C4D Net Render Client on remote workstation

[David Wiffen]

Thanks so much for your help.

I totally understand what you are saying.

I think I must have a port forwarding issue somewhere as the project never says “start rendering” it only says “Connection established”.

So what would I need to do from the client side in terms of port mapping on the router? I havent set anything up there – it’s default.

On the server end I have 8080 mapped to my computer’s mac address. This allows me to check the net render interface using my external IP and is allowing the net client to connect.

Thaks foe your help.

[David Coiffier]

Well, if you have port forwarding issue, you can refer to my 3 years old answer, at the beginning of this thread. Here is a copy :

If at home, you’re behind a NAT, then you need a port forward rule that says “incoming TCP on 1080 goes to this particular local IP” (1080 is default port)

Next refinement is to connect several clients from one IP :
All you have to do is get a different port for each client behind the router, by specifying in the client prefs dialog other ones :1081, 1082, etc…
Of course, you also need port forwarding rules for each machine…

Let me know if something is unclear…

[David Wiffen]

Ok I’ve got port forwarding set up on client side router now. It’s forwarding 1080 (default port) forwarded to the relevant ip address for that client.

I start net client and it says connected. Strangley now though in the net server console it’s not showing a new client connected – it’s saying ‘maximum amount of net clients exceeded’ which it keeps posting every few seconds.

Before I did the port forwarding on client it would connect in client and server console but not see the job or start rendering anything.

Any ideas on that one?

[David Wiffen]

sorry should have read more before replying – i dont think i have put my serial in net server bit on personalise.

Awesome now it’s started the job…let see if it does a frame!

Quick question regarding tex folder size…does it have to pass the whole contents of the tex to the client of the web, or just the files used at that moment in the scene?

Also does it have to pass the tex files once at the beginning or for every frame?

[David Wiffen]

“over the web” i mean

[David Coiffier]

From my understanding, the whole tex folder is uploaded to the clients, whatever file is used or not.
Than means you have to manage more or less manually this folder. One easy way is to save project from C4D to your admin folder, once you have removed all unused textures within C4D. This way you should only copy used files.
Once scene and tex files are uploaded to your client(s), they’re used until the end of the render.
But if you stop and relaunch a netrender, server will push again all files to the client(s). Sounds a bit rude, but it’s a good idea anyway to avoid versioning problems in your files.

So does it render now ??

[David Wiffen]

Thanks for the response.

It hasnt rendered as i stopped it after taking another look at the tex folder which was actually 2gb! I have xrefs turning on and off in the scene so saving project with assets only pulls the tex and xref references for the xrefs currently turned on – annoyingly. So I’m left with having to copy the whole tex folder in the admin folder and all xrefs just to be safe. Anyway thats another point.

I’m sure it will render a smaller scene (this one is a beast) as I could see the data was being sent from server to client in both activity monitors.

I’ll do a test when things calm down and post back here.

Thanks for all your help 🙂