purchasing a registered DLI_SNUB-Launcher license, and/or by purchasing our Award-winning BlastOff! Special Edition DVD.

Thanks for your support!

Enjoy,

Michael Scaramozzino
President and Creative Director

Read Michael Scaramozzino’s LightWave 3D Interview/Profile on NewTek.com

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