Evaluating for educational use

[lhaynes]

I am currently evaluating RenderPal as a potential solution for render management at a university art college. As such I have a couple of questions and have also run into a configuration problem.

First the configuration problem. I have configured my renderers on the server; making some invisible, renaming the versions and setting the executable path to the correct value. This is all reflected at the client node except for the executable path which remains blank. Error: No executable specified for the renderer. I guess I am doing something wrong, but having re-read the manual several times I can't work out what it is. Any tips for what I should check?

I noticed that the installer and application code is unsigned. For the software to be deployed as a system-level service to our clients and server we would prefer publisher verified code. Are there any plans for this to happen?

I assume that RenderPal doesn't support user authentication from a central directory service. In which case are there any mechanisms for auto-generating or importing user accounts? As we will have a large number of new students each year I need to avoid the administrative burden of creating user accounts and assigning them to groups.

In the Submitter application I have prepopulated the server address in RpRcCmd.conf but left the login credentials blank. This causes the app to error; server not configured. Ideally I want the server to be pre-populated but for the user to be prompted to enter their credentials when they launch the software. Is this possible?

[Shoran Support]

- The executable you set directly in the renderers is not reflected on the client side; these settings are used as a fallback if no executable is configured directly in the renderer.
- No, there are no plans to buy such a highly expensive certificate.
- There currently is no way to automatically create users or groups, but it is a planned feature.
- I suppose that you didn't modify the correct RpRcCmd.conf; take a look at the submitter's options to see which CmdRC it is using.

[lhaynes]

Thanks for the reply.

1. So it is not shown at the client even if the fallback is being used. I think it would be good to show fallback settings in grey if they are being applied.

I think I have found the problem. I was using variables which I guess are not supported in the executable path?

So if it set the path to: %ProgramFiles%\Autodesk\3ds Max 2014\3dsmaxcmd.exe

I get the rather confusing error: No executable specified for the renderer

However if it set it to: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2014\3dsmaxcmd.exe

It does then work.

2. OK, that's a shame.

3. Do you have an ETA for this new feature? In the meantime would it be possible to manipulate the database directly?

4. I am editing: C:\Program Files (x86)\RenderPal V2\Submitter\CmdRC\RpRcCmd.conf

If I give the server name and user credentials it works as expected. However if I only supply the server name it gives a login error. As many different students will use our computers I want to be able to preconfigure the server name but allow the user to enter their own login credentials. Ideally they would be prompted for this when they launch the software. Is there a way I can achieve this?

[Shoran Support]

3. No ETA, no. It would be possible to manually insert the accounts into the database, yes; it's a SQLite file, so there are plenty of tools to do so.
4. A user name needs to be specified, so you either have to supply one in the .conf file or in the Submitter options. There is no way to get a popup asking for user credentials, but we'll consider adding one!

[lhaynes]

My evaluation of render manager products is still on-going during which I have looked at a number of products (from free open source up to the big names). On the whole we think that RenderPal is the best fit for us, but there are a couple of show stoppers for our usage scenario.

User Account Provisioning - As the system will be used by a large number of students we need to be able to automate account creation and group membership. I understand that this feature is planned, but if it is not available within the next 2-3 months we would need to engineer our own solution. I have found the user database and seen that the password is encoded. If we were to purchase RenderPal would you be willing to disclose the algorithm for this so that we could pre-populate the database?

Submitter Logon Credentials - On both Windows and Mac, the Submitter application stores it's logon credentials in a config file within the application folder. This is a folder to which our users do not have write access. Also a large number of different users will login to the same machine and so storing the credentials in this public folder is not desirable. It would be much more appropriate if this user specific file could be relocated into the current user's AppData / Library folder. Alternatively, as mentioned previously, it would be great if the submitter would prompt for username and password on each launch rather than storing this in the config file. Even better would be if it automatically completed the username based on the username of the current Windows / Mac logon session. Do you think any of these are possible or can you offer an alternative solution?

[Shoran Support]

We can't disclose the encryption algorithm used, but I believe we could provide you with a simple command-line tool that encodes a given password so that you can create user accounts directly in the database file.

Only the first few versions of the submitter used to store the configuration file in a local sub-directory; newer versions store it in a system-specific data location. We could provide you with a version that does this in a user-specific location as a temporary workaround.

You should contact us directly to discuss further details, as the forum isn't the right place for this.

[lhaynes]

Many thanks. That's sounds great on both counts. I'll be in touch.