About Autodesk Backburner

Autodesk Backburner is the 3ds Max network-rendering management software, also used by products such as Autodesk® Flame® and Autodesk® Smoke®.

Backburner 2016 is backward compatible, but settings do not migrate from earlier versions.

To use Backburner within 3ds Max, refer to the Network Rendering section in the Rendering chapter of the 3ds Max Help. See also the Help menu in the Backburner Manager.

Backburner for Managing and Monitoring

You can install Autodesk Backburner on a machine without 3ds Max. However, such an installation of Autodesk Backburner cannot be used for rendering. You can use this machine only to manage or monitor jobs.

Although the Autodesk Backburner server can be installed on a single machine, it will not do anything; it will work only if it detects a supported program such as Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Flame, or Autodesk Smoke. This means that you must have Autodesk Backburner installed with at least one additional Autodesk product for a machine in your configuration to be capable of rendering.