Rendering networks are sometimes called rendering farms.
In 3D Studio MAX, one computer is set up as the network manager. The network manager "farms out" or distributes the work to rendering servers (referred to as "slaves" in 3D Studio R4). You can also have the same computer work simultaneously as network manager and rendering server, so computing cycles don’t go to waste.
Once rendering is underway, the Queue Manager lets you directly monitor and control the operation of the network rendering work load. The Queue Manager allows you to activate, deactivate, and reorder both jobs and servers involved in your “render farm”.
In 3D Studio MAX, the task of network rendering is split up on a frame-by-frame basis, with each rendering server working on a single frame at a time. The completed output of each rendering server accumulates in a common, shared directory.
Rendered frame files can also be written to a local directory on each machine, if the directory is defined by the same path. Frame files are sequentially numbered, making them easy to assemble later.
Rendering servers with nothing to do are automatically detected by the network manager and assigned a new frame. If a rendering server goes off-line for some reason, the network manager reclaims the server’s current frame and reassigns the frame to the next available rendering server.