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Remote Desktop - Carrara Magic!

DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
edited January 2018 in Carrara Discussion

Wow. It was mentioned (Jay?) a while back that I could use Remote Desktop to control Carrara on my real Carrara machine from this horrible little laptop. I started looking into it but never quite figured out how to do it.

So when Garstor was helping me with some geeky stuff that I just don't understand, I decided to ask him if the software we were using (TeamViewer) could facilitate this for me. He said, "Yes".

It was another normal day for me, busy, busy, go, go, and then do a bunch of stuff - all the while daydreaming about this whole idea.

I just (finally - whew!!!) sat down and went in earnest to give this a try.

Try not... Do, or do not!

So I downloaded TeamViewer onto this laptop and answered a question or two on the forum and then linked up with my Carrara machine. I just got a new goody from the PC+ extravaganza so I closed Carrara on that machine and ran DIM. Bam... not like this piece of poopies, but like the Real Carrara Machine! Downloaded and instaled everything and fired Carrara back up in less time than it takes this computer to load DIM!!!

Loading up my new content so I can optimize it and bring it into its new scene for animation, I decided to come in here and type about how pleased I am. It's been done loading, so I'm a bit antsy to get to work on it!

I'll be back!!!   Wow! Thanks TeamViewer!!! Wow!!!

Post edited by Dartanbeck on

Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    What a blast!

    It's not the same as being on the big box itself, as in the test renders and such don't show up in full detail and whatnot and there's a bit of wireless network lag or whatever, but I was able to run DIM to installl my new stuff and load it into Carrara and get it optimized and saved to my browser, all being away from the computer!!!

    So then I took it a few steps further and built an animated scene, saved it, loaded it into Batch Queue for each camera, and initiated the queue. Bam. My much more robust machine did all the work while I just told it what to do! Rock Freaking On!!! 

    So strange to being working on this laptop seeing things load into Carrara at the speed of my big box. Navigating a 3d scene filled with a lot of content was a bit tricky... but big deal! It's a workaround that doesn't include me trying to use this poor little thing to do the heavy lifting - just the directing. Bravo!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    ha ha, wish I knew what you were talking about but it sounds like fun

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Well, in short, my laptop is more accecible to me than my main Carrara PC that I built, but it struggles. Oh... does it ever struggle.

    With TeamViewer, I'm using my laptop to interface my main Carrara PC via the network, so my laptop screen is now a representation of a monitor from my main PC.

    Once I'm connected like that, I am only really running the TeamViewer app on my laptop and my main PC is running what I ask it to - Carrara, DIM, whatever. It still has to go through the network, so it's not quite as snappy as it is just running that main machine, but instead of, say, loading my Carrara scenes into my 4GB RAM laptop with a 1.2GHz quad core processor, I'm using the 3.1GHz per core 8-core processor with 16GB cooled RAM. Big difference!

    Of course, in my case I'm still using the onboard graphics of my laptop to view what's going on in the other machine instead of the graphics card from that one, but it's still a way that I can use my REAL Carrara machine even if I'm stranded away from it.

    When I can, I'm going to see about grabbing a long enough LAN cable so I can connect my laptop to the router via cable instead of wireless. I think that might make it even better - but it's pretty darned nice as is.

    I built that main machine back in 2012. I love how it performs, but I'd like to upgrade it some before some of those components get too tired. Fresh RAM, new HDD, maybe a new Graphics card after that.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Another huge benefit is that I can check on my render progress just by logging onto that computer from this one. 

    I can also load up scenes that I've already saved and render them - or even tweak them first or whatever. It's cool.

    This first test was neat:

    1. Run DIM (on the other machine) to install new products
    2. Open Carrara and load in my new content
    3. Work all of the shaders to my liking
    4. Store the newly optimized product to my browser
    5. Load in a scene I wanted this product for
    6. Bring in the new file I just stored to the browser
    7. Animated it
    8. Bring in another and animate that
    9. repeat
    10. Replicate those animated figures and convert them to real instances (which locks their animations to the host that was used to replicate them, but I can move them independently - unlike leaving them in the replicator)
    11. Set cameras and lights
    12. Save
    13. Load into Batch Queue as many times as I have cameras
    14. Launch Batch Queue

    I did all that from this laptop. If I did that IN my laptop instead of just using the laptop to control my other machine, I would have locked it (laptop) up many times and would still be working on it - or (more likely) given up for a time when I can work on the other machine.

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738

    Remote desktop is the bees knees, I completely agree.  I'm pretty sure you're right that it was Jay that turned me onto the possibilities.  I use it all the time now, even with my 2 desktops.  I only need one monitor to run all of my desktops that I have ready in my network, and I regularly use an entirely different computer than my main computer just for playing video games  :)  It's a real boon I agree, glad you're having fun with it.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    yes I am having a lot of fun! yes

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    I used to run Remote Desktop from my Mac to the (cough) DS render PC in the days before I had a monitor hooked up. Had problems tracking the mouse sometimes, but it worked pretty well. I could kick off Carrara networked renders that way too (although sadly block artifacts often made those renders unusable)

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    Oh my...  I have Team Viewer already as that is how I communicate with the tech who helps me when I can't get into his shop.  This would be amazing as I could take my laptop to meetings and if they like the renders but want to see a change, I can do it from the laptop a hundred or so miles away??? Unbelievable. 

    Hope I have enough time to try this before early February..... it would be really cool. Thanks, Dart!  heart Silene

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    You're most welcome! 

    I'm just passing on stuff that others have prescribed, but I haven't seen a lot of talk about it, so I thought I'd pass it along. Just remember to grab your password from the home-bound machine before going hundreds of miles away!!! ;)

    I imagine that network bandwidth bottlenecks could be an issue, so we want to try and remember the magic that's happening so we can be patient with the rest! :)

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975
    Dartanbeck said:

    You're most welcome! 

    I'm just passing on stuff that others have prescribed, but I haven't seen a lot of talk about it, so I thought I'd pass it along. Just remember to grab your password from the home-bound machine before going hundreds of miles away!!! ;)

    I imagine that network bandwidth bottlenecks could be an issue, so we want to try and remember the magic that's happening so we can be patient with the rest! :)

    Good point... I will check the BB speed connection when I get there. It's a university, but I would only be accessing the bog-standard service for lecture and workshop attendees probably.  yes Silene

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    SileneUK said:
    Dartanbeck said:

    You're most welcome! 

    I'm just passing on stuff that others have prescribed, but I haven't seen a lot of talk about it, so I thought I'd pass it along. Just remember to grab your password from the home-bound machine before going hundreds of miles away!!! ;)

    I imagine that network bandwidth bottlenecks could be an issue, so we want to try and remember the magic that's happening so we can be patient with the rest! :)

    Good point... I will check the BB speed connection when I get there. It's a university, but I would only be accessing the bog-standard service for lecture and workshop attendees probably.  yes Silene

    It'll be exceptionally helpful if all we need to do is to open an existing Carrara file, make some tweaks,save it and render!

    In my test I actually built a whole new animated scene with 25 animated spaceships - all remotely! Set up various render cameras, saved the scene, closed it, went to Batch Queue in the Render room, loaded in the scene as many times as there are cameras, then setting their saved render names for the video files, and launched the thing. Carrara went on its busy way without me even being there!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    This sounds good, I wonder if I could hook up my Surface Pro to my Main Desktop.... thanks for the headsup on this

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    head wax said:

    This sounds good, I wonder if I could hook up my Surface Pro to my Main Desktop.... thanks for the headsup on this

    I think so. It's multi-platform

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    thanks when I get spare time I'll try ") :)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    head wax said:

    thanks when I get spare time I'll try ") :)

    If you find some, could you tell me where you found it, and how much it cost? I've been looking for years now!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    Dartanbeck said:
    head wax said:

    thanks when I get spare time I'll try ") :)

    If you find some, could you tell me where you found it, and how much it cost? I've been looking for years now!

    ha ha , I m sure there is a Spare Time shop somewhere  https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15921530-100-spare-time-for-sale/

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

  • LinkRSLinkRS Posts: 168

    I use TeamViewer to help with family members computers when they have problems.  If you are running a "professional" version of Windows (Pro or Enterprise Editions), you don't even need to install TeamViewer.  You can make connections using Microsoft's Remote Desktop, which is included in Windows.  You will just need to have the Pro version on your main Carrara Machine, the laptop or whatever you are using to connect from can use any version of Windows.  :-)

    Rich S.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    LinkRS said:

    I use TeamViewer to help with family members computers when they have problems.  If you are running a "professional" version of Windows (Pro or Enterprise Editions), you don't even need to install TeamViewer.  You can make connections using Microsoft's Remote Desktop, which is included in Windows.  You will just need to have the Pro version on your main Carrara Machine, the laptop or whatever you are using to connect from can use any version of Windows.  :-)

    Rich S.

    Cool!

    I'm using TeamViewer to (finally) run my first Fluidos simulation. I'm being a bit silly and going for something probably a little too ambitious for my first trial run, but since I don't have a lot of time to mess with, and some of the results I've been seeing are coming out so well for what I want to do, I figured... just go for it. Let the Carrara cores run instead of sitting idle while I'm away.

  • GrokDDGrokDD Posts: 59
    I tried Chrome's Remote Desktop App (also free) on my rendwr machine and laptop, and for simple mouse and text and opening carrara great! However once I loaded a scene, trying to pan and rotate..... the lag made it so jumpy that I constanly got lost in the scene.... Do you think it would be less so with TeamViewer?
  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311

    The software you use is less important than the connection speed, and the quality of the connections

    any software will connect to the slave system in the same way, but it's the connection ,. broadband fibre (cable), copper cable, wi-fi etc..

    it's always going to be slower than sitting in front of your computer.

    These remote access programs are great for doing some things (technical support) but unless you really need to, it's not something you should add to your daily workflow.

     

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