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Terrain Mapping
Terrain Mapping II
RenderCow
 Indoor Radiosity
altTerrainBuilder
Creating a Gradient Material
Making a Tire- Part I: Text Model
Making a Tire- Part II: Textures
Mapping Notes
Fog and Haze
Adding DOF in Photoshop
Understanding Smoothing in Vue
VueTools
 RenderCow

 Installing and troubleshooting RenderCow in Windows.
Setting up RenderCow When you're having problems with RenderCow, first uninstall and install a fresh copy. Sometimes the engine can get 'locked' and it becomes difficult for it to auto-update. During those times, it may not be visible or it may actually try and 'roll itself back' to a previous version.

Once installed, you can launch the program and it will appear in the system tray.
RenderCow Error If you have more than one RenderCow loaded on the same machine you may see this error. In that case, you need to 'kill' the offending process.

Killing the RenderCow process Check to see if you have more than one RenderCow running by Ctrl-Alt-Delete to get to the Windows Task Manager. Click the Processes tab and look for instances of "Infinite RenderCow.eon", select them, and click the "End Process" button. Kill all of them, and then restart a fresh version.

Launch Vue Next, Launch Vue and check for updates (under the File menu). Assuming you have the latest version, next load a sample scene for rendering.

Right-click the render button at the top of the Vue window and make sure you have the "Use HyperVue" box checked.

Then click the Render button.

Assuming RenderCow is installed on your current machine, you should see your computer registered as a rendering node.

  If you don't see it listed, then you'll want to manually add it.

Here's how. Click the Add button and you will see the network name of the current computer and it's local IP address.

Try first to recognize it my name, then if not successful, by IP address. If you can't find it then, AND RenderCow is running in the sysTray, you may have a firewall like Norton or MacAfee or WinXP turned on. Turn off all local firewalls and then try again.
Detecting other RenderCow's on the network If the Auto scan button in the HyperVue Network Rendering Manager isn't working correctly (and sometimes it doesn't), then you should use the Add button to manually add render nodes.

I find it best to use local IP Addresses for this.

To find the IP Address of a computer with RenderCow running on it you can do the following.

Go to the computer running RenderCow, disable all firewall settings (for now) and click the Start button on the taskbar, and select RUN. Then type in "cmd". This will open up a DOS command-line window.

IPCONFIG Now, type "ipconfig" into the window. You should see a listing of network information, and included is the IP Address. Copy this down as this is what will be used to connect HyperVue to this RenderCow server.

Back to HyperVue Now go back to your HyperVue Manager and manually Add the network node to it. It should then show up in your Rendering Manager.

  If it doesn't, then go back to your DOS Command on the computer with the HyperVue Rendering Manager window and type in:

ping + space + the IPaddress of the RenderCow
(see figure)

You should see 'Reply from' in the results. If you don't then your HyperVue Network Manager can't see your RenderCow computer. This could be because they're not on the same network, or there's some other interference problem. Resolving this problem is outside the scope of this tutorial.
  If you do see a "Reply from" in the result of the ping command, then the RenderCow computer can see the HyperVue Manager computer. In this case, there is a problem with RenderCow or the Manager and it is suggested you reinstall first RenderCow, and if it doesn't work, reinstall Vue.

If it still doesn't work, then you should contact Vue technical support.