This is my first post here and so far I really like what I see. I'm a new Maya user who is about to start school in the next couple months. Just have a question about the rendering engines in Maya and how to set-up rendering process.
My main system is a: Dual Xeon 2.66 GHz Supermicro DAL5-TG2 MB 1 GB Ram PNY FX1000 video card Win XP Pro
I have a home network with a 2.66 GHz system and a laptop with a 2.8 GHz connected, both with 256MB Ram. Question is, how do I get Maya to use these other two processors to render with my main system? Or in your opinion, would that be a waste and the main computer not need their help?
First, I suggest you post this question in Maya's Rendering section, probably you could get more answers there.
For net rendering you can use, I think, two ways:
Using normal Maya in network
Using net renders
To use Maya, check the help files from inside Maya and look the "render" section. Inside it, look for "rendering over a network" (I think is something like this) and they will explain you how to set it up and how to run it.
To use a net render, I suggest you check the "Maya's Rendering" section, one of the first question/answer has the "NETWORK RENDERING" (I think is in caps. letter), and there are some explanations about some network renders.
But, for the moment, my suggest is the "SEB" network render. Is a very new program and seems to be very good. It says it renders a one frame image over a network, this is an option I was looking for a long time. To get it, in highend's homepage, in the updates/news section one of the first items is this "SEB" I'm talking about.
the hassles with network rendering on maya for windows mainly stem from window's crap networking. do a search for a program valled VNC viewer. with that you can access other local machines virtually (control their screen on yours and use their system resources), so you can initiate network renders without any additional software.
it lets you do other cool stuff like navigate around their PC too