I have looked at the stuff for Bryce Lightning, have read all about how to set up each of the computer settings, have typed in the IP addresses, etc., but when I need to render something, and I try to use Bryce Lightning, the computers never recognize what the other is doing, nothing happens on the client computer. How are the computers supposed to be connected to each other?

Hopefully someone who has more knowledge on Lightning will comment, but, I had the same problem and what I had to do to get it working properly was to disable my DSL modem while using Lightning. However after doing that twice I was able to use Lightning withuot having to do disable the modem. Just gremlins I guess ? Anyhow, like I said, there are a lot of people here who use it, and you're sure to get the assistance you require. Best of luck. BTW, when I did get it working it(Lightning) only gave a 20-35% increse in render times,.....I was expecting more.

INCREASE in render times?!?! oohh..... thats bad news for me.

maybe he meant decrease...i don't know, as i don't use Lightning.

Yeah,.....I meant decrease. Hey I'm old.........and I misspelled it to boot. The main place I've found that it really helps is with images that have a lot of tranparent and reflective materials. I find that with light rigs like semi-domes or madmax's Zentith light rigs Lightning makes little difference,.....course that could just be me. Hope you can get the info you need. Have you tried searching past threads for the subject line "Lightning" ?

The thing to remember with Bryce Lighteneing and networking is that you're probably using newer processers in conjunction with older slower ones. While you're using a screamer in the Ghz speeds now, that old clunker you're networked to is probably working at Mhz speeds. This actually CAN increase the time taken to do a render. Once you get past that, the problem of having your main machine render as well as the networked machines is a simple matter of actually clicking that little checkbox that says "Use Host To Render" Under your network render settings.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1662274

Take a look at the attached thread. As Steve mentioned, due to the fact that Bryce won't skip tiles this may make a render take longer or show only a small advantage (i.e. your fast machines won't start a new tile until the old machine has finished). However, if you have a good number of machines (4+) you should almost definately see an advantage. Also when rendering an animation, machine can jump frames, so the old clunker won't slow things down so much. Final note, if you have firewalls setup you may need to allow access from the controlling computers IP address (can't get too detailed here as it depends on firewall, and it's setup - but it's worth checking)

--"As Steve mentioned, due to the fact that Bryce won't skip tiles this may make a render take longer or show only a small advantage (i.e. your fast machines won't start a new tile until the old machine has finished)."--

I may be misunderstanding what is being said here, but that's not the way it works when I am using Lightning.

I have a 1.7 Ghz and a 933 Mhz machine in the network. When the faster one is finished it starts the next tile whether the other is done or not. It does roughly two tiles for every one that the slower computer does.

TC

Strange, it's never done it for me and I've tried on a few different networks, anyone else played with lightning? I'd love to know if there's some tweak I could make to get it to behave a Yewston says, if not could be a suck it and see situation for all you potential users out-there. I've been using it mainly on a network of a 1.4G p4, twin 1G p3 server and a 600M pIII. and it waits for the 600M pIII to finish it's tile, it may be because I've always been using the slowest machine (my old lapdog) as the render manager though????

Strange, it's never done it for me and I've tried on a few different networks, anyone else played with lightning? I'd love to know if there's some tweak I could make to get it to behave a Yewston says, if not could be a suck it and see situation for all you potential users out-there. I've been using it mainly on a network of a 1.4G p4, twin 1G p3 server and a 600M pIII. and it waits for the 600M pIII to finish it's tile, it may be because I've always been using the slowest machine (my old lapdog) as the render manager though - I only just thought of that while typing!!!! D'oh

What OS and what type of cable are you using for the connection between both computers ? BabaLouie

I have Bryce itself running on the faster computer and have only done it that way. Maybe it does matter which computer is the host. I don't have Bryce installed on the second computer, just Lighting, so I can't check it out at this time. I've also used a third computer in the network (1.4 Ghz laptop) and it works just the same.

The faster one is running XP and the older computer is running 2000. Just using standard network cables.

TC

Yewston, Well, after I posted my question, I had to stop and think about what cable I was using. :) I do not recall if it was 'straight thru' or 'rolled' ethernet that I used between my two nics. I believe it is the straight, unfortunantly, I am in the process of packing up and moving to another city so all my toys and manuals are put away. Good point about Bryce not installed on the second PC, a person only needs Lightening installed on the second PC. I have used several different setups, dual 866, single 733, and single 2.66 all with Win2k and have not noticed that it made much difference which PC ran Bryce and which PC had Lightening on it.

My setup is as follows. My main Brycing machine is my 1Ghz Athlon, my second and newer machine is a 1.8Ghz Celeron and my old workhorse is a 166Mhz Pentium. I've tried using my 1.4 Ghz Laptop as well but it doesn't like to stay awake or locks up due to overheating so I stopped trying. In anycase, you are right, if your slow clunker is the host, it won't go to the next frame. I run Lightening on the slow machine and the 1Ghz is host and goes to the next frame just fine leaving the clunker behind. It's been a while since I rendered an animation on the network but the 1.8 and 1Ghz machines do make a render go faster. Adding the clunker (Which is what I was warning against) just defeats the purpose of rendering on the network because frankly, a 166Mhz machine is just too darned slow to be any use to anyone other than SETI@Home which is what it's been relegated to running ever since.

In my setup mentioned above, only the 600 has full bryce, the others are lightning only, that's why I've never tested in a different configuration.

Here's a good question, I think. Has anyone tried running Bryce Lightening on a duel-processor machine on the second processor? Can this even be done?

Steve, Yes I've done it, you can run a bryce client as render manager and a copy of lightning on one machine and it utilises both processors.