Pimping out backburner?

[Aaron2004]

Hey,

 

So I recently made an HTPC for our living room and am using it as a server. This makes it very ideal for a backburner/vray server as well. While the Vray distributed render runs smoothly in the background, backburner has the tendency to minimize other windows when it gets a job (bad for watching/recording tv). Is it possible to run both max AND backburner as a service so it doesn't interupt other programs when its activated?

 

Bonus points: Does anybody have experience running a distributed renderer through VPN over the internet? Does it work pretty well or is it too slow?

 

Thanks!

 

Aaron

[Devin Johnston]

See below to run BB manager as a service, as for using DR over the internet it's going to be painfully slow because your master machine is going to have to push all the maps to the nodes and even with the fastest high speed connection that's going to be slow as molasses.

 

 

To set up Manager as a Windows service:

1. Open a Command Prompt (DOS) shell and navigate to the Backburner root directory:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Backburner.

2. Register the Backburner Manager executable as a service by typing the following at the

command prompt:

managersvc -i

The following message appears:

Backburner Manager

Service Installed

3. To remove Backburner Manager type the following:

managersvc -r

4. To start the service without rebooting, choose Start | Settings | Control Panel |

Administrative Tools | Services.

The Services dialog appears.

5. Right-click the entry for the Backburner Manager, and choose Start.

Starting and Configuring the Backburner Windows Monitor

53

❚❘❘

Windows starts the manager, and updates its status in the dialog.

NOTE: By right-clicking the entry for Backburner Manager and choosing Properties, you can

set a number of parameters, including the account under which the service logs on, and

recovery options.

6. The next time you start the workstation and/or log on to Windows, Backburner Manager is

started automatically.

[mattclinch]

in my experience it is better to run manager as a program delayed at boot rather than as a service. when i've previously run bb as a service i have encountered problems with mapped network drives etc. perhaps running it as a program would also not force it to minimize other windows?

[Aaron2004]

Well, does telling backburner to run as a service also run MAX as a service? Because my problem is MAX maximizing to display the render status when bb server initiates.

[mattclinch]

hmm, good point.

 

i can think of two options. firstly, you could choose to force max to always open minimised - but the only way i know how to do this is with a shortcut, not the program itself. or secondly, use something like deskpins which i use, which will always keep a specific program on top (for your videos) and prevent other stating programs from stealing focus.