either put the mxms (and all texture maps) on a network path that both machines can see or use pack-n-go to get copies of the materials on each machine

I'm not a networking wizz unfortunately, I've just been doing a direct ethernet connection between the two machines when I've tried this. So what else would I have to do to create this network path?

don't bother trying to set up a network; just make sure that both machines EACH have a copy of the materials on them. You also don't need to have the machines connected in order to use co-op: you can run the server/manager on each machine separately, just make sure that the seed values are different, then merge the mxi's manually when finished.

: you don't need to run co-op mode on each machine separately (if they are not "connected"), you just need to make sure that the seed value is different, then merge the mxi's manually

thanks a lot for the tips.

if you run the two comp's separately, will you still able to set up a queue for multiple renders?

you'd have to be running MXCL server/manager on each, but since you've already been successful getting co-op to work with your direct connection the only thing you'd need to do is make sure that each computer has a copy of the materials.

I frequently use server/manager on a single machine just to batch render images, works quite well