HELP: VraySpawner DR and Backburner!

[niic]

Hi all,

 

I am hoping someone could perhaps lend a hand with some information re network rendering (I have limited experience with it).

 

We are looking at Max2008 + Vray plugin so doing my research on the network end of how it will work.

 

Can someone explain how Backburner and VraySpawner work together? Am I correct in thinking I only need VraySpawner to render out my scenes since I am not rendering sequences. Or is there something I am missing and both need each other?

 

Thanks,

Nick

[hughie]

I have not used Max2008, assuming it is the same as Max9 you only need to run DR for rendering stills, but sometimes the Max\Vray\BB combo likes you to run Backburner first to set it up

[JamesTaylor]

although they can both be known as network rendering they also have different uses.

 

Backburner allows you to send images (either stills or animations) to a manager that will distribute the jobs to individual machines that are available on the network for rendering. Once a new machine finishes a job the manager will assign it a new one to do. Using backburner allows you to send say 10 images to render on a network of 3 machines and when you come back in the morning they'll all be done, no need to stay around to load the scenes and hit render locally on each machine.

 

DR on the other hand uses the network to access the resources of additional computers that are free for use and in essence pulls those resources to your local machine. So if you have 3 machines on your network and you are rendering locally you can use VraySpawner inorder to utilise the other 2 machines processor power inconjunction with your local machine.

 

I do believe that in the newest versions of Vray you can send DR images via Backburner so my answer may not be quite what you were asking. However, personally, 99% of the time i can't imagine needing to do send DR via backburner but equally it may be just be good to have that option!

[gfa2]

Unfortunately I don't think sending a DR job via backburner is working. I've tried it numerous times without any success and none of the guys on the Chaos forum can get it to work either. I think the Vray documentation says it's working, but I don't thinks so.

 

This may seem like a pretty useless feature, but I had an instance a week or so ago that I really could have used it. I had 5 renderings that I needed to update overnight and they each took about 10 hours to render (pretty high-res) but with DR they took about 1.5 hours, but I can only use DR after hours because other people in the office are using those PC's. So what I had to do was render each one of them at a time.... 7PM, 9PM, 11PM, 1AM, 3AM. Fortunately I was able to do this with remote access from home, but it sucks setting your alarm clock for 2 hour increments. If I could have set backburner to one after the other...that would have been sweet.

[JamesTaylor]

couldn't you have just sent them to individual machines via backburner?? once people left work backburnerr would have simply dished out the job to free machines and 10 hrs later they'd be rendered??? surely you have more than 10hrs between finishing work and starting again? by using DR you may have saved 2.5hrs but i'd guess you spent an extra hour by having to set each one up plus the fact you had to get up to do every 2hrs???

 

surely you end up with the same result either way in the morning?

[gfa2]

I absolutely had to have those renderings in the morning and my render times with DR looked promising. Honestly I've had some less than stellar results sending high-res single images to one computer via backburner...I just didn't trust it. It's probably worth trying again. Based on past experiences I probably would have been too nervous about it to sleep anyway.

[JamesTaylor]

i've always thought of Backburner as pretty much bomb proof, its an awsome tool and the fact that it only partially opens viz or max when rendering via it means there is more RAM available for the scene and the render is actually less likely to crash. I have resorted to rendering via backburner many times inorder to get past problems of scenes crashing.

 

i'd suggest its definatley worth giving it ago again, you can still log in remotely to see how its going and change things around on occasions when its that important.

[gfa2]

Think I'll try it tonight...with no deadline looming.

[manta]

I really don't see that its possible that DR was almost 10x faster...since you're using the same number of CPU cycles...its not magic

[gfa2]

DR using 10 PC's is about 10 times faster than just using one PC...that's not magic, but it sure is nice.

[niic]

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for all the imput - made for a good read on network related renderings.

 

What I was trying to get out was simply can I render out a Vray scene via Backburner and what are th elicense requirments.

 

We are a small company and only toying with 3D so at this stage our render farm consists of only a single machine. This will free up the workstation while the other spools render jobs. Ultimately if all goes well we will expand the farm out and add more 3DMax seats but at this stage we are still testing.

 

I was unsure if Backburner was only for scanline rendering and if that be the case did Vray have its own network rendering application. I think adding DR in there is what confused people - I'm actually not wanting to distribute rendering jobs accross multiple machines but send a scene for render on a single one.

 

Thanks for all the input!

 

Cheers

[JamesTaylor]

you can install vray on as many machines as you like for use as render nodes, the licenses relate to the being able to open vray within your software and have access to the controls etc. whilst editing a scene.

 

you can definately render vray scene thro backburner, there are a few elements such as proxies, precalced irr maps that need to mapped as UNC paths if you have mapped drives but it works no problems other than that.

[niic]

Excellent that is what I was chasing - if there were any real issues with rendering Vray scenes through Backburner.

 

Am I correct:

1x Max license ships with a copy of Backburner for 1 machine

1x Vray plug ships with a 10 machine license

 

When we plan to add machines to our render farm I am assuming we will need to purchase a special network render license from Autodesk!

 

Cheers mate

[gfa2]

1x Vray plug ships with a 10 machine license

 

 

The 10 machines for Vray is only for DR rendering. You can't have 10 people using one copy of Vray at one time.

[JamesTaylor]

Excellent that is what I was chasing - if there were any real issues with rendering Vray scenes through Backburner.

 

Am I correct:

1x Max license ships with a copy of Backburner for 1 machine

1x Vray plug ships with a 10 machine license

 

When we plan to add machines to our render farm I am assuming we will need to purchase a special network render license from Autodesk!

 

Cheers mate

 

1x Max license is for purchased for working on 1 machine within the max editing environment

 

Backburner will ship with your purchase of max and be installed as component of max

 

Max and backburner can be installed on as many additional machines as you have available, but you won't be able to edit files within the Max environment on these machines

 

You need to run Backburner Manager on 1 machine, and backburner server on every other machine that Max is installed on.

 

you can install vray and max on an unlimited no. of machines for use as render nodes.