Hi,
i have a max scene with an embedded #preRender callback script. It switches lights on and off by reading an ascii file. Locally it renders as expected but when I try to render the scene via Deadline, I get really weird and random render artifacts, black frames, images with only the red channel, images cut in half and such.
To fix it, I tried to register my light switcher script to other events like #preRenderEval or #filePostOpen. I also removed all my callbacks and tried it on the Deadline jobInfoFile as “PreFrameScript=”, also as “PostLoadScript=” where it executed fine, but produced the same odd artifacts.
As it works when I render locally, what can I check on the Deadline side to do the trick on the renderfarm ?
Cheers
That’s strange. I’m assuming the ASCII file is on a network location somewhere, so it wouldn’t be a case of the slaves not finding the ASCII file because it’s on your workstation?
Have you tried enabling the option to force Workstation mode when submitting the 3dsmax job? Maybe the script behaves different in workstation mode vs slave mode.
Cheers,
The ascii file has an unc path and I’m quiet sure that’s not causing the errors.
I’m not exactly sure how to force workstation mode. Can I do it in the job info file ?
We’re using Max 2009 and Deadline 3.1 by the way.
It’s one of the submission options under the Render tab (in the integrated 3dsmax submission script).
Cheers,
I just realized that my light switcher script only works locally when rendering a single frame. Not on a range of frames.
After reading several maxscript specific posts and spending days on this issue, it seems not to be possible to switch lights on and off cleanly by callbacks. Changing the multiplier or the color by callback works fine - but that’s not quiet what I am after.
The bad thing is that Max calculates ALL the lights in the scene - even the ones with multiplier=0.0 
, while the enabled=false state actually take them out of calculation.
Now I need to rethink my strategy.