Mastering LW ScreamerNet

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To successfully render a scene using ScreamerNet you must first prepare the scene correctly, before submitting it to be rendered. The first thing to verify is that your scene files are properly structured in a self contained Content Directory as explained previously.

• Setting a Scene’s Render Globals
  • Frame Range to Render
  • PPC & UB Render Output Destinations
• LWSN Spreadsheet Bug

Setting a Scene’s Render Globals

Once your scene is properly structured in a self contained Content Directory, you need to open it in LightWave to set a number of render settings.

Frame Range to Render

When rendering scenes with LightWave or with ScreamerNet in batch or network mode (-2), you must set the range of frames to render directly within the scene itself. When rendering scenes with ScreamerNet in standalone mode (-3) or when using a third party network controller you may override the scene’s render range setting at the time of rendering.

Follow these steps to set the frame range to render for a scene:s

1. Launch LightWave 9.
2. Load the desired scene with: File->Load->Load Scene...
3. Open the Render Globals panel with: Render->Options->Render Globals
4. Set the following fields:
   
   • Range Type: Single (ScreamerNet doesn’t work with other range types.)
   • First: The first frame number to render.
   • Last: The last frame number to render.
   • Step: Frame increment to render.
     For example:
     1 renders every frame starting with the first frame, up to the last frame.
     2 renders every other frame starting with the first frame, up to the last frame.
     5 renders every fifth frame from the first frame to the last frame.
     -1 renders every frame in reverse order, from the first frame down to the last frame, in this case the first frame would be set higher than the last frame.
5. Save the scene file.

PPC & UB Render Output Destinations

You must set the scene’s render output destination within the scene file itself, or none of the rendered frames will be saved anywhere. You must set the render output prefix file name, file format and destination path in the scene file itself within LightWave, before rendering the scene with ScreamerNet.

ScreamerNet only renders individual frames, not animations in formats such as QuickTime. Instead, you render your animations to still frames and then use QuickTime Player, After Effects, Final Cut Pro or another program to load the image sequence, and save it as a QuickTime movie.

NOTE: As of LW9.3, Mac PPC and UB output paths saved in a scene file are not compatible with the other version of ScreamerNet. This means you must set the output path using the same version of Layout as you intend to render with. If you intend to render on LWSN PPC then you must use LightWave PPC to set the output paths in the scene. If you intend to render on ScreamerNet UB, then you must use Layout UB to set the output paths in the scene. 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.

Follow these steps to set the render output settings for a scene:

1. Launch LightWave 9 (PPC or UB depending upon which version you wish to render with)
2. Load the desired scene with: File->Load->Load Scene...
3. Open the Render Globals panel with: Render->Options->Render Globals
4. Click the Output tab.
5. Locate the Save RGB section of the Output area.
6. Click the RGB Files button.
   
7. Type a file name prefix in the Save As field of the RGB File Prefix file dialog. This can be any name you wish. LightWave will add a frame number and file extension to each rendered image file. In this example we’ll use the word RenderFileName as the RGB prefix.
8. Navigate to the directory you wish to use to save the rendered frames.
   LightWave defaults to use the Images directory inside the Content directory.
   It’s usually a good idea to make a new folder inside the images folder to keep all the separate rendered frames for a single scene together. Then use this new folder as the output destination directory.
   NOTE: All users running ScreamerNet must have read/right access to this output directory.
9. Click the Save button to dismiss the RGB File Prefix dialog and accept the changes.
10. Set the RGB Type pop-up field to any desired file type, such as LW_TGA32(.tga)
11. Set the output’s filename Format pop up to any naming format you wish. This tells ScreamerNet how to name each frame image file. The names are built from the RGB Prefix you typed followed by a frame number and optional filename extension. In the above example we’ve selected Name_001.xxx.
12. You should now see RenderFileName_001.tga, ... in the readout field next to the RGB Files button. This is how the rendered image files will be named inside the specified output directory.
13. Save the scene file.
14. If you are using LightWave UB and the output directory is on the host Mac's internal hard drive and you'll be network rendering with the bulit-in Network Render panel, then you must manually edit the output path to add the volume information as follows.
    1. Open the scene file with /Applications/TextEdit.
    2. Type Command-F to open the find dialog.
    3. Type or paste SaveRGBImagesPrefix into the find field and click on the Next button.
    4. This will bring you to a line in the scene file that looks similar to this showing your actual output path (all on one line):
       SaveRGBImagesPrefix /Users/UserName/Documents/LW9Content/Renders/Render
    5. Click immediately in front of the first forward slash /Users, after the space.
    6. 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
    7. Save the scene file.

LWSN Spreadsheet Bug

If you’re still using LightWave 7.5 and you’ve used the spreadsheet (or possibly other master plug-ins) in your scene, you should remove them before rendering with LWSN, or it may hang or crash when loading the scene into LWSN. This bug is fixed in LightWave 8 and beyond.

1. First make a backup copy of your scene file, never edit your only copy of a scene.
2. Open the scene file in LightWave 7.5 and go to Scene->Utilities->Master Plug-ins.
3. Select and delete any Master Plug-ins that appear.
4. Save the scene.
5. Open the scene file in a text editor, such as BBEdit, or TextEdit (Make sure TextEdit’s preferences are set to plain text mode).
6. Delete any remaining pairs of Master Plug-in lines near the beginning of the file that look like this.
   Plugin MasterHandler 1 .SpreadsheetStandardBanks
EndPlugin
Plugin MasterHandler 2 .SpreadsheetStandardBanks
EndPlugin
7. Save the scene file as a plain text file, keeping the ".lws" extension. Don’t let your text editor change the extension to ".txt".

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