Qmaster and Maya... "How to's"

Question

I am attempting to set up Qmaster to network render my modeler's Maya projects. We've been using mentalray's network renderer, but we need to submit AE and FCP files to the same Xservers as well, so Qmaster seems like the easiest way to manage multiple network renders from a single location. We have 3 Xservers that we render to and our shared resources are on a PC (smb) server (that's where our department's "GraphicArts" production server is). I'm new at this network admin thing (really I'm just a designer, our IT guys don't want to have anything to do with the "new" Xservers).
It seems like I've gotten most of the Qmaster setup working. I have the servers with Qmaster installed and they are listening... My cluster seems fine with my G5 as the controller; it reads all my Xservers and the Controller itself... The Maya files render fine to the Xservers from Maya with the mentalray satellites BUT NOT FROM QMASTER! Qmaster will send the render out but it only renders on my G5 controller, not on any of the Xservers, none the less, only to .iff! The submitted Renders all show up in the Batch Monitor but jump to 100% complete as soon as the render starts. When I use the Maya bin file standards to change the file type to .psd, the render fails. Bogus!
So...
Question 1) Is there a problem with, say, sharing source files from a smb server when the Qmaster Cluster itself is connected via afp? (I don't think so since my controller will render fine and it's connected to both servers [afp and smb] in the same manner as my Xservers)
Question 2) Do I need Maya (the app itself) installed on all my Nodes with the same file path as my executable Qmaster setting ON EACH NODE? (i.e. We have 8 mentalray licenses but only 3 for Maya, thus I have the mentalray on the servers; I use the Maya.app/bin/Render as the Executable source in Qmaster to send the batch out, but that executable is not on the server Nodes, only the mentalray satellites are)
Question 3) Does my Controller's Shared Cluster Storage need to be the same file path as the Nodes'? I have a custom Shared Cluster Storage path on my G5 Controller so I can easily see my temp files (no command line necessary, it's in my Documents folder). Do I need that path to be exactly the same on all machines rendering? (It wouldn't seem that way since each Qmaster node is it's own app and has its own temp files folder to reference when rendering)
I've been really disappointed with the amount of documentation Apple and Autodesk offer for Qmaster setup (as in zero insomuch as troubleshooting goes) and I hope that this thread will document a step-by-step process for anyone else trying to get this seemingly powerful production method to work.
So, in summary:
My Cluster setup seems fine, but when I submit a Maya file via Qmaster my Xservers falsely report 100% complete and my G5 Controller takes only 10 frames and begins rendering. I need to render to .tiff or to .psd as opposed to the Maya standard .iff.
Again, I hope this thread will lead to a bit more effort by Apple and Ali- Autodesk in their product integration documentation.
Thanks
Brady Georgen
Graphic Designer
Asynchrony Solutions
[email protected]
[email protected]
PMG5 2.7ghzX2 / PBG4 1.6ghz / (3) Xserver 2.3ghzX2 / XRAID 3TB / a whole lotta love   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

Answer 1

I can't answer all your questions but I can try to shed some light on some of them for you. I have not used QMaster with xserves but I have it working on my small LAN at home.
Regarding question 2) Maya needs to be installed on all the computers that you are using in the cluster. You do not need to license them only install them. This will put the components necessary to complete the render tasks on those nodes. You should also realize how QM splits the Maya jobs up. It simply divides the job into equal numbers of frames for each node and sends it out. So be sure you cache all your particles/dynamics/fluids/hair/cloth etc before you submit the job. It does not use the collective power of the cluster to work on each frame (like MR satellite does). I do not submit Mental Ray jobs to the cluster but choose rather to use the MRsat at a batch from the command line.
Question 1) Alias (now autodesk) does not recommend using a mixed network for rendering. I am not sure why. I have had mixed results on my end with MRsat.
Question 3) I am not sure about the paths but, I know that each machine you are sending jobs to needs to have read/write access to the drives that are storing the files and where they are being written. I have to go to each of my machines and manually commect each of them to the file server drive before I can get a job to complete.
Greg