Backburner and mental ray

[milfora]

Hi again,

 

I am in the final stages of rendering and have setup a 30 node render farm.

All seems to be moving along nicely and all the nodes are talking to the manager.

Once I hit the render button (using mental ray as the renderer), I have noticed that there is a limit of 10 nodes allocated to each job, once I fire up a server on another machine, nothing happens - it just says

'Registration to 000.00.00.00 accepted', but does not fire up max

 

Is there a limit to the amount of servers used with mental ray? I have used the scanline renderer many times in the past and that could use every server that was opened.

 

BTW I'm using 3dsMax 2009 with Backburner 2008.1

 

Thanks in advance

 

AM

[Macer]

There is a licensing restriction on the amount of MR nodes per full copy - I'm not sure of the figure (10 nodes rings a bell - I think it per cpu not per core?) but your reseller should know. If you have another two full licenses you could try sending them from those machines? (ie 10 nodes per seat). Also make sure that they are fired up in correct order - manager, server, max - send job. It shouldn't make a difference, but sometimes it does.

[Justin Hunt]

There is a limit (100's I can remeamber the exact number), I have been successfull been rendering on 15 quad core with no restrictions.

 

For previouse versions there was a limit to the number of cores for DBR rendering but this has been lifted in 2009.

 

There is an option when submitting a job to BB to limit the number of servers, by default this is not set.

 

jhv

[Macer]

Justin does this mean that there is no restriction for the number of nodes that can be used via back burner with MR? (ie: per whole frame for an animation)

 

I thought that there was still a limit for distributed bucket rendering via backburner with MR. The Max Design 2009 manual (p6362/4) states that a maximum of 8 cores (not including the host machine) can be used for distributed bucket rendering via back burner. Is this limit still enforced?

 

You could get around it by having several licensed copies (ie 8 cpus per license - 3 licenses = 24 nodes, etc). It will be good if its been lifted (but maybe I was just reading the manual wrong!) Once you get started on the whole SMP licensing ...blah blah blah.....

 

But thats only for distributed buckets, I take it that the earlier (pre max 8) MR licensing restrictions for standard distributed rendering via backburner no longer exist (or prehaps they never did?). So now you can use the full 9999(?) nodes?

 

I only have 6 machines at the moment so it doesn't currently affect me, but I'd be interested to know.

 

Andrew, any luck getting it to work?

[Macer]

Oh, just thought it may have something to do with your operating system. I think I read some where that backburner manager running on xp can only handle 10 pc's, for any more you have to make sure backburner manager is on a windows server platform?

 

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-241858.html

 

I don't know if this is still a problem on todays software?

[BrianKitts]

Oh, just thought it may have something to do with your operating system. I think I read some where that backburner manager running on xp can only handle 10 pc's, for any more you have to make sure backburner manager is on a windows server platform?

 

XP does have a 10 machine maximum connection for networking, but somehow backburner doesn't have a problem with it. We run backburner on a standard XP workstation and currently have 60+ machines on our farm connecting to it and running jobs without a problem.

[milfora]

Thanks,

 

I've looked at the manager, and my settings show just what Justin mentioned - the server limit is unchecked.

I have attached an image of what is happening, I currently have approximately 14 nodes running, but they have been divided amongst the queued jobs.

 

I am also getting a particular type of error - usually the very descriptive "Error Message: An unknown exception has occurred in the network renderer and it is terminating.”

 

I am running 3ds Max 2009, Backburner 2008.1, and my computer is running Windows XP Professional (which also acts as the manager)

My scenes each have multiple xrefs all in a central network location. Could it be that the xref's are causing the 'Unknown Exception"?

Maybe its the network?

 

Should I be updating to SP1 and Backburner 2008.2 ?

 

So many issues..... so close to deadline...

 

AM

[Justin Hunt]

Definiterly install the SP as it fixes networking render crashes. I think it had something to do with the view cube of all things.

 

I thought you already had this.

 

As to DBR through BB core restrictions, not sure. It has been lifted with normal DBR. Besides DBR for animation isn't recommended as it may be slower in many cases. Too much data needing to be shifted too many times can really slow a network down.

 

jhv