dpcaltdcah Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Okay, so you all will probably think this is a dumb question but I inherited a network that was all set up for network rendering with backburner and now we are upgrading to Max 2009. Network stuff is totally new to me. Anyway, we installed max and vray on the workstations and servers and the backburner servers are finding the manager and vice versa but when I try to send a test render, I can't connect to the manager through max. the IP address is correct but I get an error that says either missing message or resources not loaded. I don't even know where to go from there... Is there something else I need to configure or install? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Did you upgrade to BackBurner 2009? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 17, 2008 Author Share Posted June 17, 2008 does it come with the max install? I guess I assumed it was included. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rddimension Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 Also make sure you are not tryling to send renders out from a 32bit work station to a 64 bit farm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charter Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 You can spec what type of system (32 or 64bit) you are sending to if you press the advanced settings button whilst in the network rendering dialog....... this one caused some confusion with me as viz just showed all the servers available. Beats me why they have to mess about with some aspects of the program that seemed to be working fine but hey we all have to earn a crust somehow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 Maybe a firewall issue also. I think even with an older version of BackBurner, Max should at least be able to see the Manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 thanks for the suggestions! everything's 32-bit and there's not a firewall problem. we did finally get things to connect to the manager and the servers show up and are idle BUT only two machines are actually opening the render frame window and then they're only rendering blackness. the other machines either have an unknown error trying to "load application" (it doesn't say which one but I assume it's Max) or they appear on the monitor but aren't being assigned any frames at all. We're using vray and thought maybe they weren't finding the licenses but they're all set up to look in the correct location, we triple-checked. any other ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I still think you need to unistall all versions of BackBurner, and install BackBurner2009 if you haven't already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 ok, I'll give that a try. the machines that are rendering only black though are brand-new or have had a clean install of windows recently, so that sounds like a vray issue doesn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Paske Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 I still think you need to unistall all versions of BackBurner, and install BackBurner2009 if you haven't already. This is what I had to do for BB to work for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 yep, that did work and now the servers are connecting to the manager properly. thanks!! still rendering only black though... grrr.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 ok, I'll give that a try. the machines that are rendering only black though are brand-new or have had a clean install of windows recently, so that sounds like a vray issue doesn't it? One thing to remember is that BackBurner needs to be fully un-installed before it will let you install a new version. It is not like Max where it lets you install multiple versions on one machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 yep, that did work and now the servers are connecting to the manager properly. thanks!! still rendering only black though... grrr.... how complex is your scene? ...i would send a box on a open plain and nothing else. it is best to keep the scene simple,without using extra plugins when testing. then, if that works, enable Vray and try it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 yeah, that's what I'm doing. well actually I had TWO boxes but still... ;-) On the workstations with licensed copies of max it renders ok within max and is black through backburner. Even when the backburner server loads vray... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 is the file black when it saves, or is it also black while it is rendering? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 both. good question, I did think of that. but rendered within 3dmax it's just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 you could also try opening max on the slave machine, and rendering it to make sure it renders fine. this would eliminate the possibility that max is the problem. if you do launch max without it licensed, it will go into a 30 day trial mode, but this will not effect backburner or rendering after the 30 days. it will still render fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 Ok, I tried that on one of the slaves and it rendered fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 how about UNC mapping? ...is everything UNC mapped? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 UNC mapped? (I am by no means a computer expert) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 UNC = Universal Naming Convention It is a must if you are going to be rendering via BackBurner. It uses server names instead of drive letter mapping for reading files. It is a direct path to the files which eliminates the potential for errors. Max will convert these automatically. Basically... R:/Projects/0000_Emire_State_building/Scenes/Building_01.max would read //ServerName/Projects/0000_Emire_State_building/Scenes/Building_01.max ...but it would use your actual server name, and file names. To convert your paths to UNC, go to File > Asset Tracker. Then right click on the map or object, and tell it to convert to UNC mapping. You might have to refresh the Asset Tracker for it to show up. Then, go into Max preferences, and tell it to always use UNC mapping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 You might also want to try and install service pack 1 for Max2009. It lists a couple of BackBurner issues that were fixed. Not sure if it will help. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=11384587&linkID=10381720 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 Oh, ok. No everything's UNC mapped correctly... would service pack 1 have to be installed on every computer even the slaves? could it be vray causing this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Yes, the service pack would need to be on the slaves as well. Make sure your box scene only uses scanline to render, if it renders with scanline, then yes, it is a Vray problem, and not a Max problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpcaltdcah Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 Ah ha! In scanline, the boxes render! This vray installation has just been a nightmare from the beginning! do you know anything about that or should I move this over to the vray forum now that I know that's the problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now