Backburner Setup

[icsftreg]

I want to make sure that this will work before I go through the setup.

Available Equipment:

1 Lab (20 stations) with Autodesk software installed

1 Lab (20 staitons) with no Autodesk software installed

1 Windows 2008 server

I would like to use both labs for rendering and the server to manage the jobs.  I know that the second lab will need backbruner installed and I assume which ever autodesk software that I am rendering from.  Correct?

For the server, I know the service that needs to be installed and set to automatically run for rendering node and that is fine.  If I want the server to manage the jobs is there another service that I need to have isntalled and running?  A user will not be logged into the server when jobs are running so the Manager needs to be running in teh background.

Currntly we have a station that a user logs into and opened the Manager software and he will submit the job.  I want to be able to have it setup that the user can then log out and have the job continue to render.

Any help I can get would be much appreciated.

[DarrenP]

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@icsftreg wrote:

 I know that the second lab will need backbruner installed and I assume which ever autodesk software that I am rendering from.  Correct?

Any help I can get would be much appreciated.

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no Backburner is only used by 3ds max and some other M&E products this is not used by inventor which is where your posting this

[DarrenP]

you need to post this on the correct M&E product here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Media-and-Entertainment/ct-p/Media_and_Entertainment

[icsftreg]

Thank you for the quick response.  Truthfully, I could not find the 3ds Max  area so I jus threw it in here hoping for a response.

[pcrawley]

The Area discussion group you want is here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-3ds-Max/ct-p/area-c1

This is the latest installation guide: 
http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/backburner_install_guide_for_3ds_max.pdf

Your Backburner Manager software can be installed as a service on the Windows Server so there is no need to have anyone logged in to run it.  You would also install the Backburner Server software on all the workstations in both labs.  Install Server as a service too so it's available all the time.  The queue Monitor can be run from any workstation - all you do is connect it to the manager to see/manage all jobs.  From the monitor, you can even specify times of the day where certain workstations are unavailable - probably during class time!

Once a job is submitted to the manager, users can log out and leave.  Each render job can be prioritised, stopped, deleted etc using the monitor.

Unfortunately, the installation guide skips the really useful stuff about installing Manager and Server as a Windows service, so have a read from p63 of the 2011 installation guide here: http://download.autodesk.com/us/systemdocs/pdf/backburner2011_install_guide.pdf

Shame Inventor does not make use of backburner - nor Showcase or Navisworks or Revit - or any of the design suite products come to think of it.  Wouldn't that be a simple thing to include as a cross-product benefit?

The setup you describe sounds great.  I'd love to have access to that kind of render farm!

[pcrawley]

Two things I forgot to mention:

1. Make sure the same service pack is installed on every machine.  With max 2014, renders from the RTM version are a noticably different shade to renders of the same scene by max SP1 - so when you put your animation together, some frames are lighter than others and it looks .... (insert your own expletive here).

2. 3ds max and backburner will need to be installed on all machines that you intend to use as rendering machines.  You do NOT need to activate max because network rendering just uses a special runtime setting that does not launch the full max product.

[MingweiGao]

Hello, the below message came from my colleague about Backburner and I also used it during my testing. Hope this can help you:

1. Make sure you have 3ds max design or 3ds max, as well as backburner installed on the machines you want to be a part of the render farm.
2. Depending on the size of your farm  you can designate a machine as the manager to reduce the bandwidth bottleneck.  I normally feel 10 machines or more that are a part of a farm you should have a manager.
3. Launch the manager.  I mainly use default settings but if you need to use a specific port this is where you can do that.
4. On the render farm machines launch server and input your manager’s ip address or computer name.
5. Launch the monitor from any machine.  Normally best for a machine who will be submitting jobs or someone that wants to monitor and admin the server.  Input the manager information to connect.
6. Once your setup is complete you normally don’t need to make any changes unless you run into a problems.  The monitor will allow you to assign priorities, great render groups within the farm etc.  You can add and remove machines dynamically and it should pick it up fairly quickly.
7. Once this is all complete you can have someone attempt to connect from 3ds Max and try to do a network render.  You should only need to enter the information for the manager to get a connection.