Deadline 6.2 Release Notes

rrussell · March 4, 2014, 1:39pm

What’s New In Deadline 6.2

These are the accumulated release notes from every 6.2 beta release. If you want to see the release notes for a specific 6.2 beta release, click on the release’s corresponding thread in the Builds forum:
viewforum.php?f=85

This release focuses on fixing bugs and making improvements to Deadline’s existing plugins and scripts. It also adds support for many new versions of software that Deadline supports, and even brings back the DJV plugin from Deadline 5. Finally, it adds OpenStack and Google Cloud to the list of cloud providers that Deadline supports. Here are the highlighted changes:

New Application Support

Support has been added for 3ds Max 2015, Anime Studio 10, Clarisse iFX, Composite 2015, DJV, Maya 2015, modo 8xx, SketchUp, Softimage 2015, and VRay’s ply2vrmesh tool. Support has also been added for the Redshift renderer for Maya and Softimage. Finally, new integrated submitters have been created for Houdini and modo.

Support has also been added for all the Maya Extension versions (2013.5, 2014.5, etc). For example, in previous versions of Deadline, you would either have to render with 2013 or 2013.5 on the farm. Now it’s possible to render with both.

Offloading VRay and Mental Ray DBR Jobs for 3ds Max

This release adds the ability to offload VRay or Mental Ray DBR jobs for 3ds Max to Deadline. You simply enable Distributed Rendering in the render options, then enable the VRay/Mental Ray DBR option in the submitter and choose the number of Slaves to render on. A job is then submitted to Deadline with the number of tasks equal to the number of Slaves you specified. The slave that picks up task 0 will act as the “master”, and will coordinate a DBR render with the slaves that pick up the other tasks.

modo Distributed Rendering

A new interface has been created for modo to allow modo Distributed Rendering to work on your Deadline farm. After you have brought up the new interface, you can choose the number of Servers to use for Distirbuted Rendering, and then click Reserve Servers to submit a special job to Deadline that runs modo in server mode. You can then click the Update Servers button to show which Deadline Slaves are running the modo server. When you’re happy with your list, press Start Render to render to begin rendering. After you close the interface, the job will automatically be marked as complete so that the Slaves can move on.

Note that this feature is only supported for modo 7xx and later.

Redshift Support and Optional GPU Selection

Redshift for Softimage was previously supported, but now Redshift for Maya is also supported. In addition, there is now a submission option when using the Redshift render to specify the number of GPUs to use per task. If set to 0 (the default), then Redshift will be responsible to choosing the GPU(s) to use for rendering. This can be used in combination with concurrent tasks to get a distribution over the GPUs.

If set to 1 or greater, we pass specific GPU(s) to the Redshift renderer based on the current render thread number and the GPU Per Tasks value. For example:

if this is set to 1, then thread 0 would use GPU 0, thread 1 would use GPU 1, etc.
if this is set to 2, then thread 0 would use GPUs {0,1}, thread 2 would use GPUs {2,3}, etc.

Additional Cloud Provider Support

New Cloud plugins have been added for OpenStack and Google Cloud.

Fixed a Data Formatting Error in the Monitor

There was a bug in the Monitor in Deadline 6.1 that affected systems with certain regional settings (specifically, if a comma is used as a decimal point instead of a period). It would cause the Task List and the Slave List to not display properly. This has been fixed in Deadline 6.2.

General Improvements

Changed the Deadline version number scheme. The first and second numbers are still the Major and Minor versions respectively. The third number (the “build” number) will be incremented for any service packs that are released for a specific minor version. Finally, the fourth number (the “revision” number) will typically only be incremented for beta releases.
OpenStack cloud plugin is now included.
Google Cloud plugin is now included.
Improved error handling in Azure cloud plugin.
Fixed some issues with the cloud plugins when images are missing. The issues were mostly with getting all the active instances and cloning instances.
The plugins that can perform path mapping on a scene file’s contents (Maya for .ma files, Nuke, Lightwave, etc) now copy the temporary scene file to a unique folder, rather than rename the scene file.
Fixed some line-ending character issues in job and slave error reports.
Added additional checks for bad Mono installations on Linux.
Modify python submitters that use subprocess.Popen to workaround a potential python bug on Windows.
Added the Secondary Pool option to all submitters. They all default to being blank, which means no secondary pool is used.
Removed stdout suppression from most of our plugins when collecting progress information.
Updated some Monitor submitters to use the new MakeTopMost() function to keep the submitters on top of all windows.
Added a Dump Python Objects menu item to the Help -> Debug menu in all applications, which we can use to help diagnose memory leaks.
Dependency scripts with missing main functions will no longer result in Success.
Updated azure api and the azure plugin.
The OnJobSubmitted event is now handled BEFORE marking the job as submitted. This means the OnJobSubmitted event can change job properties during submission without the slaves picking up the job before those changes are saved.
Updated some Monitor scripts to use new ScriptDialog utility functions.
Jobs that repeat on a schedule are now put back in the pending state when they complete so that they can be released again at their scheduled time.
Scheduled jobs now have their scheduling settings updated properly after they are resumed. This is particularly important for repeating scheduled jobs.
Fixed typos in Launcher and Pulse applications where they referred to as the “Slave”.
Modified some plugins so that they no longer use the internal PluginInfoDictionary property.
Elapsed (wall clock) rendering time is now properly saved in the job statistic entries.
The clean machine name (no suffix) is now used when manually marking tasks as complete instead of the host name.
On Linux and OSX, the shell scripts are no longer called by the Deadline applications to start other Deadline applications. The applications are now just launched directly, since the environment is already configured correctly.
When a job is resubmitted, it no longer keeps the original job’s Bad Slave list.
Added checks when calculating job statistics to prevent negative values being logged in the stats for ram, cpu, and file size fields.

Installer Improvements

All the command line options are now displayed properly when running the installers with the --help command, and more detailed usage instructions are provided.
The Linux installers now mention the “monoexec” command line option if they can’t find Mono because it’s not in the PATH for the user running the installer (ie: root).
The installers now show the Deadline version number in the welcome page.
Improved the titles of the Repository Directory and Database Directory pages in the Repository installers.
Fixed an invalid character in the license agreements.
The Linux client installer now creates menu shortcuts for the Deadline applications.
Added program icons to the installers.
The Windows Client uninstaller now shows a warning if it detects any running Deadline applications. This warning is not shown in unattended mode.
The browse button for the Repository install path in the Repository installer is now visible on OSX again.
The Repository installer now enters the host name and IP address for the database server if installing the database on the local machine.
Added VC++ 11 redist installers to client installer, which are needed to render with 3ds Max 2015.
Added uninstaller question to Repository Installer to ask if the database should be uninstalled as well. It defaults to No.

Launcher Improvements

Fixed a bug in the Restart Slave If It Stalls feature that could cause the Launcher to start up multiple slaves.
During an auto-upgrade on OSX, the bootstrapped launcher now exits properly.

Monitor Improvements

When gathering slave data, the slave settings are now loaded first instead of the slave state. This prevents issues caused by the slaves having temporary “default” settings before their actual settings are loaded.
Fixed some font issues in the drag & drop dependency confirmation dialog.
The Remote Viewer scripts (VNC, RDC, ARD, and Radmin) now have a 1/2 second delay between connections to multiple slaves to avoid potential problems.
The last selected page in the job properties, slave settings, and repository options is now remembered.
Added option to save and load filter settings for individual panels.
Fixed an error that occurred when marking a slave as offline.
Fixed a bug in the job dependency view that would cause nodes for deleted dependencies to be drawn on top of each other.
Fixed a time zone bug when setting the Idle Shutdown overrides in the power management dialog.
The power management notification settings in the repository options now let you specify a separate email address for each feature. If you leave a field blank, you won’t get notified by that particular feature.
Fixed some memory leaks.
The status bar in the Monitor now shows if there was a recent database connection issue.
Re-added the task right-click option to requeue all tasks rendered by a specific slave.
Fixed an IndexError when deleting rows in the Mapped Path or Mapped Drive repository options.
Fixed a display bug with the Mini-Map button in the job dependency view if the option was toggled on when the Monitor was last closed.
Added a multi-select file browser option when choosing required assets for a job.
Fixed a bug that caused the update timer in the status bar to occasionally get reset to 0 when disconnected from database.
Fixed a data format bug that that affected the slave and task lists, which occurred if the regional settings used a comma instead of a period to represent floating point numbers.
Slaves are now pinged in smaller batches and the UI is updated after each batch, instead of only updating after every slave has been pinged.
Fixed a bug that could result in zombie ping processes on OSX.
Fixed a report sorting issue in the job and slave report viewers.
Statistic reports now respect the filter types (previously, everything used a string filter).
Filter type is now set properly for the default column of a new filter.
Remote commands are now logged in the history log.
The Cloud panel is now refreshed immediately after clicking OK on the Cloud Providers dialog.
Loading a slave list from disk in the machine limit properties now properly sets the flag that the slave list has been modified.
Fixed Monitor to correctly pull plugin .options file from custom plugin folder if specified in the job properties.
Fixed a “jobDependencyDetails” error when opening the Job Dependency View panel.
Fixed a “Pixmap is a null pixmap” error when switching jobs while the Job Dependency View panel is open.
On OSX Mavericks, when saving job reports in the Monitor, a default file is now shown in the file browser.
On OSX, remote commands are no longer sent to the local machine if the remote machine’s IP address can’t be resolved.
Added a job right-click script to email the job’s user. It opens up the user’s email address in the default mail client and sets the job name as the subject.
When opening the Slave Settings dialog, or enabling/disabling slaves, the slave settings are now re-read from the database instead of being pulled from the cache.
Fixed some bugs in the Cloud Providers dialog.
Job quick filters are no longer wiped when resetting the layout or restoring a pinned layout.
Fixed a tooltip mix up in the slave wait times in the repository options.
Throttling tooltips in Repository Options now mention that the plugin files are also included.
Updated the monitor settings tooltips in the Repository Options so that the defaults listed are correct.
Monitor scripts that support batch submission of scene files now append the scene file name to the job name if more than one file is being submitted.
Fixed some threading issues that caused unexpected results when updating the job quick filter lists.
The Total Clock and Total Task Render Time totals under the job stat list in the Farm Reports generator are now updated properly.
Added a Slave setting in the Repository Options to enable using a machine’s FQDN instead of just the host name.
Added a job right-click script to batch-resubmit the selected jobs.
In the Search box, spaces are now replaced with “.*” under the hood when building up the regular expression. This makes searching for multiple terms easier.
Fixed some Slave Settings tool tips in the Repository Options.
Fixed a memory leak that was being caused by the Job Details panel.
The Job Candidate Filter in the slave list now properly handles slaves that are in the Excluded list for Limits that the selected job requires.
Exporting data from Farm Status Reports will now use the internal numeric value for integers, floats, and time spans. Bytes will be used for file sizes and memory data, and milliseconds will be used for time spans.
When copying the data from a list in Deadline, the internal numeric value will be used for integers, floats, and time spans. Bytes will be used for file sizes and memory data, and milliseconds will be used for time spans.
When right-clicking on a pre or post job task and viewing its reports, the filter is now set correctly.
The lists in the Farm Reports dialog now have the context menu to select all and copy.
When exporting from the Farm Reports dialog, it now only exports the visible rows and columns.
On Linux and OSX, the monitor now strips any Deadline installation folders from LD_LIBRARY_PATH, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH, DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH, DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH, and DYLD_FALLBACK_FRAMEWORK_PATH when launching a standalone image viewer.
Added ability for the Monitor to stream job logs from Pulse instead of reading them directly from the Repository. While streaming the logs this way is typically slower, it can be useful if the connection to the Repository server is slow.

Slave Improvements

On OSX, the slave now properly cleans up the rendering process’ child processes if the task is canceled.
Fixed a bug that could cause the slave to wait for a very long time between dequeing tasks on OSX when the display goes to sleep.
If the slave can’t open a plugin’s dlinit file because it doesn’t exist, it now clearly says so, instead of saying “cannot open file”.
Auto-configuration errors no longer crash the slave application.
Fixed an issue when recording the Windows XP operating system in the slave state.
If an error occurs while synchronizing a job’s plugin files, an error report is generated instead of failing silently.
A slave will now recognize if its Concurrent Task Limit Override is changed while it’s rendering a job. Previously, it would only recognize it after it finishes its current job.
A slave will now recognize if its current job’s Limit Tasks To Slave’s Task Limit is changed, and will react accordingly.
Fixed a bug where the Average and Peak ram usage in a task error report could be -2147483648 instead of 0.
Fixed a bug that could prevent Bad Slave detection from working.
Slaves now purge their local log files on a more regular basis.
The slave now adds itself to the job’s bad slave list immediately after the last error occurs. Before, it wouldn’t add it until it tried to dequeue a task for that job again.
Fixed a bug that prevented slaves from immediately recognizing if a job’s machine limit has changed from 0 to another value.
On Linux and OSX, the slave now strips any Deadline installation folders from LD_LIBRARY_PATH, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH, DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH, DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH, and DYLD_FALLBACK_FRAMEWORK_PATH when launching the rendering process.
Slaves that run with their default name no longer have an unnecessary underscore in the slave log file name.

Pulse Improvements

Added better logging for the web service.
In Power Management, the Idle Shutdown and Machine Restart features now ignore disabled slaves.
The housecleaning and pending job scan messages no longer get printed out when Pulse is shutting down (the scans themselves didn’t happen, but these messages were still printed out and were misleading).
Fixed some REST API bugs in the results returned by jobreports and taskreports.
If the SubmitJob POST call contains non-string values, they are now converted to strings.
Fixed a typo in the log for the Slave Scheduling feature when shutting down a slave (it used to say the slave was being started).
The REST API now returns 501 (Not Implemented) instead of 404 (Not Found) when trying to use Get, Put, Post, or Delete if they are unsupported.
When pending or releasing pending tasks via the REST API, an error is no longer returned if the job is suspended.
Pulse now purges its local log files on a more regular basis.
When submitting a job through the REST API, there is now an optional IdOnly parameter that can be used to just return the job ID.

Command Improvements

Sped up the commands to get pools, groups, and maximum priority by about a third. The pools and group command speeds are now similar to what they were in Deadline 5.
GetSlavesRenderingJob command now returns machine names instead of slave names (which was the intended behavior).
Added command line functions to update limit groups in a more fine grained manner.
Added GetMachinesRenderingJob command, which gets the actual machine names or IP addresses for the slaves rendering the job, instead of the slave names.
Changed the GetSlavesRenderingJob command to just return the slave names.
Improved help formatting a bit because some command names were getting cut off.
Fixed a crash that occurred if no arguments were passed to the SubmitJobAndNotify or Notify commands.
Fixed a duplicate GetJob help listing.
Added ResubmitJob command to resubmit an existing job with a new frame list and chunk size.
The Background command no longer loops indefinitely.
Added ExecuteScriptNoGui command that runs the script without pre-importing any UI modules.

Scripting Improvements

Added job function GetJobExtraInfoKeyValueWithDefault, which accepts a default value that is returned if the extra info key doesn’t exist.
SlaveUtils.SendRemoteCommand and SlaveUtils.SendRemoteCommandNoWait now send the remote command properly.
Added SlaveUtils.SendRemoteCommandWithResults function that sends a remote command and returns the results as a string.
Added RepositoryUtils.GetRepositoryDateTime function to get the current date and time of the repository.
The MultiSelectListControl’s SetValue function can now accept a list to select multiple items. If a string is passed instead, it will just select that one item.
The SliderControl now accepts floating point numbers as values.
Added MakeTopMost() function to the DeadlineScriptDialog class that can be used to keep the dialog on top of all other windows.
JobUtils.CalculateJobStatistics() now includes wasted time due to errors and requeues.
Updated API docs for functions that display a file chooser dialog. They now show an example of the file filter syntax.
Fixed some issues in the ScriptUIExample script.
The standalone Python API no longer strips spaces from the job and plugin info files when submitting jobs.
Added CopyToClipboard() function to DeadlineScriptDialog class that can be used to copy text to the clipboard.
Added CreateColorObject() function to DeadlineScriptDialog class that can be used to create a color object, which can then be passed as the value to the ColorBox control.
Updated ScriptUIExample.py with latest built in controls.
The AddControl docs for DeadlineScriptDialog now show all the valid control types.
sys.argv is now defined in Deadline’s Python environment (although it’s just an empty string array).
Added OpenUrl() function to DeadlineScriptDialog class that can be used to open up a url for a website, local file, mail client, etc.
Fixed some issues with the RepositoryUtils script API functions that add history entries.
Added functions to Job class to get job info keys and values.
Added ClientUtils.GetDeadlineVersion() and ClientUtils.GetDeadlineMajorVersion() functions.
Added missing machine limit properties to Job class.
Added RepositoryUtils functions to update limit groups in a more fine grained manner.
Fixed some function documentation typos.
Added some missing job properties to the Job class.
Improved API docs for AddTextControl control in the ScriptDialog class.
Tweaked ScriptUIExample.py to demonstrate how the file filter works in a file browser.
Added ResubmitJob function to RepositoryUtils to resubmit an existing job with a new frame list and chunk size.
Added GetSlavesRenderingJob and GetMachinesRenderingJob functions to RepositoryUtils to get list of slaves or machines rendering a job (respectively).
Not all path mapping functions in RepositoryUtils were logging the results properly. This has been fixed.
Updated standalone Python API to support the IdOnly option when submitting jobs.
When using Jobs.SubmitJobFiles in the standalone Python API, the plugin info settings are now set properly (previously, the job info was also being submitted as the plugin info).
Added GetDeadlinePluginWithJob and GetDeadlineEventListenerWithJobs functions to plugins and event plugins (respectively). They can be used instead of the original GetDeadlinePlugin and GetDeadlineEventListener functions. The first accepts a single job object, and the second accepts a list of jobs.
Added functions to the DeadlineEventListener class to set environment variables for any processes launched using the existing RunProcess function.
Implemented the rest of the file-like interface for the replacement class for sys.stdout and sys.stderr in Deadline’s python engine.
Fixed a bug in the application plugin API that prevented Fatal errors from failing the task.
Added RepositoryUtils functions to delete reports.
Fixed a bug in DeadlinePlugin.WaitForMonitoredProgramToExit() that would cause it to always return True immediately, even if the program has not exited yet.

Submission Improvements

Fixed a submission warning that would complain about the SecondaryPool key/value pair not being supported, even though it is.
If specifying additional notification targets during submission, duplicates will now be removed.

Shotgun Event Improvements

Fixed some issues with the Shotgun event plugin.
Fixed Shotgun Event Plugin to update PathToFrames field even if we only have the output directory for the job.

Draft Event Improvements

Fixed some issues with uploading to Shotgun.

3ds Command Improvements

Added support for 3ds Max 2015.
Added a Camera field to the Monitor submitter.
Removed old Application setting in 3dsCmd.options since it’s not used any more.
Fixed a typo in the 3dsCmd.py plugin file.

3ds Max Improvements

Added support for 3ds Max 2015.
Added a Camera field to the Monitor submitter.
Output paths for things like vrmaps, GI files, etc are no longer viewable from the task right-click menu in the Monitor if those settings are disabled.
In SMTD, added additional render element naming options if the submitter is being used to update the render element paths.
In SMTD, added gamma override options.
Fixed an infinite update refresh loop that could occur when running SMTD in RPManager.
Updated an old email address used in SMTD.
In SMTD, the chunksize is no longer set to 1 when submitting a non-normal frame sequence.
Fixed some bugs that affected some 3ds Max properties that could be modified from the Monitor after the job was submitted.
Added a new “Animation Range” popup ignorer.
Update 3dsmax.py plugin script to support 3dsMax2014 sp5 release in MaxDescriptionDict.
Softened the 3dsmaxcmd.exe sanity check prior to rendering, since it was resulting in false positives for non-English versions of 3ds Max.
When running the 3dsmaxcmd.exe sanity check, the 3dsmaxcmd.exe exit code is now printed out.
Fixed a region rendering issue with render elements.
Fixed Light Cache Mode issue when rendering with VRay.
Jigsaw tile names now start at index 0 instead of 1 to align with IDs of the tasks that will be rendering them.
Removed default 32 bit executable paths for 3ds Max 2014 and later (since it’s only 64 bit now).
Added option to submitters to offload VRay or Mental Ray DBR renders to Deadline.
In SMTD, added $passname token for auto-setting the job name to SubmitMaxToDeadline_NameFormats.ini.
The Build option in Monitor submitter is now disabled if Max 2014 or later is selected.
All VRay floating point settings that can be modified after the job has been submitted now have 6 decimal places, since that is how VRay stores them internally.
Fixed a bug that affected QuickTime job submission in SMTD.
Added popup handler for the “Targa Image Control” pop-up dialog.
Bumped SMTD version number to 6.2.
Fixed “Online Help” tooltip typo in SMTD.
Fixed but with setting job name when opening SMTD when option to automatically set job name when scene file name changes is enabled.
Updated 3dsmax.py to handle new 3ds Max 2015 and 3ds Max 2015 SP1 FileVersion numbers.
Added User Options in SMTD to configure when the warning message for copying external files is shown.
Fixed an error in SMTD that could occur if the VRay raw or split output files were enabled, but the path was undefined.
Fixed an issue when collecting output paths for render elements when doing single frame tile or multi-region rendering.
When doing a region or tile render with padding > 0, and using VRay’s frame buffer to save the images, Draft is now used to crop the saved images to their desired size.
In EndJob for the 3dsmax plugin, it now checks to see if self.MyMaxController is valid before trying to shut down max.
In SMTD, added RegionRenderingMode entry to the list of properties so it can have defaults and stickiness.
In SMTD, changed the Category of the RegionRenderingMode from TilesRendering to MultiRegionRendering.
In SMTD, fixed the preset loading and quick preset loading controls to support Name parameters correctly.
In SMTD, removed the filter string part from the quick preset loading code - it should always show all presets.
Added SMTD defaults/sticky support for StateSets check-boxes.

After Effects Improvements

The integrated and Monitor submitters now properly detect movie extensions when all the letters aren’t lower case.
Fixed a bug when submitting from the Monitor submitter.
The plugin can now force After Effects to run in English mode to ensure Deadline’s progress and stdout error checking work with non-English versions of After Effects.
Added additional log messages to show if the following are enabled: IgnoreMissingLayerDependenciesErrors, IgnoreMissingEffectReferencesErrors, ContinueOnMissingFootage, and FailOnWarnings.
Improved progress handling.

Anime Studio Improvements

Added support for Anime Studio 10.
Added support for additional rendering options that were introduced in Anime Studio 10.

Arnold Standalone Improvements

Added support for local rendering.
Added support for beta and release versions of Arnold (release is the default). This is meant for render farms that need to render jobs from the Arnold 1.0 release and from the pre-release version of Arnold on the same farm.

Blender Improvements

Added /usr/local/bin/blender to the list of default executable paths, since this is where package managers put it.
Improved progress handling.

Cinema 4D Improvements

Added ability to create a custom sanity check script for the integrated submitter.

Clarisse Improvements

Added Clarisse iFX support to Deadline.

Command Line Improvements

Jobs can now be submitted if the executable file doesn’t exist on the submitting machine.
The submitter now has an option to submit a Maintenance job.

Composite Improvements

Added support for Composite 2015.

DJV Improvements

Added DJV support back to Deadline 6.
Cleaned up the plugin and submitter code, and updated the DJV icon.
Added Shotgun/Draft tab to the submitter.

Draft Improvements

Updated Draft to version 1.1.1.55749.
Fixed a bug that could cause the submitter to not always upload to Shotgun.
The Draft script is no longer submitted as an auxiliary file (since it always uses the network copy of the Draft script anyways).
Fixed Draft plugin to properly print out stdout of its post-render script when uploading to Shotgun.
Fixed Draft plugin to properly pass on Python path value to Draft subprocess.
Fixed a typo in the event plugin.
Fixed a bug where trying to submit a Draft Job on a SG version that had no user or entity would fail.
Changed Draft submitter to pull Draft Template from Task (if available) when called from shotgun.
Changed Draft submitter to use python-style %04d frame padding (for Nuke).
Fixed the Draft submitter to perform PathMapping on paths it gets from shotgun (ie: Draft template and output location).
Made improvements and fixed some bugs in Shotgun’s submission script for Draft.
Updated Draft Tile Assembler to use all channels present in any tile in the final image.
Improved the logging in the assembler script for Draft Tile Assembler jobs.

Hiero Improvements

If a custom start frame is used for a sequence export, the submitter now respects it.

Houdini Improvements

Created a properly integrated submitter for Houdini.
The integrated submitter has options to submit one ROP, a list of selected ROPs, or all ROPs in the scene.
When submitting IFD export jobs, the dependent mantra jobs are now frame dependent.
When overriding the output in the Monitor submission script, the $F04 syntax now works properly.
Added additional job properties to the integrated and Monitor submitters that can be set for the dependent Mantra job.
The option to export IFDs in the Monitor submission script is now sticky.
Added “Ignore Inputs” render option to the Houdini submitters. If enabled, only the specified ROP will be rendered (does not render any of its dependencies).

Maxwell Improvements

Fixed an error when co-op rendering a “single file” job with local rendering enabled.

Maya Improvements

Added support for Maya 2015, and added explicit support for Maya 2011.5 and 2013.5 (previously, you couldn’t have 2013 and 2013.5 on the same farm).
Added support for the Redshift renderer.
When using the RedShift renderer, there is now an option to pick the number of GPUs that will be used for each task.
Added a Frame Number Offset setting to the submitter, which uses Maya’s frame renumbering option to offset the frames that are rendered.
Fixed a GetStartFrame error in the MayaBatch plugin when rendering half frames.
Arnold verbosity no longer defaults to 4 if it’s not set in the plugin info file (because that verbosity number is no longer supported, it’s set to 1 instead).
Fixed some sanity check path issues in the integrated submitter.
Fixed some typos in the integrated submitter.
Fixed an issue in the integrated submitter that could prevent a scene from being submitted if it had cameras with duplicate camera shape names.
The integrated submitter no longer tries to access the Maya UI when running in batch mode. This cleans up a warning message during rendering.
Fixed how the integrated maya submitter sets the output path for vray when the prefix uses the tag.
Suppressed some print statements from the integrated startup script during rendering.
Added support for -skipExistingFrames option for the renderers that support it.
Added support for the Maya Hardware 2 renderer.
Added FumeFX simulation Progress support (requires a minimum of FumeFX for Maya v3.5.4).
Updated code in the integrated submitter that uses vrayTransformFilename to evaluate output path to work with latest vray 3 release.

modo Improvements

Added support for modo 8xx.
Added new integrated submission script for modo, with better Tile Rendering support.
Added ability to view the modo output from the task right-click menu in the Monitor without having to override the output in the submitter (only works when submitting from within modo).
Added a new integrated submission script that can be used to submit an interactive modo tile rendering job to Deadline (similar to our VRay DBR support). Note that this is modo’s built-in tile rendering feature, not Deadline’s general tile rendering.

Nuke Improvements

Added a view picker to the integrated submitter so users can choose specific views to render, instead of typing in their names.
Added a submission option to make write node jobs dependent on each other based on render order.
The “-V 2” option is no longer passed to Nuke 6 because it doesn’t support it. The “-V” option is passed instead.
Browse buttons in integrated submitter now work in Nuke 8.

Ply2Vrmesh Improvements

Added support for VRay’s ply2vrmesh tool.

Realflow Improvements

Added support to use the -maxwell option to render previews.
Added support to use the -reset option.
The Realflow plugin now updates the slave’s task status with useful information during rendering.

REDLine Improvements

Added missing REDColor3 and REDGamma3 options to the submitter.
The submitter no longer throws an error for an empty frame list. If it’s empty, a job with a single task is submitted, and the --start and --end frame options are not used.
Codec settings in the submitter are now sticky.
Removed processors option from the submitter, since it no longer is supported by redline.
Output file name is now set correctly when submitting more than one r3d file.
Added override check boxes to all color and curve settings in the submitter.
Submitter controls are now disabled if their corresponding overrides aren’t enabled.
“Internal Error” message now caught and render fails (ie: this happens when trying to render a pro res qt).

Rhino Improvements

Fixed a warning message when clicking on the Rhino plugin properties in the job properties dialog.

Shotgun Improvements

Updated Shotgun API to v3.0.15.

SketchUp Improvements

Added SketchUp support to Deadline.

Softimage Improvements

Added support for Softimage 2015.
When using the RedShift renderer, there is now an option to pick the number of GPUs that will be used for each task.
Added ability to create a custom sanity check script for the integrated submitter.
Cleaned up the integrated submitter a bit (removed checkboxes on the left side of the controls).

Terragen Improvements

Added progress handling.
Fixed a syntax error that occurred during rendering.

Vray DBR Improvements

All Vray DBR submitters now use the new GetMachinesRenderingJob command, instead of GetSlavesRenderingJob.
Added support for Vray for 3ds Max 2015 and Maya 2015.
Added VRay DBR support for Softimage (2012-2015).
Added more default paths for the VRaySpawner plugin.
Added Interruptible option to vray dbr submitters.
VRay DBR submitter for 3dsmax doesn’t update automatically by default now. There is a new Update Severs button that can be used, or the option to automatically update can be enabled.

Vrimg2Exr Improvements

Re-added the submission option to crop the data window.