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After about fifteen weeks working on the render farm, I believe that I am about done with this phase of the project.  Looking back at the original proposal for the project, I noticed how much has changed since the beginning of the semester.  From MentalQueue to sleeping render clients, it has been quite an adventure.  I also noticed how much has actually been accomplished.  First of all, I was able to get MentalRay to work with RenderPal, producing a somewhat automatically managed rendering environment.  With much help from Bob, we were able to configure network drives to connect to the shares required for the shaders and project files.  I also began development of a script to install MentalRay and RenderPal to client machines, along with setting environment variables and starting services.  I ran several of my projects through the render farm, including one that spanned several days.  I also taught a friend, who may be doing the render wrangling next semester, how to run the basics of the render farm.  Currently, I am sending several projects from the advanced 3D class through the render farm.

On Friday I spent most of the time on the render farm finishing up documentation, waking computers, troubleshooting why the MentalRay renderers were not working, and starting renders.  All last week and probably well into next week I will be working on setting up student renders and troubleshooting errors.  It seems that I have acquired the temporary role of render wrangler for the semester.

I will be giving my final presentation on Wednesday at 2:00 in Science Hall room 122.  Come then to see and hear more about this project!

Andrew

6 hours