Do you use back burner?

[glorybound]

Like the title says, do you use back burner? I'm always afraid that using BB adds a layer of complexity, and more room for errors, so I avoid it. Is anyone using it in production? What's the benefits? I understand for really large files, which can be split up using BB, but other than that is there big benefits?

[joconnell]

Yeah it's very handy for small amount of machines. Any render manager is better than not having a system of queueing up files to render overnight and it's very easy to set up. Nowhere near as good as deadline which you can run for free on two machines, but backburner is pretty much automatic to set up and it's installed by default.

[glorybound]

I guess if you are submitting multiple views, it makes a lot of sense. I rarely work on more than 1 view at a time, but I'll have to practice on some smalls, for when I really need to use it. When you submit a job to BB, do you ever hit render in the MAX dialog?

[instinct]

Depends on the way you submit. Usually you would hit Render with "Networ Render" enabled (tho that has changed in 2013 if i recall right?) which pops up a dialog to setup the renderjob

[zeronove]

I rarely work on more than 1 view at a time

from what you said IMHO it could be very useful to test different settings for the same view (ex. AA min/max, mtl subds and so on)
The main concern with BB is that ADSK doesn't support it very well.

[lukx]

Yeah it's very handy for small amount of machines. Any render manager is better than not having a system of queueing up files to render overnight and it's very easy to set up. Nowhere near as good as deadline which you can run for free on two machines, but backburner is pretty much automatic to set up and it's installed by default.

oh cool in this case I will give it a try.

[lukx]

hmmm, i set up deadline but after submitting job I got error: 3dsmax : failed to load max file:
On slave machine I can see max trying to start and than bang disappears.

[jrandom]

hmmm, i set up deadline but after submitting job I got error: 3dsmax : failed to load max file:
On slave machine I can see max trying to start and than bang disappears.

Is your folder available on the network? ie shared?

The max file and all dependent files should reside in a folder structure that is shared on the network so all slaves can see it, something that follows this:
\\MyMachinesName\NameOfSharedFolder\AnyNumberOfOth erFoldersDeep\fileToRender.max

[lukx]

hmm yes, all is on mapped drive

[jrandom]

Really strange, I ask only because I had the exact same error the other day, LOL everything BUT my max file was on a mapped drive.

One other question or maybe two, how did you submit the job? via max Deadline submission tool or out of the deadline manager? try one or the other.

and

What version of max are you using?
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/news...-max-2013.html

[simmsimaging]

I guess if you are submitting multiple views, it makes a lot of sense. I rarely work on more than 1 view at a time, but I'll have to practice on some smalls, for when I really need to use it. When you submit a job to BB, do you ever hit render in the MAX dialog?

I do occasionally queue up a few renders via BB, but my main use for BB is actually single stills. I like it because I can send the render to a node, and it will render using VrayDR, but my main workstation is not tied up in the render so I can keep working on other things. If I want to add my workstation to the Dr render I just have to fire up the Vrayspawner and it joins in.

I'm sure Deadline is way better, but I can't justify the cost for the 6-7 nodes I need when BB does the job just fine.

/b

[lukx]

Really strange, I ask only because I had the exact same error the other day, LOL everything BUT my max file was on a mapped drive.

One other question or maybe two, how did you submit the job? via max Deadline submission tool or out of the deadline manager? try one or the other.

and

What version of max are you using?
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/news...-max-2013.html

thanks, I forget installing update 3 on my slave and now everything is working perfect.

[jrandom]

Cool, I was running out of ideas