Render Farm - User's Guide: Mimic ResPower File System

Overview

Some software uses fully-qualified file names to reference external files. This can be problematic when you move data from one computer to the next, because the location of these external files may not be identical from one computer to the next.

A common solution to this problem is to introduce the notion of a project directory. This is also referred to as a content directory. Software packages that support project directories make it easier to move content from one computer to another by storing each file's name relative to the project directory.

Unfortunately, not all of the software packages available on the ResPower Render Farm have the notion of a project directory. Even for those that do, there are occasional plug-ins that ignore this support and store fully-qualified file names.

To work around this, ResPower recommends that you mimic our file system. This has several benefits. The first, obviously, is that it helps you to avoid problems when rendering at ResPower. The more structured file system is also easier to replicate should you need to move your content to another computer for any reason. For example, if you need to partner with another designer, being able to replicate the same file system layout on their computer will certainly ease the transition. This also helps if you are considering the use of any asset management systems such as CVS, RCS, or Visual SourceSafe.

Instructions:

1. Create a Y-Drive. Details
2. Create a folder in the root of the Y-Drive based on your ResPower user ID. For example, if your ResPower user ID is example_user, you would create a folder called Y:\example_user\
3. Inside this folder, create another folder called "source". Continuing our example, this folder should be named Y:\example_user\source
   When you upload, your FTP's /source/ folder is equivalent to the source folder you create in this step.
4. Place all of your source content under the source folder.