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Installing mental ray as a render slave

Note: This article refers to older versions of SPM and the License Manager. The information below may be out of date or may not apply to the most recent version of the software.

This "how to" article provides step-by-step instructions for installing mental ray as the render slave.

Extracting the setup program	1. Run the downloaded exe file. After you download XSI, double-click the downloaded .exe file. This extracts the Setup program onto your hard disk and then automatically launches the Setup.
Launch page for Setup	2. Start the XSI Setup program Finally, the Setup program starts.
End-user license agreement	3. Agree to the Legal Stuff Next, you'll have to agree to licensing agreement. You can even take the time to read it, but it is pretty much standard stuff (except maybe for the part about XSI not being designed to operate nuclear facilities :-). Select I accept the terms of the license agreement and then click Next.
Installation folder	4. Choose the folder where you want to install mental ray By default, the folder C:\Softimage is suggested, but you may want to install mental ray in a different location if XSI is already installed there. Click Browse to specify a different folder. Click Next to continue.
Select software to install	5. Select mental ray as a render slave Click Next to install mental ray as a render slave.
Location of the license server	6. Specify the location of the license server. Select one of the following for your license server location: Select Using this computer as my license server to install the SPM license server on this computer. If you select this option, Setup installs the SPM license server and the dongle driver on the local computer. This is typically necessary only if you are installing XSI on a stand-alone computer. or Select Using a license server running on another computer to point to the computer that is acting as the SPM license server for your network. See xxx for more information. If you select this option, this screen appears in which you must enter the name of the license server.
SPM settings	6A. Enter the name of the license server. Under License Server, type the name of your computer in the text box. If you don't know the name of your computer, type "localhost" (without the quotation marks). Next, assuming that you have already installed SPM, click Test to verify that your computer can connect to the license server. Then click Add. Note that you can add more than one license server. Click Next to continue.
Ready to install	7. Ready to install The Setup program now has all the information it needs to install XSI. You can review your installation choices, and when you're ready to go ahead with the install, click Next.
Configure Distributed Rendering	8. Distributed Rendering Configure the distributed rendering in this dialog box. Usually you can use the default ports for distributed rendering. If you know you need to use a different port, select the Edit Port Number check box and then click Next Free Port. If you want to set up distributed rendering using mental ray, select the Configure standalone distributed rendering check box. When you click Next, Setup will install and start the services used for distributed rendering.