Setup guide

2 When prompted to confirm your action, click Yes. The group is deleted from the Server list. The render
nodes themselves remain untouched, and can be assigned to other groups, as needed.
Use the following procedures to create or delete a named collection of render nodes, called a server group,
and to assign a server group to a job.
NOTE Two kinds of server groups can be created, local groups and global groups. In almost all cases, you will
want to create global server groups only. Local groups serve a particular purpose for 3ds Max, under a specific
Backburner configuration. The configuration in question has 3ds Max, the Backburner Manager, and the Backburner
Monitor all installed and running on the local machine. In this case, a local group is a shortcut to a list of render
nodes individually selectable from within the 3ds Max application. In all other cases—and for all other Autodesk
applications—create global groups, as described in this section.
NOTE For information on configuring a creative application to submit jobs to a server group, see the User Guide
for the application of choice. To configure a Visual Effects and Finishing application to submit its jobs to a server
group, set the optional BackburnerManagerGroup keyword in the application's init.cfg file. See the Burn Installation
and User Guide. For Smoke for Mac OS X, this can be done in the Smoke Setup UI.
Server Group Customization
Customizing server group behaviour is made possible by way of two key options. First, you can configure a
server group to automatically make use of non-group render nodes that are sitting idle. That is, when you
have configured the creative application to submit jobs to a named server group, the Backburner Manager
will send the job to any available non-group render nodes too. Second, by default, the nodes in a server
group are available to all jobs submitted to the Backburner network. You can configure a server group to
give priority to the jobs submitted to it specifically. Once configured, when the Backburner Manager receives
a job for a server group, non-group jobs are immediately suspended, freeing up the nodes for the “server
group” job.
To create a server group:
1 Right-click All Servers in the server list and choose Global Group from the popup menu. If the option
is greyed-out, connect to a Backburner Manager, and then try again. The Server Group dialog appears.
2 Configure the behaviour of the group as desired.
DescriptionItem
The name of the server group as it will appear in the UI.Name
Adjusts the priority of jobs assigned to the server group. Jobs assigned to a high-weight server group are
given higher priority than jobs assigned to lower-weight groups. In fact, a job assigned to a high-weight
Weight
group may be rendered ahead of non-group jobs—even if the non-group jobs have higher priorities at
the job level.
Enable to allow the Backburner Manager to temporarily assign idle non-group render nodes to the group.
Enabling this option increases the rendering power of the group.
Can Use Idle Non-group Servers
Enable to allow the Backburner Manager to suspend the processing of non-group jobs running on group
nodes, when a new job is submitted specifically to the group. Enabling this option allows a render node
group to automatically switch from non-group jobs to new group jobs.
Suspend Non-Current Group
Jobs
3 Add render nodes to the group by selecting them in the Available list and clicking Add. You can add
render nodes directly from the Server list area by dragging and dropping them onto an already existing
group.
106 | Chapter 3 Networked processing