User Guide > Rendering and Render Setup > Rendering > mental ray for Maya rendering > Network rendering >
Set up a master machine with mental ray for Maya
or mental ray for Maya Satellite
First, create a file called maya.rayhosts.
The maya.rayhosts file must contain a listing of each slave machine’s name. These slave machines must be accessible on the network where mental ray for Maya (the master machine) is installed.
For mental ray for Maya masters going to mental ray standalone slaves, you do not need to specify the port if you are using the default port (7009).
For mental ray for Maya Satellite masters, you must add the port number by typing “:<port number>” after the hostname in the maya.rayhosts file. The port number set on mental ray for Maya Satellite slave machines is 7109. For example:
pc-host1:7109 pc-host2:7109
If you are using a non-default port, you can specify it here as well:
lnx-host2:7555
You can use # to comment hosts out so they won’t be used; for example:
# pc-slave4:7109
You can use IP addresses as well as machine names.
The port on which the master issues requests is set in the maya.rayhosts file or defaults to 7009 (the mental ray standalone port).
The port number on the slave and the port number on the master must match for rendering to take place.
Put the maya.rayhosts file in one of the following directories. (They are searched in order and the first maya.rayhosts file that is found is used.)
\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\maya\ 2009\en_US\prefs
\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\maya\ 2009-x64\en_US\prefs
\Users\<username>\Documents\maya\2009\en_US\prefs
\Users\<username>\Documents\maya\2009-x64\en_US\prefs