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Preparing Compositions
for Network Rendering
The way you construct a composition in Fusion Studio can help or hinder network rendering.
The media you read in, where plug-ins are installed, and the mix of operating systems on your
networked computers all play a part in how smoothly your network rendering goes. Your setup must
include several essential parts before network rendering will work:
– License dongle, Render Master, and Render Nodes must be on the same local network (subnet).
– Fusion Server must be running as a background service on the same
computer where the dongle is installed.
– All source media from the comp should be placed on a network volume.
– The network volume must be mounted on each Render Node.
– Loaders must point to the media on the mounted volumes.
– Savers must write to a drive that is mounted on each render node.
– The Fusion comp must be saved to a volume that is mounted on each Render Node.
– All Render Nodes and Render Masters need read and write access to any volumes specified as a
source media location or render destination.
– Make sure all fonts used in the comp for Text+ and 3D text nodes are installed on all the
Render Nodes
– Make sure all Render Nodes have third-party OFX plug-ins installed if any are used in the comp.
Below are more details about some of these items.
Using Relative Paths
The file paths used to load a composition and its media, and to save the composition’s rendered
results, are critical to the operation of network rendering. Each computer used for network rendering
must be able to access the media location for each Loader in the comp. Savers must be set up to save
to folders that all Render Nodes can see and to which all Render Nodes have write permission. Even
the composition must be saved in a folder accessible to all Render Nodes, and it should be added to
the queue list using a path that’s visible to all Render Nodes.
For example, if you open a composition located at c:\compositions\test1.comp in Fusion Studio and
add the composition to the network rendering queue, the Render Manager sends a message to each
Render Node to load the composition and render it. The problem is that each computer is likely to
have its own c:\drive that does not contain the comp you created. In most cases, the Render Nodes
will be unable to load the composition, causing it to fail.
Path Maps located in Fusion Preferences are virtual paths used to replace segments of file paths. They
can change the absolute paths used by Loader and Saver nodes to relative paths. There are a number
of Path Maps already in Fusion, but you can also create your own. The most common path to use is the
Comp:\ path.
Comp:\ is a shortcut for the folder where the actual composition is saved. So, using Comp:\ in a Loader
makes the path to the media file relative, based on the saved location of the comp file. As long as all
your source media is stored in the same folder or subfolder as your comp file, Fusion locates the
media regardless of the actual hard drive name.
Chapter 64Rendering Using Saver Nodes 1073
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