Use the Network Job Assignment dialog to submit your animation to the rendering servers.
You can submit as many jobs as you like in a single 3DS MAX session. Open each file you want to render and submit it following these same steps. Each job is placed behind the last one submitted. If you submit a job using the same name as a job that is currently in the queue, a warning dialog asks you to rename the job before submitting it to the queue.
Include Maps: Archives the 3DS MAX file, with all of its maps, into a zip file. The zip file is sent to each server, where it is unzipped into a Temp directory and rendered. Use this feature if you have access only to servers that exist over the Internet. It is not meant for heavy production use. To use this feature, you must have a copy of the compression application you are using on the NT path on each machine you intend to use. This includes the machine from which you are submitting the job and the machines set up as servers. Check in Control Panel under System to verify the current path.
Virtual Frame Buffer: Specifies that each rendering server displays the virtual frame buffer during the net rendering process.
Note: If you are running the Server as an NT Service, the Virtual Frame buffer does not show up on the server, regardless of the Virtual Frame Buffer setting.
Inactive: Sends the job to the queue as inactive and it will not be rendered by any servers until it is reactivated in the Queue Manager.
High Priority: Sends the job to the top of the queue, preempting the existing jobs. If a server is currently rendering and a “high priority” job is sent to the queue, the server will stop rendering its current job and begin rendering the new “high priority” job. When finished with the “high priority” job, the server returns to the next job it has been assigned in the queue.
The Notification Alerts area, below the Settings area in the Network Job Assignment dialog, lets you send notifications to an external program, called Notify that can then do whatever a developer designs for the Notify program. Ideally, this might be something like sending an e-mail or a message to a pager that your job is completed.
Enabled: Enables the notification system.
Settings: Displays the Alert Notification Settings subdialog. When Enabled is checked, this button becomes available.
Notify Failures: Sends a notification alert on any failures.
Notify Progress: Sends a notification alert every specified number of frames.
Every nth frame: Specifies the frequency of Progress alerts. When set to 100, a Progress alert is sent upon every 100 completed frames. This control is available when Notify Progress is checked.
Notify Completion: Sends a notification alert at the completion of the job.
The notifications are sent to an external program in the 3dsmax directory, called Notify.*. (The extension of this program can be .exe,.bat, or .cmd.) A developer (or anyone who can write a batch file) can design the Notify program to launch whatever they want when the job notifications are received. Upon each alert notification, the Manager calls the Notify program, supplying it with two command line options:
Notify datafile type
where datafile is a text file containing information about the alert, and type is the type of alert: Failure, Progress, or Completion. Once received, the Notify program can do what it will with the information.
Note that the NOTIFY.EXE program supplied with 3D Studio MAX R2 is nothing more than an example of what can be done with the notification system. It is a simple example provided to show users and developers the kinds of applications that can be developed and used in the new notification system. This program allows you to choose .wav files which are played when the Network Render reaches one of the three user defined notification alerts. The details on the use and setup of the NOTIFY.EXE application are described below.
Click the plus (+) button next to the Job Name field to increment the job name. Unlike the plus button in the file dialogs, this button does not automatically launch the job.
You see a listing of all servers available for network rendering. Each server is marked with a colored icon to denote its current state:
Green: Running and not rendering any jobs.
Yellow: Rendering another job. You can assign jobs to busy servers, and the jobs will be rendered in the order received.
Red: Failed. Try rebooting the server or see the Troubleshooting section for more information on failed servers.
Gray: Absent. Verify that the Network Server is currently running and that it has not been “Disallowed” in the Queue Manager Server Properties dialog.
If a rendering server is running on a workstation that also has an interactive session of 3DS MAX, you can still select that machine for rendering. A second copy of 3D Studio MAX is launched to execute the network render.
Statistics of each server can be viewed by selecting a single server and clicking Properties.
As the rendering proceeds, the alerts will launch the associated sound. For example, if you assigned a chime in the Progress field and set Notify Progress for every 10th frame, the chime sounds every 10th frame of the rendering.
Monitoring the Rendering Queue