3ds max shared vray material library mutliple scenes

Our LAN speed is 1gbps, and all machines are 1 switch away from the file server. The file server is a Dell R740xd with a RAID-10 array of SSDs. The reason I have this hunch is because we have experienced network latency issues when trying to play video, load sequences into After Effects, or save large photoshop files. The theory here is that VRay (or Max?) has a simple timeout timer running when attempting to access assets on a drive, and if the server does not respond quickly enough, Max assumes the files are missing and throws the error. My only hunch right now is that our file server is unable to respond to all the requests from all the render nodes trying to access the same assets at the same time. To give you an idea of frequency: if we are rendering an animation over the course of a few days (so, let's say 72 hours of constant rendering), 1-3 machines will fail to load the VRay assets at some point, requiring manual intervention. It does not happen on the same machine all the time, it does not matter which file is being rendered, and it does not matter which Illustrator is actually sending the file to the render manager (we use Pulze Render Manager). There is no pattern as far as I can tell. So, obviously, this isn't a real solution because it keeps happening at seemingly random times.

When the 'problem' machine is instructed to try the distributed job again, the paths are no longer missing and the render is able to initiate properly. The solution I've found through trial and error is to open Max on the 'problem' machine, load the VRay Material browser, and then close Max. The second image I've attached shows the Max log file entries of such an event. Sometimes, when a machine is loading a file to render - either a frame of an animation OR as a Distributed Render (VRay Spawner) - the VRay Material paths fail to load properly and the render fails. The UNC path for the VRay Material library is part of the User Paths > External Files (Image 1). We have installed the VRay Material Library on a shared drive, and that drive is mapped with UNC paths from each machine. All machines are running version-identical software packages of Max 2022 and VRay 5.2.3. I'm looking for some assistance in troubleshooting an intermittent issue we are experiencing.Īt our studio, we have 13 render nodes and 7 workstations.

3ds max shared vray material library mutliple scenes