Configuration

mental ray standalone

If you want to render Maya scenes (.mb or .ma) from within Maya or batch render with Maya, you need to install mental ray for Maya on all master machines and mental ray standalone on all slave machines.

If you want to render native mental images (.mi) scenes from the command line using the mental ray standalone renderer, you need to install mental ray on all master and slave machines.

NoteIf you have multiple versions of mental ray standalone installed (not recommended), each must have their own TCP port number in the services file to avoid conflict.

For example:

mi_ray3_0maya4_0 7051/tcp mi_ray3_1maya4_5 7052 and 7053/tcp mi_ray3_2maya5_0 7054/tcp

mental ray for Maya Satellite

If you want to render Maya scenes (.mb or .ma) from within Maya or batch render with Maya, you need to install mental ray for Maya on all master machines and mental ray for Maya Satellite on all slave machines. You can use up to eight CPUs. For more information about installing mental ray for Maya Satellite, see the Installation and Licensing guide.

You can’t render native mental images (.mi) scenes from the command line using the mental ray for Maya Satellite; you must use mental ray standalone.

Configuration files

To specify which network render slave machines a master uses, mental ray for Maya and mental ray standalone use different configuration files:

mental ray for Maya and mental ray for Maya Satellite use a file called maya.rayhosts
mental ray standalone uses a file called .rayhosts

maya.rayhosts

mental ray for Maya and mental ray for Maya Satellite look for maya.rayhosts in the following directories:

user’s Maya preference directory
user’s Maya application directory
user’s home directory

To configure maya.rayhosts files, see Set up a master machine with mental ray standalone (method 2).