3ds Max 9 Bible

If your goal is to spend more time modeling and less time waiting for rendering jobs to complete, then the network rendering services provided by 3ds Max can help you take a step in the right direction. After the initial complexities of setting up a rendering farm are out of the way, network rendering can be a great asset in helping you reach important deadlines, and it lets you enjoy your finished work sooner. Even if you can afford to add only one or two computers to your current setup, you'll see a tremendous increase in productivity-an increase that you can't truly appreciate until you've completed a job in a fraction of the time it used to take!

In this chapter, you accomplished the following:

• Used the Batch Render window to create a batch render queue

• Set up a network suitable for network rendering with Max

• Set up a 3ds Max rendering farm

• Used the rendering manager and servers to carry out rendering jobs

• Used the Monitor to control job priority

• Made Max notify you when problems occur or when jobs finish

• Performed batch rendering even if you don't have a network

In the next chapter, we look at the compositing options and the various Render Elements that are available in Max.