Hi all,
Please can someone give me some more information on this feature?
I can’t seem to see any new option in bb where I can control which machines are being used for the dr, so I don’t think I’ve quite grasped what the feature does!
Any help will be much appreciated.
Mike
You make sure distributed rendering is ticked in Vray settings and you are specifying IP addresses of your nodes. Send it to backburner as per ususal. All CPU’s will render the image.
thanks for the quick reply!
so basically what is happening now is that the dr server list on my machine is overriding the list on the node that is hosting my render through bb?
if so, can this be disabled as a feature?
thanks, mike
No. If you tick DR in vray for a Scene and you send that scene to backburner DR will happen regardless of which machine picks up the job. If you dont it wont. Like any job you send to Backburner, if you want to make changes you will have to re-submit the job. With or without DR ticked.
The PC IP’s you specify in Vray Distributed Rendering will be the PC’s that join in for DR rendering.
yep, fully understand this, it is the following part that i was referring to;
In previous versions this was not the case, the dr server list of the machine that picks up the job, was the list that was used. So all our render slaves have the same server list to use all available dr nodes, whereas on my local machine I can determine which nodes I want to use for tests.
Ideally I would like to still do this, without changing my server list before sending to bb.
I hope this makes sense? I realise it isn’t a major problem it just helps my workflow!
thanks, Mike
Does anyone manage to send DR job to backburner, and so that DR servers stop rendering others standard BB jobs ? Actually, when BB and spawner is started, we send a job in BB, and then even if the server is ever rendering a max or combustion job, it start rendering the DR jobs …
Ah ok, If I have understood you properly. You mean if you send a DR job to BB it starts and renders. If you send another it starts that as well? So in effect rendering 2 jobs at once? OR, does it stop rendering DR and start the new job? I just presumed that a server would be busy whatever it was doing. Hence not starting anything else.
Imagine my servers all renders a standard BB job.
I send a DR job via BB, it start on servers in DR list, but they don’t stop rendering their std BB job.
Will have to test further, but for you, the servers rendering as DR in BB manager stop rendering other jobs ??
Yes I’d like to know too! Actually I’m in the same situation, having a quite little renderfarm, so I can’t attribute some computers specifically for distributed rendering and some other for backburner regular jobs, so is it possible to launch a DR spawner AND a BB server on the same computer without the risk of having multiple jobs processing in the same time, which I assume would slow down the two processes dramatically (twice memory needed, etc…)
At first glence I thought it was a new feature of SP4 but I don’t manage to make it work, so maybe I did’t understand the It is now possible to submit DR servers list for DR through backburner stuff 
Thanks
Paul.
Could you set up 2 render presets each with the different nodes selected?
DR through back burner seems to have stopped working now that i’ve upgraded to 4a from 3a 
It works fine over here. Check the usual suspects, anti virus and firewall settings…
Hi, I am having problems submitting DR jobs through backburner too. I have never used this before and have just upgraded from SP2.
I am running Max Design 2010 ans SP4a. Backburner and distributed rendering work perfectly individually but not together. (BB & Spawners are running as services on all machines)
I select all the render nodes in the Vray distributed render settings and submit the job thru backburner choosing use all render nodes setting but only one node kicks in.
What might I be doing wrong???
Dont use “use all server”, start the BB Server on one pc and use “use selected server” where you pick the pc where you started the BB Server. That way i never had any problems with it.
Do you include that PC in your distributed render settings?
No, the pc which picks up the job doesnt have to be in the DR list.
Thanks for your replies Olli96 but I’m having no joy. I have tried all combinations of submission now.
Are you running backburner and spawners as services or manually?
Here is, step by step, how i have set it up:
At the end of the day i start the BB Server and Manager on my workstation. In 3dsmax i activate DR and select all other nodes on the network, but not my workstation. Activate Net Render and press render. In the BB submission window i select “use selected server” and pick my workstation (it should be the only available one in the list since the server is only running on my workstation) and submit. Now my Workstation starts to render and all the other PC’s i specified in the DR list are kicking in. I do this for alle the scenes and cameras and in the morning usually everything is done.
I do actually start them manually because i couldnt get DR running (even local, not network rendering) because of some security reasons of our network which the network admin couldnt solve. It has something to do with admin privelges but i am not a network guy so i cant help here. Even now i have to start them by doing a right click on the icon and select “run as” and then login as an admin. This way at least it works for us.
Thanks again, I’m getting somewhere. I followed your work flow in part. My nodes are still running as services but this time I submitted in backburner to my workstation. 3 out of 4 of the nodes assisted in the render BUT it took nearly twice as long than sending the job with DR straight from my work station.
This method doesn’t really work for me anyway. The purpose of setting up DR thru BB would be so that I can submit a job and be able to continue to work throughout the day. I can DR overnight with out backburner.
I may be able to help with you set up though:
We have 4 render nodes which we created a separate render account for. This account was given full admin rights. We run BB and Vray spawners as services on all the nodes but in the services properties there is a tab called Log On in there (in both BB and Vrayspawner) we needed to add the account details and password for in to work properly . You could try this (adding you admin details) if you haven’t already. It means you don’t even need to log the machine on never mind start them manually.
I Am running BB manager 2008.1.1.292 does anyone know if this could be the problem?
You dont have to use your workstation as the server, you can use any other pc, just make sure that its the only one running the bb server. if i have to render something over the day i do this all the time. About the DR servers kicking in very slow, we have this sometimes too, usually this happens if there is a lot of network activity.
Thanks about the tips with the setup as services, i will mail this to our admin and see if he can solve our problem.