netrender - render an image using one or more Network RenderMan render servers.

SYNOPSIS

netrender [ options ] ribfiles

DESCRIPTION

netrender is a program that passes a sequence of RenderMan Interface Bytestream (RIB) requests to one or more Network RenderMan render servers in order to generate an image. The environment of the netrender program consists of all RenderMan shaders and textures as well as the complete display environment. This means files and windows will be opened locally, not on the Network RenderMan render servers.

The simplest valid netrender command is:

netrender ribfiles

which submits the named RIB files to the Network RenderMan render server on the local host.

OPTIONS

-h hostname

This attempts to render using the Network RenderMan render server on the host computer named hostname. The -h option may be specified more than once on a single command line to have the RIB files processed by more than one Network RenderMan render server. If the -h option is absent, the environment variable RENDERHOST will be used as the hostname. If neither -h nor RENDERHOST specifies a host, the Network RenderMan render server on the host where netrender was invoked will be used.

-p portnumber

This causes netrender to send the network request on the specified network port portnumber. This overrides port values set by any other means. If -p is absent, netrender will call getservbyname asking for the port number for service "alfserver" and protocol "tcp". This may be set by a system adminstrator either in the local file /etc/services or through the NIS (or Yellow Pages) system. If no port is found through getservbyname the port number will be set from the /nrmserver/port line in the rendermn.ini file. If no port number is found by any of these means, port 1500 will be used.

-f

Tells the render server that it should attempt to open shader, texture and Look files itself in the render server environment. If the server fails to find any file, it defers to the client context to attempt to open the file.

ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variables are used (if set) by netrender:

RMANTREE	path to the base directory of the RenderMan software
		default: %RMAN%
RMANCONFIG	path to the configurations defaults file
			default: ${RMANTREE}/etc/rendermn.ini
RENDERHOST	name of default Network RenderMan server host

FILES

${RMANTREE}/etc/rendermn.ini	configuration defaults file
${RMANTREE}/etc/messages	directory containing error message files
${RMANTREE}/etc/dspyserver	RenderMan display server for image output
${RMANTREE}/prman/lib/shaders	RenderMan standard shaders directory
/usr/tmp	working directory for display file output

SEE ALSO

alfserver(1), PhotoRealistic RenderMan User's Manual(1), RenderMan Interface Version 3.1(1)