Sending very large files to Backburner

[gordon]

We are currently working with a client that has provided engineering data/3D models that are very very large (upwards of 20GB).  This, in turn, makes the .max file for any given scene incredibly large.  We've been struggling with getting these images to render at all (because the client also wants the images to be 12000 pixels wide), but we've also been struggling with network rendering.

Is there a file size limit in Backburner?  I've been scouring this forum, the BB documentation, and everywhere in between and I haven't seen anything mentioned in this regard.

Whenever I try to send one of the smaller files to render (around 7GB), I can get the job submitted, but once the BB manager tries to send the job to the servers I get a "File I/O error with job archive" error message.

Any info at all is greatly appreciated.

[jens.diemer · Accepted solution]

20GB .max files?!? Saving takes a very, very long time, isn't it?

Maybe you can create instances of simmilar objects to reduce size?

IMHO a good idea is to split it and use XRefScene... e.g.: XRef all static objects and leave all animated objects into your main .max file.

But IMHO it doesn't help with backburner, because max will collect all needed files?!?

Btw. for this the "containers" are good. But they are IMHO unuseable because of bugs and boring workflow, isn't it?

[gordon]

Hi Jens,

Yep, the largest file I'm dealing with on this project is around 25GB, and yes saving takes a very long time (which is why I have autosave completely turned off, to save my sanity).

I did end up X-Refing some of the scenes and that made it possible to render some of them through Backburner, but the lighting was all off when I used that method.

There really isn't any other way to optimize these scenes.  I've used V-Ray proxy objects for many of the really dense objects in the scenes, but that still leaves me with files around 6 or 7GB.

I've finally been able to get everything rendered on some of our workstations, and I'm hoping there aren't going to be any surprise change orders coming through.

Thanks for your reply and your suggestions.

[jens.diemer]

I setup lighning in the main scene and ignore lights in all xref scenes...

[3dfh]

Hello,

I know that's an old topic, but i have the same trouble for a large scene.

Did you found an issue to submit the project to backburner?

Thank you

[stephen.the3Dstig]

Hi there,

Depending what you're rendering, you might be able to get away with storing assets on a server and pointing Max to those using a UNC path.

I've got a 10 gig Vray proxy mesh (animated, so it's a beast!) that backburner can't handle.

However, moving those proxy files to a network drive seems to have solved it.

If you've got big texture files you might try the same.

[jfincher]

Is it at all possible that the local hard drives that you're rendering on are running out of free space?

When you submit the job, it stores both a zip file (of your compressed .max file) AND the uncompressed .max file that - I assume - extracts from that .zip in a C: drive folder while your job is being rendered/in the queue.  With as big as your files are, it's very possible that you're just simply running out of hard disk space and the job can't progress.  Even compressed, a 20GB .max file could still be an additional +5GB.

[t_strode]

Well it's now 2020 and I too am having the same issue. BB Manager just breaks down when trying to load a large file into it. BB is no longer being updated by Autodesk which is crazy as it's an intergral part of most peoples workflow.

All I can suggest is using a 3rd party render manager like the one from Pulze. Yes, you have to pay, but it's better than hitting a wall everytime you use BB.

Personally, I'm going to learn Blender and be done with Autodesk!