Is there a way with Deadline that I can access scene objects at render time, to say, unhide some objects before rendering the frame or something like that? I tried a pre load script but it seems that it can’t see the objects in the scene at this stage, or I did something wrong but I ran the script in my scene and it seemed to work fine which leads me to believe that maxscript can’t see the scene as of yet in the preload script.
Thanks!
-Christian
There are 4 MAXScripts you can run.
The Pre-Load script is run BEFORE the scene is loaded. That is too early since the scene does not exist yet.
The Post-Load script is run AFTER the scene is loaded, and before the rendering begins. This is roughly equivalent to the Pre-Render callback scripts in Max, and should allow you to make modifications to the scene, with some exceptions.
Also note that we run a script called CUSTOMIZE.MS that is part of the Deadline Max support setup and enforces all the render settings and other properties exported with the script. So it would be possible to insert general code there that affects ALL scenes ever rendered in Max on Deadline.
The Job Properties dialog > 3dsmax Settings page provides a Scripts>Inline Post Load Script field. You can enter arbitrary MAXScript expressions there, or enter fileIn “somefile.ms” to load an external file that will be run at the end of the CUSTOMIZE.MS run for that job. It is quite useful for tweaking scene settings without submitting an actual script with the job.
The other two scripts are Pre-Frame and Post-Frame and are equivalent to the corresponding MAXScript general callbacks, with the same limitations - you cannot change the content of the scene because the rendering has already started and the scene has already been evaluated.
So your best bet would be the Post-Load script.