Just used bryce lightening last night for the first time. The final image opens in media player instead of Bryce. So, its for animation only and the long stills can't be done on network render? That sux. Any suggestions?

I believe that is the case. I have seen articles on tying together multiple pc's to use them as one large cpu. I'm sure it requires networking knowledge. Anyone else know anything?

Just make a one-frame AVI and convert it back into a BMP after you rendered it.

Rayraz has the answer. Just remember to set compression options on avi to none (full frames, uncompressed).

Ok, I'll try that. Thanks a bunch. Now to figure out how to convert.

Open in any Video editor and do "Save frame" or the like. Lots of demo editors available for download, VideoWave is one of them and Microsoft has Windows Media tools available for free. At worst do screen capture with vid paused and edit borders (erase).

Try this. It works fine for me.

When you go to Render Animation, click on Output file to get the drop down and change it to BMP sequence. The default name will be something0000.bmp, then configure the network render. When it's done, you will have a single bmp file.

If you are using a Mac the preceding is probably irrelevant.

And, will this technique make it so the linked pc's are using their combined cpu power to render the one frame? (Silly question, but just curious/want to make sure) -Any stuff like this I am collecting for the Bryce Backroom, kinda a compendium of Bryce info.

You've got a point there AgentSmith. I haven't thought of that yet, could someone with a network check it out?

Yes. What it does is break up the picture into 100x100 pixel sections and each machine renders one of those sections and then grabs the next available section when it is done. When everything is done it opens your default bmp viewer and displays the picture.

A couple of things to remember:

The network render doesn't work with Render to Disk so you are limited the the default dpi.

It closes out the BR5 file before it starts to render so save it if it asks you to (I learned that the hard way).

The bmp file won't automatically open with the br5 file unless you rename it the same as the br5 file.

Make sure you select Use Host to Render in the network configuration if you want the main computer to participate. It's not selected by default.

oooooo....good stuff, good stuff.

I think I should get my old computer networked to my new computer. I've been thinking about it for some tme now, but I've still not done it.