Using the Monitor Application

The Monitor application is not required for network rendering, but it allows you view and control jobs that the manager is processing.

To start the Monitor application:

1. Go to the workstation designated as the render monitor.
2. Do one of the following:
• Choose Start | Program Files | discreet | backburner Monitor.
• Open the discreet/backburner folder and double-click the Monitor icon.



The Monitor window appears and the message "Searching Manager..." appears at the left end of the status bar. When the manager is found, the name of the manager appears at the right end of the status bar. The list of servers on the Network Job Settings panel is updated.

3. If the manager cannot be found with the current preference settings, the message "Manager not found" appears in a dialog.

Click OK, then choose Edit | Preferences to change the settings. To try the corrected settings, choose File | Reconnect. If the manager is not found, see Connecting to the Manager.

The Job list appears on the left side of the Manager window. The three panels on the right side show information for the selected job in the Job list:

4. Network Job Settings—Includes three sets of controls: Main, Servers, and Job Links.
5. Statistics—Shows the render statistics like the Render Queue does.
6. Log—Shows the render log like the Render Queue does.

To view and control jobs:

1. Select a job in the Job list.



The information in the three panels updates to reflect the selected job.

2. Show the Statistics or Log panel to see detailed progress information.
3. When you right-click a job in the Job list, you can choose Suspend, Restart, or Delete. You can right-click anywhere in the list to choose Refresh.

These menu options are also available in the Jobs menu.

4. Show the Network Job Settings panel, then click Main to show the Main controls.
5. You can change the priority, or enable Critical to make the job jump to the top of the queue.

If you enable Critical for more than one job, their priorities set their order.

Note: By changing the job priority values, you can reorder the jobs. The order in the Job list updates automatically.

6. To assign different servers for the job, and make or remove job dependencies, set the Use All Available Servers and Use Job Dependency options.

These options work as they do in the Render Queue dialog. Here, you can change the original settings made in the Render Queue. You can also change the notification options.

There is one difference in the Servers controls: you cannot click the box to toggle between assigned and unassigned. Instead, right-click a server and choose Assign to Job or Remove from Job. These options are also available in the Servers menu.

Gaining Control

Although Monitor can be started on more than one workstation on the network, only the first workstation to start Monitor and connect to the manager can control and edit the jobs.

All other workstations that start the Monitor application only have read-access to the job queue.

To gain control from the Monitor application that connected to the manager first, go to the controlling workstation and exit the Monitor application. On your workstation, choose File | Reconnect and select the manager. Once you gain control, you can edit jobs in the job queue.