Attached Link: http://www.shistudios.com

Does anybody know how to make Bryce Lightning run as a Windows 2K Service, successfully?

We have set B.L. up as a service so that it will start-up automatically. The intention is to have it continue to run even when the user logs off, and eventually have it run transparently (i.e. not show up in the task bar). The service we created is successful, we have rendered to the client before logging on so it does work. BUT, you can't log off, shut down, or even kill B.L. through the Task Manager.

That's our hang-up right now, getting the machine to log off or even restart. B.L. does not allow that to happen.

Next we will want to make B.L. transparent so it doesn't show up in the task bar.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated!!

thx,
JAB*

if I only knew what bryce lighting is

The Bryce network rendering program

Attached Link: http://www.shistudios.com

This is a post we put up on the Bryce5.net forum:

The background for this question is here:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=3bbb3d62%241_3%40cnews&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dbryce%2Blightning%2Bservice%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26site%3Dgroups

Using instsrv and srvany as mentioned in the post, I was able to get the Bryce client to run as a service.

One catch though: If a user logs in to a machine running the client, then tries logout or restart, the logout/restart attempt fails. This seems to be due to the fact that the bryce lightning app doesnt listen for ctrl_logoff_event calls from the OS (this is briefly mentioned in the srvany resource kit notes). If I terminate the process, the logoff/restart attempt closes the OS fine. I attempted to use a w2k logoff script to kill the process, but the script doesnt seem to run due to the same prob mentioned above.

I wanted to see if you had encountered the same problem or had any thoughts. I appreciate any suggestions.

P.S. Additionally, i installed the service using the basta computing tool (apptoservice)with the exact same results....

Thanks!

Attached Link: http://www.milamberart.com/

I had heard about this thread... Now I have a few questions- 1- You really create a Lightning service in the Services part of the Control Panel? In your first thread you made reference to it running in the taskbar- normally I don't think of services running in the taskbar if they're started automatically... is it really a service? 2- You can use the Lightning client in a render before any user has logged in? Just trying to clarify what you said before. 3- I know why you can't kill Lightning through the task manager- services don't show up there. You need to go into the Control Panel, Administrative Utilities/Tools, Services, and Stop/Restart/changes settings in there (assuming that Lightning really is running as a service). 4- Not really a question, just from my experiences- my friend helped me set up a service on my computer yesterday, which works with Apache. When Apache is installed, it is setup as a Service in the Control Panel. It can be set to automatically run whenever the computer is turned on. My friend helped me setup Jakarta/Tomcat to run as a service, with a utility called "jk_nt_service.exe". The file, when run from the command line, will set up your executable as a service according to the parameters defined in a configuration file you specify. I know have Tomcat running as a Service, nothing in the taskbar. Would something like this be possible with Bryce Lightning? I don't know. You should be able to let the user log off by stopping the Lightning Service in the Control Panel. This isn't an elegant solution, but it may work in the short, short term. BTW, I liked the illustration and digital work on your website- very well done.

Attached Link: http://www.shistudios.com

1) Good question. We basically did what you explain in 4, but it still shows up... 2) Yes, we successfully rendered to that client prior to the user logging on... also, the render was not interrupted on the client when they did log on. 3) Actually, it's Lightning.... start-up Lightning on your PC and try to kill it without hitting quit within Lightning... you can't. We did find out that it's inherent to the application, not the service. We can quit Lightning and restart the machines (i.e. restarting the B.L. service), and we plan to instruct the users to do this in the short term... it's just a terrible inconvenience to them. We're still working on it. Ideally, the app would run completely transparent to the user. I have been rendering to the network for the past two days without any of the users noticing a performance lag on their machines whatsoever! P.S. Thank you very much. I'm hoping that Bryce will up the production quality of the images. Truth be told, I'd love the time to experiment and start working on my own ideas outside of business. I have a lot of projects in mind that aren't as "clean" as the Convacent Agents.

Attached Link: http://www.shistudios.com

Oh, bytheway, I'm trying to talk the Rich (the IT guy developing the service for me) to either sell the code her writes (it's turning out to be pretty significant) or post it to the community......

...Rich (the IT guy developing the service for me) to either sell the code her [sic] writes...< Should I know what code you're speaking of?

Oh, and I should note that I have no more ideas on this... It may be something funky in Bryce Lightning...