Hehe - well, my old approach was simplistic but it wasn't
quite as crude as copying files to all the machines
With project files / textures / render bins all on network drives, setting the whole “farm” going was as simple as VNCing into each machine, double-clicking on the project file and hitting “Render”.
I'm not sure I have a “server with domain control”; I've got a bunch of Macs and PCs with static IPs, access to network folders on a NAS, consistent naming, though. I make good use of $JOB and $HSITE so it doesn't matter which machine I'm working on, they can all access the same assets (OTLs / maps etc) the same way.
Can't quite get my head around why, on a heterogenous network (Macs
and PCs), they need to be set up to run Houdini from a shared folder as opposed to a nice speedy local SSD, though. I'm guessing it's down to file system differences. You'd think each client would be able to use its own copy of Houdini to service jobs.
I'll have another go. Have to be a bit careful I don't sink too much time into it, gotta actually do some work too. Thanks for your advice