Apple Shake (Qmaster 1.2) Distributed Rendering (10.3) - Manual

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Shake Distributed Rendering
Setup Guide
This document takes you through the basic steps involved in the creation of two
different sample setups for Shake distributed rendering with Shake Qmaster. You can
use it to get an idea of the kind of distributed rendering environment you want to
create, and as a guide in setting up that environment.
The setup that resembles the kind of network you need depends on how much
rendering power you want and the kind of hardware you have:
• “ Sample Setup for Part-Time Rendering on Desktop Computers ” (page 3): This setup is
for an environment that uses desktop computers. We call it “part-time” rendering
because each computer acts as someone’s workstation, but at the same time is also
part of the rendering cluster. The bulk of the rendering jobs can be submitted with
Shake Qmaster at the end of the day, so that the computers are busy processing a
large queue of distributed rendering batches after everyone has gone home.
• “ Sample Setup for a Full-Time Render Farm ” (page 6): The full-time render farm setup is
for an environment that includes one Xserve and a number of Xserve cluster nodes
in a rack. The Xserve and cluster nodes form a Shake Qmaster cluster that is
completely dedicated to rendering jobs sent by user workstations (called client
computers). The client computers do not need to do any of the rendering, and they
can all be used for creating and sending Shake jobs.
Note: This section provides a sample setup for both Mac OS X Jaguar and
Mac OS X Panther.
Use this guide as a supplement to the Shake documentation and the Shake Qmaster
Help
(accessible from the Help menu in Shake Qmaster and Shake Qadministrator). The
Shake documentation and the Shake Qmaster Help give you both the background
concepts and the details involved in using Shake and Shake Qmaster, while this
document helps you set up and use the network environment on which they will run.
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