So what render managers do you use?
I’m looking for one as I will be away for a few days but need to render out a selection of scene files, I just want to load them up and forget about it. What could go wrong!
Deadline is an option, I’ve used it a lot at work. I believe it’s free in some capacity.
Looks like thats an Amazon product? I would have to create an account with Amazon for this? I was thinking of a local process. i tried smudge but it just couldn’t get it going.
it’s local, or at least was. I think they are moving to all cloud based, but a local version might still be available. we’re rendering local.
Deadline is dead and is no longer supported, at least as we know it. It is now cloud based.
Well looks like BackBurner is doing it for me! I thought it was only 3DSMax support. Didn’t realise I can send a burner scene straight from Maya. Just in time for some over night rendering.
Deadline 10 is indeed in “maintenance mode”, but you can still download it and use it. It was extremely hard to find it, not even Gemini or Amazon’s own AI could give me the download link, but here it is, for future generations: https://us-east-1.console.aws.amazon.com/deadlinecloud/home?region=us-east-1#/thinkbox
You need to sign in with an Amazon AWS account.
From my experience, it’s impossible to reach their support. They emailed me with some instructions on how to contact them, but it was impossible to accomplish (the instructions mentioned some items that were not on the actual website).
Installing Deadline 10 is also an interesting experience. 
There is also Pulze RenderFlow - RenderFlow - The Operating System for Your Render Farm
We have very good relations with these guys and they are always super helpful. The tool has a modern, user-friendly UI.
Another popular one I know of is Royal Render, but I’ve never used it - https://www.royalrender.de/
Thanks Maru, thats some great info there.
I once used Renderpal2 which has also been discontinued but is still available for download. I used it for years some time ago but I cant get it working on my machine for some reason.
I will try the ones you mentioned but Backburner worked for me and you can send a command straight from Maya.
Thanks
Oh, I didn’t realize this is V-Ray for Maya! 
My recommendations were with Max+Corona in mind. I am not sure which exact platforms those tools support.
Just realised this is for MAX set-up. Cheers anyway.
Maybe Chaos could create their own local render manager?
If you’re wanting to render locally with a small number of machines I would recommend Smedge. It still supports up to (I think) four render nodes with the free version, and is user-friendly and feature rich without being overwhelming (forget Deadline in that regard – that requires some serious backend IT to even set up, and unless you’re running a full studio complete overkill for just queueing and managing a few jobs at a time).
There is/was a user forum but it seems to be a bit dead now, however simply emailing Robin Scher at support@uberware. net with a clear question (not “how do I set up Smedge”) will often get a friendly and helpful response.
Unfortunately setting up any network rendering system is never fun – it’s always a lot of problem solving but I’ve found Smedge to usually be fairly intuitive.