Hi Guys,

I was wondering someone could help me out with a step-by-step instruction manual for setting up a render farm in 3dsmax. I would really like to explore the possibilities of using a render farm but want to set it up the right way.

Thanx!

Remco

Hi Remco,

The 3ds Max documentation itself has a lot of useful information about setting up a render farm using Backburner, including a step-by-step guide. I would recommend checking this out first, then coming back here if you have any specific questions about things that remain unclear.

Hope this helps.

Best regards, Bruce

Yeah, do as Bruce suggests.  A render farm is surprisingly simple to create.  It only gets tricky when you’re trying to be tricky or you’re getting what appear to be obscure errors.

In a nutshell;
you have your machines with Max and Backburner installed
the rendering machines have the server app running and one machine have the manager app running
the servers point to the manager
you submit your renders to the manager from your workstation
and you can view your progress using the monitor app

It’s probably worth starting with one or two machines (it is possible to have one machine as manager, server and workstation) and once you have one or two machines talking, then slowly assimilate the whole office.  BUT Before spreading across the office, there are several considerations you should look into because it is easier and smarter to address them before spawning across your machines.

One tiny question…

Rendering scene require 12 GB of ram…do all of the render nodes require it too ??

The amount of RAM required on each system to render a known project is going to be the same, yes. Of course, you wouldn’t necessarily need the same amount of system ram installed on each system to make this work though….

Ok, I’m almost there!
Just one question, in the help they tell me to install 3ds Max using the Compact installation option on the server machines. No authorization is required for this option. How do I do that? Cause I can only choose to install the compleet version and then it askes for a serial…

Thanks

Remco Bastiaans - 26 February 2009 10:04 AM

Ok, I’m almost there!
Just one question, in the help they tell me to install 3ds Max using the Compact installation option on the server machines. No authorization is required for this option. How do I do that? Cause I can only choose to install the compleet version and then it askes for a serial…

I’m not sure that there is a compact version any more, but anyway the choice between compact or full is not crucial - it’s just mentioned to save you hard disk space because you won’t need all the samples and extras if the computer is only being used as a network rendering server. No harm installing them though.

Although the installation process asks you for a serial number, I believe that you can enter “000-00000000”.

It does indeed, but then I have to reinstall every 30 days I guess…..well let’s try this!

Bruce Harfield - 26 February 2009 10:11 AM

Although the installation process asks you for a serial number, I believe that you can enter “000-00000000”.

I think that’s possible but I don’t think there should be no problem entering your serial.

Remco Bastiaans - 26 February 2009 10:28 AM

It does indeed, but then I have to reinstall every 30 days I guess…..well let’s try this!

3ds Max when run as the software, (I would imagine) will only run when it’s in the trial period or it’s been authorised by a license server or activation code.  When it’s run as part of a render farm, as long as the number of nodes doesn’t exceed whatever the limit is these days (used to be 10,000), it doesn’t matter whether it has been activated or not or whatever serial number it thinks it is.  Using 000-00000000 is probably smart as if you happened to be audited (which is probably next to impossible), it would indicate that you’re not trying to use bogus copies.

I don’t remember what we did here as it’s part of a deployment.  I think we used the serial number and the software is pointed to a license server so should that user decide one day to load Max, they can.

Indeed, there is no need to authorise 3ds Max on render servers, as long as it is only being used for remote network rendering. The only installation of 3ds Max that you need to authorise is the one(s) that is/are used for creating 3d content, and submitting jobs to the render farm.

You can buy one copy of 3ds Max, install it 200 times, authorise one of them, and have 200 computers network rendering for you if you wish….

This sounds good, you don’t have to open 3dsmax when you want to use it just for network rendering I guess. You only have to start the server app from backburner to make a connection to the manager, right?

Yes exactly. Backburner controls the rendering process in 3ds Max on the network render servers. All you have to do (all being well), is send the rendering job to Backburner…

Hi Guys,

A new problem occurs…..I’ve connected a server machine succesfully, so I can see a green dot when I want to send the render job. But when I submit the job the server machine wants to start 3ds max and asks me to activate the product! When I read your comments above this is not the way it’s suppose to go. Eventually the connection fails and I get an error on the manager pc.

Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks

Remco, are you running the backburner server.exe manually on each PC from Windows, or have you installed the serversvc.exe Windows Service on each PC?

ALso, have you tried disabling the “Rendered Frame Window” option in the network rendering job submission panel?

At the moment I’m running server.exe on one pc, not serversvc.exe.

After I’ve read your comment I tried to disable the Rendered Frame Window option, but still it wants to open 3dsmax.
Maybe I should look into the serversvc.exe some more…..as for the moment I don’t have a clue what it does.

Speak to your IT guys about what a “Windows Service” is. It basically means that the backburner server will be always running on the PC without you having to manually start it. It will run in the background, even if nobody is logged into the computer. The computer just has to be powered up and booted.

This is definitely the way to go (regardless of the current problem), because it means that you can entirely control the render farm from one PC, without having to start the server application manually on each computer.

The 3ds Max documentation has further details, on this - but might use terminology that is unfamiliar to you. My suggestion would be to get one of your IT guys to review the docs with you.