Network rendering with Backburner

You can use Autodesk® Backburner TM with Maya to manage your render jobs and render nodes while network rendering. Autodesk Backburner is a background rendering network system that allows animation scenes to be rendered by many computers working collectively on the same network.

Refer to the Backburner User Guide for more information. (This file is about 2MB in size.)

Installing Backburner

Prior to installing Backburner, ensure that your firewalls on your render nodes are disabled or the proper port is allowed through.

Refer to the chapter Configuring a Standalone Workstation of the Backburner Installation Guide for information on how to set up background rendering on a standalone workstation. (This file is about 2MB in size.)

Refer to the chapter Backburner Components - Windows of the Backburner Installation Guide for instructions on how to set up the Backburner Manager and Backburner Server in a render farm. (This file is about 2MB in size.)

The installation and set up procedure described below can be used out of the box or modified for a custom integration.

Before you begin

Before you begin, you must ensure the following:

Note:

Backburner gives the best performance improvement for rendering animations. Backburner can only subdivide a job into tasks of at least one frame long. It cannot subdivide a single frame into multiple tasks for distribution across more than one machine.

Network rendering using Maya with Backburner

Follow these steps to set up Backburner for use with Maya.

Setting up Backburner for use with Maya on Windows

  1. Install Backburner and Maya on all your render farm nodes.

    You must install Backburner and Maya in the same folder location on each computer.

  2. Select a machine to be used as the render farm manager. On this machine, run the Backburner Manager and configure it to suit your environment.
  3. On all the machines to be used for rendering (including the render farm manager, if desired), run the Backburner Server application and point it to the computer you selected as the Backburner Manager.
    Note:

    You can run the Backburner Manager and Server as a service in Windows. For more information, consult the Backburner Installation Guide.

    Note:

    It is not recommended that the render farm manager be used for rendering.

Setting up Backburner for use with Maya on Linux

  1. Install Backburner and Maya on all your render farm nodes.

    You must install Backburner and Maya in the same folder location on each computer.

  2. Select a machine to be used as the render farm manager. On this machine, run as root, /usr/discreet/backburnerConfig and install the Backburner Manager service.
    Note:

    Setting up the Backburner Server service is optional.

  3. On all the machines to be used for rendering (including the render farm manager, if desired), run as root, /usr/discreet/backburnerConfig and configure the Backburner server to point to the computer you selected as the Backburner Manager.
    Note:

    It is not recommended that the render farm manager be used for rendering.

    Note:

    For more information, consult the Backburner Installation Guide.

Setting up Backburner for use with Maya on Mac OS X

  1. Install Backburner and Maya on all your render farm nodes.

    You must install Backburner and Maya in the same folder location on each computer.

  2. Select a machine to be used as the render farm manager and enter its name in the manager.host file located at /usr/discreet/backburner/cfg.
  3. Restart the Backburner server.

    Alternatively, you can restart your machine.

    Note:

    For more information, consult the Backburner Installation Guide.

Submitting a job to Backburner from Maya

To create your render jobs and manage your render nodes, select Render > Create Backburner Job.

Creating your custom integration

In addition to using the Backburner integration out of the box, you can also customize your own integration. To do so, it is important to understand the following.