first, i think there should be a backburner forum since it crosses over a few software.

Is anyone doing this though? I work in a small group and when I notice someone is not at there desk I’d love to just start their server remotely so I can get a few frames during the day instead of using my own machine or waiting till night.

The only trick is I’d like it to also Not run if certain applications are open (like other rendering software maybe) to ensure they aren’t actually rendering themselves.

If this doesn’t exist already, here’s how I was thinking to do it:

AHK - AutoHotKey would be my preference since it’s pretty simple.
I could create an application that runs on everyone’s computer on startup. It periodically pings a file to search for it’s own computer name and an on/off switch (probably just 0 or 1).

If I change the file for [computer12] to be 1 then it would open the server. It has to keep pinging because I could change it back. If the user closes the server manually then the file should automatically send the command to change back to 0.

There could be a manager-like application that shows all the computer names with an on/off button to control the file/file(s). That way you can be visually alerted of the changes without having the file open. Simply hitting a button would turn a server on and off by sending the change to the file for that computer. During the next ping for that computer the server shuts off.

What do you guys think? I’d love Autodesk to make it, but they’re too busy trying to fix Max2012 right now, as they should be.

Any idea that’s better? Maybe something that’s better than AutoHotkey?
I’d love to hear if other people would find this useful as well. I think it’s a pretty decent idea.

I read somewhere that Autodesk has no plans to develop BB any further, they will try to fix bugs, but not develop new features. That is unfortunate because I do think that there is room for improvemet in BB.
But they are saying that BB’s development is not a priority for users, there are more important things they want to focus their efforts on. They see BB as a basic entry level render manager supplied with the software, and if people want a more advanced render manager, they should go and pay for one of the third party ones.
So I would not expect this to happen, though I’m sure something could be set up with some scripting.
Things you can do with the current BB system are: Serversvc with the login script. The serversvc (service version of Server) runs all the time when a computer is on, but stops working when a user logs in, and restarts when they log out. This is specifically for render nodes that are also workstations that people use. It’s just reliant on people loggin in and out, which may not always happen.
Another trick could be to have server running all the time on all machines and use the Week Schedule function in Monitor to enable/disable individual nodes remotely. That’s kind of a workaround, but should work.

They keep saying that, only, they keep updating it a little occasionally. They just aren’t technically adding features. The problem with relying on 3rd party is they don’t Have to update when a new version comes out, and usually it’s quite a while for them to actually do it.

Thanks for the server thing. I had heard of that before, but didn’t realize it was in the help file. Thanks.

And you’re right. No one really logs off here when they leave their desk. They just lock their console. But it’s easy enough to write a script in AHK or maybe even vbs that just says, on windows lock:net start.....
And I could even put in a couple extra rules like not starting if Bunkspeed Shot is running.

It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s pretty good. Thanks for the help. I’ll have to have our IT guy put those in our group policies so I don’t have to do it for every user on every computer.

The nicest thing here is if someone just doesn’t show up for the day I can just turn on their computer and use it to render.

Thanks. I’ll post back if I ever make the script to run in the background. I’m not much of a programmer, so it will take me a while to accomplish in spare time. Plus I’m not going to install AHK until next week when I get my new computer.