I’m coming here to see if anybody can help me with ideas.
Here’s my problem :
I have the possibility to add some render nodes to my deadline.
Those nodes belong to an another company, they don’t use them at full time.
So i can use them only if i can be in “low prio” : if they submit a render, they fully got back their nodes, and while there have no jobs queued, i can get them.
My problem is, they use Backburner (sic)
This mean i’ll have both Autodesk.server & Thinkbox.slave launched at same time on machines.
I’ve first tryed Slave Sheduling.
I ensure slave is always running
Slave start only if CPU <50% & RAM <4Go.
This works on first try : i render frame#1 from BB & Deadline is not launching slave.
BUT after first frame, CPU & RAM going under detection, so deadline goes on & i have 2 renders in parallel (and no one is really starting)
By the way, this could work until i have to stop slave while backburner is going on. (i don’t necessary have to wait the end of the current render)
I have no idea for this situation.
I don’t see power management doing this.
I have thought of 2 others tricks but they don"t really satisfy me :
I have to monitor a process (3dsmax or even a custom process) and don’t start slave while this process is running. But that could imply to restart slave between all rendered frames (not optimized & not existing option).
Use a special job, like VraySpawner, with maximal priority that could free CPU & RAM for backburner. My problem is to make this dynamically ON/OFF with the activity on Backburner : On when no job on BB, Off when a job is submit to BB.
First guess was do try running back burner via Deadline as an ‘interruptable job’ (option in the job properties), but that would only work inverse where they would borrow your machines…
I honestly don’t see an option here at the moment beyond what you did with the CPU/RAM checking.
It’s a shame Backburner doesn’t have an API of sorts, so we could do something silly like write a Backburner plugin for Deadline to drive this kind of stuff.
For me, the simplest solutions are normally the most robust and scalable and more importantly, don’t take up too much of my time as a sysadmin guy.
So, with that said, I would recommend our weekly, ‘surge’ Deadline rental licensing program, so you can run Deadline Slaves and/or a repository at the other site, then use “TransferJob” to move select jobs to this other location and just make sure the “Interruptible=true” is set in the job props, so any local (remote to you) jobs are allowed through. I assume you will solve the ‘big’ issues of VPN & asset transfer inbound/outbound to get your textures to this remote site and your renders back?
Unfortunately, i can’t impose to the other team to use Deadline (trust me, i tryed to sell them Deadline ). That would have been, off course, so munch easier (at least for me)
I’ve been told they have some Royal render licences, but for an unknown reason, they don’t use it.
I’ve thought of an ultimate solution :
Listening to the Backburner “repository” where jobs are send and check the activity, or status of jobs here.
I guess that will be my last try…
Actually the 3dsMax plugin of Deadline has an option not to start rendering a 3ds Max job if the 3dsmax.exe process is already running.
Just go to the Monitor, enable SuperUser mode, go to Configure Plugins, select the 3dsmax plugin, scroll down to the Rendering rollout, and switch “Fail On Existing 3dsMax Process” to True.
When this is on, the Deadline Slave will not launch 3ds Max if another 3dsmax.exe process is already running. This used to be ON in early versions of Deadline because at Frantic Films we did not want the Slave to pick up jobs when running on a workstation where a user was working interactively in Max. When we closed the interactive Max session, the Slave would start rendering again automatically.
Is is possible to render with 3dsmax 2015 & deadline 7.1 with an outdated version of backburner (aka BB 2014 instead of 2015) ?
After installation of 3dsmax, i had to install the previous version of backburner to make the render of our parteners possible.
But now, looks like deadline can’t render our jobs, even a simple teapot.
No. You must always have installed the latest Backburner version to support the latest 3dsMax version. Backwards support works, just not forwards.
Your attached log prints out this message to warn users of this issue.
Deadline has always (since v0.1) required Backburner to be installed so we can piggyback on its DLL’s. Combined with Lightning (custom/bespoke c++ plugin to Deadline), you get all the power
Backburner 2015 will install over the top of Backburner 2014 and then both Max 2014 & Max 2015 will be supported via both Deadline and/or Backburner.
Sorry, perhaps I misunderstand you?
Yep that could work but i don’t want to upgrade BB for render2014.
We got max2014 + BB2014 witch i don’t want to change this setup, because it is not mine.
I just want to install max2015 + Deadline to leech some render power when there’s no render 2014.
So i have to install BB2015, because Deadline is based on BackBurner (witch is, to my opinion, a damn bad option).
I’m just trying at the moment, to install a ‘fake’ or changed path BB2015, just to make renders with deadline possible, without touching the 2014 setup.
I know it’s a bit tricky !
BTW : i’ve just successfully install a dual BB 2014/2015. Early tests are goods, but i’m still testing deeper…
How to :
BB2014 already installed
Install BB2015 with a custom path
=> BB2014 should be uninstalled
Re-install BB2014 to standard path
=> BB2015 should NOT be uninstall
Now we have a dual BB with no versionning (just look at the target shortcuts)
). That would have been, off course, so munch easier (at least for me)
