3dsmax Frames Render with Max Region Render error

Deadline
1

Hi,
I am having a problem with then new Deadline 7.1, which didn’t exist in the previous version. It could be a change in the SubmitMaxToDeadline_Functions.ms in the new version but I am not sure.

The problem seems to be when submitting a frame sequence job with max region render enabled. The job renders on all the machines without errors but the output frames are written from the first machine that started rendering the job, all other machines’ output frames are missing.

I am using a custom submitter but I think I narrowed down the problem to the part where I test for max region

SMTDSettings.RegionRenderingMode = #none if getRenderType() == #region then ( SMTDSettings.RegionRenderingMode = #maxRegion SMTDSettings.RegionUseMaxValues = true )

It seemed to work fine in all the other versions of deadline but this new version seems to give me an error. Maybe I am missing another setting, I am not sure.

2

Hi,
This is tricky to answer without seeing your code or the error you are encountering. Any chance we can get more information here, a step-by-step breakdown of what you are doing and visual example of the issue? What was your previous version of Deadline you were referring to before v7.1? Do you have a simple, teapot demo scene you can share?

3

Hi Mike,
thanks for getting back to me.
I am not sure what I can post for you to help me. Deadline doesn’t seem to give any errors. I attached the job max file with jobinfo and plugininfo as well as log from one of the servers rendering the job. I can’t really post the whole script here but here is a snippet that is responsible for submission

[code]

fn deadlineRegionRenderTest = (
SMTDSettings.RegionRenderingMode = #none

if getRenderType() == #region then (
SMTDSettings.regionrendering = true
SMTDSettings.RegionRenderingMode = #maxRegion
SMTDSettings.RegionUseMaxValues = true)
)

deadlineRegionRenderTest()

					SMTDSettings.JobName = rootnode.CA_jobPrefix + currCam + "--SingleFrame"
					SMTDSettings.Comment = "Scripted Single Frame Job"
					SMTDSettings.Priority = rootnode.CA_Priority
					SMTDSettings.ChunkSize = 1
					SMTDSettings.LimitEnabled = false 
					SMTDSettings.MachineLimit = 0
					SMTDSettings.SlavesBlackList = true
					SMTDSettings.SlavesList = #()
					SMTDSettings.SubmitAsSuspended = true
					SMTDSettings.LimitGroups = #()
					SMTDSettings.LimitGroupsToUse= #()
					SMTDSettings.SequentialJob = false
					SMTDSettings.JobIsInterruptible = false
					SMTDSettings.RestartRenderer = false
					SMTDSettings.SubmitAsDependent = false
					
    
					local maxFileToSubmit = SMTDPaths.tempdir + maxFileName
					SMTDFunctions.SaveMaxFileCopy maxFileToSubmit
						
					local SubmitInfoFile = SMTDPaths.tempdir + "\\max_submit_info.job"
					local JobInfoFile = SMTDPaths.tempdir  + "\\max_job_info.job"

					SMTDFunctions.CreateSubmitInfoFile SubmitInfoFile
					SMTDFunctions.CreateJobInfoFile JobInfoFile  
												
					local initialArgs = "\""+SubmitInfoFile+"\" \""+JobInfoFile+"\" \""+maxFileToSubmit+"\" " 
					local result = SMTDFunctions.waitForCommandToComplete initialArgs SMTDSettings.TimeoutSubmission

					local renderMsg = SMTDFunctions.getRenderMessage() 
					SMTDFunctions.getJobIDFromMessage renderMsg
						
					if result == #success then 
					(
						format "Submitted successfully as Job %.\n\n%\n\n" \
						SMTDSettings.DeadlineSubmissionLastJobID renderMsg
					)
					else 
						(format "Job Submission FAILED.\n\n%" renderMsg )[/code]

The previous deadline version I was using was 6.4.
ErrorJob.rar (36 KB)

4

I tried submitting my own simple scene containing a teapot and an animated camera, and a Max region set roughly (but not exactly) to enclose the teapot. When I used your code to submit, it rendered exactly what expected. On some frames I could see the teapot clipped because the region did not include it fully, but the camera animation worked well (rendered on two slaves).

In the Job Properties, under Submission Params, right list (Plugin Info Parameters), the relevant part showed

RegionRendering=1 RegionLeft=179 RegionTop=133 RegionRight=422 RegionBottom=311 RegionPadding=0 RegionType=NOCROP

Can you post what yours looked like?
In fact, you can you locate the files defined here:

local SubmitInfoFile = SMTDPaths.tempdir + "\\max_submit_info.job" local JobInfoFile = SMTDPaths.tempdir + "\\max_job_info.job"
and attach them so we can take a peek into the submission parameters?

5

Hi Bobo,
I am only getting one frame from the whole sequence. I attached the files requested.

I also submitted the file using the deadline submitter script included with the software and I am getting the same thing, no errors but only one frame is written. If I render the file locally from max it works fine.
ErrorJobTemp.rar (32.1 KB)

6

I believe this is a known regression bug in Deadline 7.1 related to the Split Buffer feature of the V-Ray Frame Buffer.
I am checking with the developers about the details as I believe we were fixing something around that for Deadline 7.2 a week ago.

Stay tuned…

7

Great, thanks for looking into it.

8

I was able to reproduce the error here and am passing it on to our developers to look into - as far as I can tell, it is not fixed in Deadline 7.2 Beta yet. My gut feeling is that it is on the Deadline 3dsmax.py side.

A possible workaround I just tested and it worked:

  • I switched SMTD to Jigsaw Multi-Frame Region mode and made a region from the Max Region settings.
  • Rendering that produced a cropped region with the correct animation.
  • Draft then output the full size image with the region placed in the right location.

However, this might be a bit inconvenient for your script as you would have to define the Mutli-Region data.
On the bright side, if you need to do multiple regions at the same time, or animate the region over time to follow the object, you could do that, and SMTD has functions that can help you do it.

Right now, you should consider Max Region rendering with VRay Split Buffer broken. You can either avoid using the Split Buffer feature of VRay and save the beauty output using the 3ds Max file output, or use a Jigsaw region instead.

As soon as we have a fix, we will send you some files to replace…

Thank you for your patience and
Sorry For The Inconveniences!

9

Thanks again,
but I think this bug also extends to the vray raw image feature as well. Its a bit different, still no errors on deadline side but I get frames only from the first machine that starts rendering the job.

I can work around this by translating the max region numbers to vray region which doesn’t give me the bug and disabling max region for submission.

10

That is correct, the RAW and Split fields are handled by the same code, and show the same issues. It is quite tricky supporting the filenames in the VRay Frame Buffer as they are not native to 3dsMax. Hence all the trouble…

11

Please try this fix to 3dsmax.py which should fix it for split/raw.

Backup your existing copy of this file before overwriting with the one attached to this thread.

//<repo>/plugins/3dsmax/3dsmax.py

Let us know if it helps?

3dsmax.py.zip (30.6 KB)

12

The fix works.
Thanks for resolving this so quickly, really appreciate it.