How to use the V-Ray render farm (Swarm) with Rhino

Use the Swarm to decrease the time it takes to finish a render. The Swarm is built with dedicated servers (nodes) whose only job is to assist with rendering. If the Swarm is busy rendering another student’s job, it will default back to rendering on your computer. 

1. On Rhino’s menu, click V-Ray > Asset Editor.
2. When the Asset Editor opens, click on the Settings icon (gear wheel).
   
   

3. Scroll down to the Swarm section (at the bottom).

   1. Enable the Swarm using the slider.

   2. Current Usage: move the slider from 60% to 100% to use all available nodes.

   3. Network Discovery: disable Auto-Discovery using the slider, and set the Master Swarm Node IP to [Click here to obtain IP number–login required]. You do not need to add a port number after the IP.

   4. Tags: ignore.
      
      
      
      

4. That’s all there is to it. Renderings will now be done on the servers instead of on your computer. 

5. Use the V-Ray Progress Window to track progress and see details.

   1. If the progress window doesn't appear, enable it by clicking the small square icon in the lower right corner of the frame buffer window.
      
      

   2. If things are working correctly, you’ll see messages like:
      
      Server 1xx.xxx.xxx.xx:xxxxx: Scene loaded; starting render
      Server 1xx.xxx.xxx.xx:xxxxx: Starting frame 0
      
      These are the nodes working on your job. Note that it may take several minutes before the nodes are used.
      
      
      
      

   3. You'll also notice under the Swarm panel of the Asset Editor window that the Current Usage box will change from 0% to some higher number as it uses the nodes. It may take a few minutes for the nodes to kick in.
      
      
      
      

6. Textures and materials are automatically sent by your computer to the Swarm as long as they are available on your computer.

7. If the Swarm is busy rendering other V-Ray jobs, your computer will default back to running the render locally on your computer. There isn't a good way to know this, other than you won't see the server messages in the progress window.

8. You must keep the V-Ray Progress Window open during the rendering process.

Troubleshooting

• If a node state is 'Unstable', email us at archit@syr.edu to fix it.
• If you are connecting from off campus, use the Arch RemoteLab or reach out to us at archit@syr.edu to request off campus access.
• For render engine type under the Asset Editor, leave at CPU. The Swarm nodes cannot do CUDA/RTX GPU-based rendering.