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Basic network rendering with ScreamerNet enables you to harness
your entire network of powerful Macintosh computers to render
your LightWave
scenes much faster than would be possible on a single machine.
Network rendering with ScreamerNet is almost exactly the same as batch
rendering, described previously, which you should review before
proceeding with the following network tutorial. The only difference
between network and batch rendering is that some of the ScreamerNet
nodes run on additional Macs on your network, rather than all on
a single
machine.
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In order to perform network rendering, you’ll obviously
need a functioning network. This tutorial assumes that you have
at least a basic peer-to-peer Mac OS X network already up and
running
which allows you to connect from one Mac to another to share
files. You don’t need Mac OS X Server (unless you need
to network more than ten Macs), any version of Mac OS X is capable
of peer-to-peer networking. If
you
don’t
already have a physical network, you’ll first need to set
one up. You can find information about setting
up a Mac OS X network with this Google search.
This tutorial was written using Mac OS X.4.9 running on a 100
Base-T Ethernet network and LightWave
9.3. Other versions of Mac OS X and/or LightWave may be slightly
different,
but the
basic
concepts
will remain
the same...
There was a bug in Mac OS X.2.6 that sometimes prevented more
than four LWSN instances from sharing the same dynamic loading
libraries and/or plug-ins successfully over the network. The
symptoms were that the fifth and higher LWSN nodes sometimes
crashed on launch (warning about missing various libraries that
weren’t really missing), or crashed when loading a scene. This
bug appears to be partially fixed in Mac OS X.2.8, though I have
still seen nodes higher than four sometimes crash on loading
scenes, fail to save frames and fail to load textures. This bug
appears to have been fixed in Mac OS X.3.3 and later. However,
for best results with more than four LWSN nodes, I still prefer
to
install
separate copies of ScreamerNet, shared libraries and all plug-ins
on each remote rendering machine as outlined later in Advanced
Network Rendering with LWSN Mac.
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The simplest way to set up network rendering on Mac OS X entails
logging into the host machine (the Mac with the LightWave applications
and possibly the Content Directory) as the same administrative
user from each remote network machine. Then running the ScreamerNet
nodes
on the
remote rendering machines, from the host machine across the network.
This way there is only one set of configs, programs, shared libraries
and plug-ins. As the host machine’s administrator you then
have full read/write access to everything you need on the host
machine. You’ll be logging into the host machine from each
remote rendering machine and mounting the host machine’s
main hard drive on the desktop of each render machine. This means
that all your hard drives must have unique names, or LightWave
won’t know which hard drive to access, the local drive
or the remote drive.
Therefore, the first step to set up your network for rendering
is to simply
give a unique name to each hard drive on each machine you wish
to
use
as either
a host
or
render
machine. If they don’t already have unique names that is. For
example you could name the main hard drives for each machine
as follows: HostHD, Render01HD, Render02HD, Render03HD or
anything else that keeps each hard drive name unique.
The next step in setting up your network rendering is to make
sure the host machine, which contains your LightWave applications
and Content Directory, is available on the network for the other
remote rendering machines to log into.
Simply follow these steps to verify that your host machine is
available:
- Launch System Preferences from the Apple
menu or the Dock.
- Click the Sharing icon under Internet & Network.
- Click the Services tab.
- Select Personal File Sharing and click the Start button,
if it’s not already on.
- Click the Firewall tab and click Start if
the firewall was not already on. This helps keep your Mac secure.
- In some cases, such as if you’re running any older
Mac OS 9 systems as render nodes (with LWSN 7.5), it may also
be necessary to activate
AppleTalk.
- Click the Network icon at the top
or under Internet & Network.
- Select Built-in Ethernet on the Show:
pop-up menu.
- Click the AppleTalk tab.
- Turn on the Make AppleTalk Active checkmark.
Now you need to mount the host machine’s main hard drive
onto the desktop of each of the remote render machines. Simply
follow these steps on each remote rendering machine:
- In any Finder window, click the Network icon.
- Locate and select the host machine on the network, it may
show up directly or you may need to open a subgroup
depending upon how your network is configured.
- Once the host machine is selected, click the Connect button.
- When the log-in screen appears click the Registered
User button.
Guest access won’t work in this instance since you wouldn’t have
sufficient read/write privileges.
- Enter the username and password of the main administrative
user of the host machine, not necessarily the remote rendering
machine, unless they are the same. You must log into the host
as the host administrator to mount
the host machine’s main hard drive. Click the Connect button
when ready.
- You’ll now get a dialog box showing all available home
directories as well as all hard drives connected to the host
computer. Select the main hard drive of the host computer where
your LightWave applications and Content Directory are located.
Click OK and the hard drive will be mounted
on the desktop of the remote rending node.
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Here’s a step-by-step example of how to perform basic
network rendering of included LightWave sample scenes using LWSN
PPC in network render mode (-2) on the host Macintosh with the
built-in Network Rendering controller. This example uses four
LWSN instances
running on two Dual Core or Dual Processor remote Macs.
One instance of LWSN is run for each available CPU. A third
Macintosh host machine is left free to handle the network controller.
For best results with more than four
ScreamerNet nodes, I prefer to use the Advanced
Network Rendering with Mac ScreamerNet setup described later.
In this example we will use the default Mac OS X LWSN
PPC config file location of: HostHD:Users:adminUserName:Library:Preferences
For more information see Managing LightWave’s
All Important Config Files.
- On the host Mac launch
Applications:NewTek:LightWave
3D 9.3:Layout.
- Set the Content Directory with Edit->Set Content
Directory...
Navigate to and select: HostHD:Users:adminUsername:Documents:LW9Content
This assumes you have installed the LightWave 9 included
content directory to your user’s Documents folder
and have named it LW9Content. See Content
Directory
for more info.
- Open the Render->Utilities->Network Render panel.
- Click the Command Directory button.
See Command Directory for
more information.
- Navigate to the same Content directory you set in
step #2.
- Click New Folder to create a new folder
in the Content directory and name it
Commands.
- While inside the Commands folder, click the Choose button
to close the dialog and accept the new command directory.
- When asked to initialize ScreamerNet, click No.
(We just want to save a new config.)
- Set the Maximum CPU Number to 4. This tells
the controller how many nodes to look for.
- Open Render->Options->Render Globals and
set the Segment Memory Limit to
32.
See Default Segment Memory for
more information.

- Click yes when asked if this should be the
new default setting, or it won’t be saved.
- Click the Render tab and set Multithreading to
1
Thread. We want each node to only use one thread each.
See Multithreading for
more information.

- Quit LightWave to save the config file.
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For more information see Successful
Scene File Preparation for ScreamerNet.
NOTE: As of LW9.3, Mac UB output paths saved in a scene file
are not compatible with LWSN 9.3 PPC. This means you must set
the output path using LightWave 9.3 PPC rather than Layout 9.3
UB.
- Launch
Applications:NewTek:LightWave 3D 9.3:Layout.
- Use File->Load->Load Scene... to load:
:Scenes:Cel_Shade:Drunk_Zombie.lws
- Open Render->Options->Render Globals.
- Set the following render range fields:
- Render First Frame:
100
- Render Last Frame:
200
- Render Frame Step:
10
- Click the Output tab.
- Click the RGB Files button.

- Type
Drunk_Zombie in the Save
As: field.
- Navigate to the top level of the Content Directory,
LW9Content.
- Navigate to the
Renders folder if it already
exists, otherwise create a New Folder in
the top level of the Content Directory named Renders.
- Create a New Folder named
Drunk_Zombie_Renders.
- Click the Save button to dismiss the
dialog and accept the changes.
- Set the RGB Type pop-up menu to
LW_TGA24(.tga)
- The RGB readout should now read
Drunk_Zombie0001.tga,
...
- Save the scene.
- Use File->Load->Load Scene... to load:
:Scenes:Expressions:BigWheel.lws
- Open Render->Options->Render Globals
- Set the following render range fields:
- Render First Frame:
30
- Render Last Frame:
60
- Render Frame Step:
2
- Click the Output tab.
- Click the RGB Files button.
- Type
BigWheel in the Save As: field.
- Navigate to the
Renders folder inside
the Content Directory.
- Create a New Folder named
BigWheelRenders.
- Click the Save button to dismiss the
dialog and accept the changes.
- Set the RGB Type pop-up menu to
LW_TGA24(.tga)
- The RGB readout should now read
BigWheel0001.tga,
...
- Save the scene.
- Quit LightWave
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For more information see Utilizing
LightWave’s Mac Command
Line Parameters.
- Open the directory
HostHD:Applications:NewTek:LightWave
3D 9.3:Layout:Programs
and locate the LWSN application.
- Make four copies of
LWSN and name them LWSN-01 throughLWSN-04,
with no file extension.

- Make one copy of the file
LWSN cmdLine and name
it LWSN-01 cmdLine, with no file extension.
- Edit the
LWSN-01 cmdLine file’s contents
to read, all on one line:
-2 -c"HostHD:Users:adminUserName:Library:Preferences" ":Commands:job1" ":Commands:ack1"
Note: you need to specify the path to the config directory
on the Host machine, since each remote LWSN node will be
using the same config file over the network.
- Save the cmdLine file, making sure no file extension is added
to the filename.
- Duplicate the
LWSN-01 cmdLine file three times
and name them LWSN-02 cmdLine, LWSN-03 cmdLine,
and LWSN-04
cmdLine.
- Edit each of the the LWSN cmdLine file’s
contents by changing the job and ack number to match the file
name’s number, as follows:
LWSN-02 cmdLine contents:
-2 -c"HostHD:Users:adminUserName:Library:Preferences" ":Commands:job2" ":Commands:ack2"
LWSN-03 cmdLine contents:
-2 -c"HostHD:Users:adminUserName:Library:Preferences" ":Commands:job3" ":Commands:ack3"
LWSN-04 cmdLine contents:
-2 -c"HostHD:Users:adminUserName:Library:Preferences" ":Commands:job4" ":Commands:ack4"
- Save each cmdLine file, making sure no file extension is
added to the filename.
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For additional information review Sharing the Host
Machine & Mounting the Host Machine from the
Render Machines.
- On each of the remote Macs, in any Finder window,
click the Network icon.

- Select and Connect to the host machine on
the network.
- Log into the host machine as the main administrative user
of the host machine.
- Select the host machine’s main hard drive to mount
it on the remote desktop.
- Open the host machine’s folder:
HostHD:Applications:NewTek:LightWave
3D 9.3:Layout:Programs
- Launch the next two available
LWSN-0# nodes,
one at a time, on each dual processor remote machine as follows.
- Remote Render Machine 01:
LWSN-01 & LWSN-02
- Remote Render Machine 02:
LWSN-03 & LWSN-04
For more information see Using LightWave’s
Built-in Network Rendering Controller.
- On the host Mac, launch
Applications:NewTek:LightWave
3D 9.3:Layout
- Open the Render->Utilities->Network Render panel.
- Verify that the Maximum CPU Number is set
to
4.
- Click the Screamer Init button.
- Click OK when the dialog appears stating:
4
available ScreamerNet CPUs were detected. You should
now see all LWSN nodes repeatedly writing LightWave
command: wait. and sendack: Ready to
the console. You’ll also see four CPU’s of type
PowerMac listed in the Network Rendering panel
with a status of Ready.
- Click the Add Scene to List button and add
the scene:
:Scenes:Cel_Shade:Drunk_Zombie.lws
- Click the Add Scene to List button again
and add the scene:
:Scenes:Expressions:BigWheel.lws

- Hit the Screamer Render button and the LWSN
nodes will begin rendering frames.
- As each frame is finished, it will be written to the output
directory that was set in each scene.
:Renders:Drunk_Zombie_Renders & :Renders:BigWheelRenders
- If you wish to stop the rendering before it is finished,
press the Escape key while the Network
Rendering panel is in the foreground, then hit the Screamer
Shutdown button. This will stop rendering new frames
and will quit the LWSN nodes once they finish rendering their
current frame. If a LWSN node crashes during loading a scene,
the Network Rendering panel may remain waiting for the scene
to load and may not recover. In such an instance you can force
Quit LightWave with Command-Option-Esc. To
quit a LWSN node before it finishes rendering a frame, bring
it to the foreground and press command-period.
If you try to quit LWSN 7.5 using the menu LWSN->Quit or
by typing command-q, it will crash. This bug
has been fixed in LWSN 8.0 and beyond.
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Here’s a step-by-step example of how to perform basic
network rendering of included LightWave sample scenes using ScreamerNet
UB in network render mode (-2) on the host Macintosh with the
built-in Network Rendering controller. This example uses four
ScreamerNet instances running on two Dual Core or Dual Processor
remote Macs. One instance of ScreamerNet is run for each available
core/CPU. A third Macintosh host machine is left free to handle
the network controller. For best results with more than four
ScreamerNet nodes, I prefer to use the Advanced
Network Rendering with Mac ScreamerNet UB setup described
later.
In this example we will use the default Mac OS X ScreamerNet
UB config file location of: /Users/adminUserName/Library/Preferences/LightWave3D
All our render nodes will access the same programs and config files via the
network.
For more information about the config files see Managing
LightWave’s All Important Config Files.
- On the host Mac launch
/Applications/LightWave3D 9/Layout.
- Set the Content Directory with Edit->Set Content
Directory...
Navigate to and select: /Users/adminUsername/Documents/LW9Content
[Prior to this you must install the LightWave 9 included content directory
to your user’s Documents folder and have named it LW9Content.]
See Content Directory for more
info.
- Open the Render->Utilities->Network Render panel.
- Click the Command Directory button.
See Command Directory for more
information.
- Navigate to the same Content directory you set in step #2.
- Click New Folder to create a new folder
in the Content directory and name it
Commands.
- While inside the Commands folder, click the Choose button
to close the dialog and accept the new command directory.
- When asked to initialize ScreamerNet, click No.
(We just want to save a new config.)
- Set the Maximum CPU Number to 4. This tells
the controller how many nodes to look for.
- Open Render->Options->Render Globals and
set the Segment Memory Limit to
32.
See Default Segment Memory for
more information.

- Click yes when asked if this should be the
new default setting, or it won’t be saved in the config.
- Click the Render tab and set Multithreading to
1
Thread. We want each render node to only use one thread
each. See Multithreading for
more information.

- Quit LightWave to save the config file.
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For more information see Successful
Scene File Preparation for ScreamerNet.
NOTE: As of LW9.3, Mac PPC output paths saved in a scene file
are not compatible with ScreamerNet 9.3 UB. Also, LW9.3 UB fails
to record the volume information in the output path if the output
directory is on the host Mac's internal system drive. This means
you must manually edit the output path in the scene file if you
wish to have the output directory on the main system drive of
the host machine. If the output path is on an external hard drive,
then the proper volume information will be recorded in the output
path. This is another reason that I prefer to use the Advanced
Network Rendering with Mac ScreamerNet UB setup described
later since the third party controllers can remap the output
paths correctly.
- Launch
/Applications/LightWave3D 9/Layout.
- Use File->Load->Load Scene... to load:
Scenes/Cel_Shade/Drunk_Zombie.lws
- Open Render->Options->Render Globals.
- Set the following render range fields:
- Render First Frame:
100
- Render Last Frame:
200
- Render Frame Step:
10
- Click the Output tab.
- Click the RGB Files button.

- Type
Drunk_Zombie in the Save
As: field.
- Navigate to the top level of the Content Directory,
LW9Content.
- Navigate to the
Renders folder if it already
exists, otherwise create a New Folder in
the top level of the Content Directory named Renders.
- Create a New Folder named
Drunk_Zombie.
- Click the Save button to dismiss the
dialog and accept the changes.
- Set the RGB Type pop-up menu to
LW_TGA24(.tga)
- The RGB readout should now read
Drunk_Zombie0001.tga,
...
- Save the scene.
- Open the
Drunk_Zombie.lws scene file with
/Applications/TextEdit.
- Type Command-F to open the find dialog.
- Type or paste
SaveRGBImagesPrefix into
the find field and click on the Next button.
- This will bring you to a line in the scene file that
looks like this (all on one line):
SaveRGBImagesPrefix /Users/adminUserName/Documents/
LW9Content/Renders/Drunk_Zombie/Drunk_Zombie
- Click immediately in front of the first forward slash
/Users,
after the space.
- Type or paste the following (replacing HostHD with
the real name of your host Mac's HD) onto the front of
the path immediately before
/Users:
/Volumes/HostHD
- Save the scene file.
- Use File->Load->Load Scene... to load:
Scenes/Expressions/BigWheel.lws
- Open Render->Options->Render Globals
- Set the following render range fields:
- Render First Frame:
30
- Render Last Frame:
60
- Render Frame Step:
2
- Click the Output tab.
- Click the RGB Files button.
- Type
BigWheel in the Save As: field.
- Navigate to the
Renders folder inside
the Content Directory.
- Create a New Folder named
BigWheel.
- Click the Save button to dismiss the
dialog and accept the changes.
- Set the RGB Type pop-up menu to
LW_TGA24(.tga)
- The RGB readout should now read
BigWheel0001.tga,
...
- Save the scene.
- Open the
BigWheel.lws scene file with
/Applications/TextEdit.
- Type Command-F to open the find dialog.
- Type or paste
SaveRGBImagesPrefix into
the find field and click on the Next button.
- This will bring you to a line in the scene file that
looks like this (all on one line):
SaveRGBImagesPrefix /Users/adminUserName/Documents/
LW9Content/Renders/BigWheel/BigWheel
- Click immediately in front of the first forward slash
/Users,
after the space.
- Type or paste the following (replacing HostHD with
the real name of your host Mac's HD) onto the front of
the path immediately before
/Users:
/Volumes/HostHD
- Save the scene file.
- Quit LightWave
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For additional information review Sharing
the Host Machine & Mounting the
Host Machine from the Render Machines.
- On each remote Mac, in any Finder window,
click the Network icon.

- Select and Connect to the host machine on
the network.
- Log into the host machine as the main administrative user
of the host machine.
- Select the host machine’s main hard drive to mount
it on the remote desktop.
After
going through the tedious process of manually launching the individual
ScreamerNet UB nodes, I decided there should be a better way,
so I made one. I wrote an XCode Aqua GUI front end to configure
and launch ScreamerNet UB nodes in a much easier and far less
error prone manner. This utility is called DLI_SNUB-Launcher.
The following steps will show you how to use DLI_SNUB-Launcher
to more easily set up and launch your ScreamerNet UB nodes. You
may use the FREE
LITE Version. of DLI_SNUB-Launcher for this tutorial. If
you find DLI_SNUB-Launcher as useful as I do, you may register
for a FULL or PRO serial
number later.
- Download your free lite version of DLI_SNUB-Launcher to your
host Mac by right clicking on the link below and selecting
Save Linked File from
the pop-up menu.
DLI_SNUB-Launcher.zip
- After downloading the DLI_SNUB-Launcher.zip file, unzip the
file by double-clicking it.
- Drag the expanded DLI_SNUB-Launcher to the
/Applications/LightWave3D
9 folder on the host Mac.

You may run the DLI_SNUB-Launcher application from any location
you wish, but if you place it in your LightWave3D folder, it
will be able to find ScreamerNet by itself. DLI_SNUB-Launcher
defaults to look for ScreamerNet in the same folder as the DLI_SNUB-Launcher
application. If you ever wish to uninstall it, simply drag DLI_SNUB-Launcher
to the trash.
- On each dual processor remote rendering Mac access and run
/Volumes/HostHD/Applications/LightWave3D
9/DLI_SNUB-Launcher,
across the network from the host Mac and configure it
to use all host paths as follows:

- Click the ScreamerNet Path button and choose the Host Mac’s
ScreamerNet Path:
/Volumes/HostHD/Applications/LightWave3D
9/ScreamerNet
- Click the -c Config Folder button and
choose the following host config folder:
/Volumes/HostHD/Users/userx/Library/Preferences/LightWave3D
- Activate (using the check mark at the left) then click
the -d Content Folder button and choose
the
/Volumes/HostHD/Users/userx/Documents/LW9Content folder.
- On the bottom Batch Render Settings drawer click the Command
Folder button and choose the
/Volumes/HostHD/Users/userx/Documents/LW9Content/Commands folder.
(Use the New Folder button to create a Commands folder
inside the LW9Content volume/folder if you
haven’t already.)
- On each of the two dual processor remote Macs set the
node numbers as follows:
- Remote Render Machine 01: First Node # 1 Through
Last Node # 2
- Remote Render Machine 02: First Node # 3 Through
Last Node # 4
- Click the Launch ScreamerNetUB Nodes button
on each remote Mac.
- Now that all your ScreamerNet nodes are up and running skip
ahead to the Rendering the Network Batch
with LightWave UB’s Built-in Controller.
Another way to configure and launch the ScreamerNet UB nodes
is to manually build the command lines necessary to launch it
in Terminal. For a much easier and far less error prone method
to configure and launch the ScreamerNet UB nodes, just use the
previous interactive method - Interactively
Launching the ScreamerNet UB Nodes with DLI_SNUB-Launcher.
- On the remote machines, launch
/Applications/Utilities/Terminal from
the Host Machine.
- Type or copy/paste the following into the terminal command
line, all on one line, substituting your actual hard drive
name and username. Then press the return key.
"/Volumes/HostHD/Applications/LightWave3D
9/ScreamerNet" -2
-c"/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Library/Preferences/
LightWave3D" -d"/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Documents/
LW9Content" "/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Documents/
LW9Content/Commands/job1" "/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/
Documents/LW9Content/Commands/ack1"
NOTE: In the Advanced
Network Rendering UB setup I'll show how to create
shell scripts to facilitate launching your ScreamerNet
nodes
with the correct information.
- It should identify itself as
CPU number: 1 in
the terminal window.

- Open a new window in Terminal.
- Type or copy/paste the following (which uses '2' for the
job/ack number) into the terminal command line, all on one
line, substituting your actual hard drive name and username.
Then press the return key.
"/Volumes/HostHD/Applications/LightWave3D
9/ScreamerNet" -2
-c"/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Library/Preferences/
LightWave3D" -d"/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Documents
/LW9Content" "/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Documents/
LW9Content/Commands/job2" "/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/
Documents/LW9Content/Commands/ack2"
- It should identify itself as
CPU number: 2 in
the console.
- They may say:
Can’t access job file "/Volumes/HostHD/Users/adminUserName/Documents/
LW9Content/Commands/job#"
This is normal until LightWave creates the job files.
- Then go to the second remote rendering Mac and repeat the
above steps except use job3/ack3 and job4/ack4 in the command
line parameters to launch nodes 3 and 4.
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For more information see Using
LightWave’s Built-in Network Rendering Controller.
- On the host Mac, launch
/Applications/LightWave3D 9/Layout.
- Open the Render->Utilities->Network Render panel.
- Verify that the Maximum CPU Number is set
to
4.
- Click the Screamer Init button.
- Click OK when the dialog appears stating:
4
available ScreamerNet CPUs were detected. You should
now see all ScreamerNet nodes repeatedly writing LightWave
command: wait. and sendack: Ready to
the console. You’ll also see four CPU’s of type
MachOMac listed in the Network Rendering panel
with a status of Ready.
- Click the Add Scene to List button and add
the scene:
Scenes/Cel_Shade/Drunk_Zombie.lws
- Click the Add Scene to List button again
and add the scene:
Scenes/Expressions/BigWheel.lws

- Hit the Screamer Render button and the ScreamerNet
UB nodes will begin rendering frames.
- As each frame is finished, it will be written to the output
directory that was set in each scene.
Renders/Drunk_Zombie_Renders & Renders/BigWheelRenders
- If you wish to stop the rendering before it is finished,
press the Escape key while the Network
Rendering panel is in the foreground, then hit the Screamer
Shutdown button. This will stop rendering new frames
and will quit the ScreamerNet nodes once they finish rendering
their current frame. If a ScreamerNet node crashes during loading
a scene, the Network Rendering panel may remain waiting for
the scene to load and may not recover. In such an instance
you can force Quit LightWave with Command-Option-Esc.
To quit a ScreamerNet UB node before it finishes rendering
a frame, bring its terminal window to the foreground and press command-period.
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