8

Network Job Assignment Dialog 189
• User - current user name
Note: The Historical Performance Index value,
listed under the Perf. Index heading in the Server
list window , offers information on the relative
speed of the listed servers. The fastest machine is
rated at 1.0, while the other servers are rated as
fract ions of the fastest. A machine whose average
is twice as long would receive a .50 index. Each
machine is rated by measuring the time it takes to
complete each fr ame, and the accumulated time is
divided by the number of f r ames, resulting in the
averagetimeperframe,inseconds.
Several factors can affect a machine’s performance.
CPU p ower isn’t necessarily a concern when large
file tr ansfers are involved. For example, if a certain
job uses several map files from a centr a lized server,
the performance of the network throughput plays
a much larger part than CPU performance, as
most machines will spend the majority of the time
reading maps. On the other hand, if the machine
has all maps locally it will have a huge advantage
(local access versus network access) regardless of
which CPU it is using. The performance index
provides you with information regarding your
servers’ rendering performance to help analyze
your network rendering setup and better distribute
the workload.
Job list
Thejoblist,locatedonthelower-rightsideofthe
Network Job Assignment dialog, displays all jobs
submitted to the network manager. Also shown
are each job’s priority, status, and output file path.
To change job settings and manage jobs, use the
m
onitor application.
Advanced—Opens the Advanced Settings dia log
(page 3–193)
, where you can make settings for
Per-Job Timeouts, TCP port number, Pre-Render
MAXScripts and Job Handling.
Submit—ClickSubmittoexitthisdialogandsend
the current job to the Network Manager, which
places it in the queue for rendering.
When you submit a rendering job, if the output
filenametobeusedbythejobisthesameasthat
used by an existing job, you’re asked if you want
to overwr ite the existing file(s). Also, if the name
of the submitted job replicates one already in the
rendering queue, an alert notifies you; click OK,
change the job name, and submit it again.
Note: Submitting a job creates a folder for the
job on the manager machine in the
\Program
Files\Autodesk\Backburner\Network\jobs\
folder.
In that folder is a compressed file with a
.maz
extension containing the scene file. You can extract
thescenefromthecommandpromptusingthe
maxunzip.exe program, found in the 3ds Max
program directory. For example, to extract a
file named
testfile.maz , assuming t he program
is installed in a folder named
\3dsmax8\ ,open
thecommandprompt,navigatetothe
\Program
Files\Autodesk\Backburner\Network\jobs
folder, and enter this: “\Program
Files\Autodesk\3dsmax8\maxunzip”
test fi le.ma z.Youmustspecifythe
.maz file-name
extension; otherwise you’ll get an error message.
Can cel—Discards changes and exits the dialog.