I am currently running AE jobs through Deadline 5.0 but it seems like it will not let me render to Quicktime format. The job is picked up by the render machine but then quickly finishes, and leaves me with no file in the output folder. If I changes the AE file format to image sequence it works without a hitch. Am I missing something?
Can you post the job log from the AE QT job? You can find them by right-clicking on the job in the Monitor and selecting Job Reports -> View Log Reports. We can take a look to see if AE is printing out any info that would explain the problem.
Thanks!
- Ryan
Sure thing Ryan. Here you go:
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Log Message
0: Task timeout is disabled.
0: Loaded job: HH_103_010_v001.aep - HH_103_010 (005_050_001_52192798)
0: INFO: StartJob: initializing script plugin AfterEffects
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression “WARNING:(After Effects warning: .)" will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression "INFO:This project contains .” will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression “.Error:.” will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression “aerender ERROR." will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression “INFO:(The following layer dependencies are missing)” will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression "PROGRESS: [0-9]+[:;][0-9][:;][0-9][:;][0-9].” will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression “PROGRESS:." will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any stdout that matches the regular expression ".” will be handled as appropriate
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “Motion Sketch” will be ignored
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “The Smoother” will be ignored
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “Time Controls” will be ignored
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “Brush Tips” will be ignored
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “The Wiggler” will be ignored
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “Tracker Controls” will be ignored
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “.After Effects.” will be handled by pressing “OK;Yes”
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “.On-line Registration.” will be handled by pressing “No”
0: INFO: Any popup windows with titles matching the regular expression “.Optical Flares License.” will be handled by pressing “panel”
0: INFO: About: After Effects Plugin for Deadline
0: Plugin rendering frame(s): 1001-1301
0: INFO: Synchronizing with network Font folder ‘O:\Network\AfterEffects\fonts’
0: INFO: Synchronizing to local Font folder ‘C:\WINDOWS\Fonts’
0: INFO: Stdout Handling Enabled: True
0: INFO: Popup Handling Enabled: True
0: INFO: Using Process Tree: True
0: INFO: Hiding DOS Window: True
0: INFO: Creating New Console: False
0: INFO: Render Executable: “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS5\Support Files\aerender.exe”
0: INFO: Rendering to network drive
0: INFO: Render Argument: -project “O:\Projects\0192_Hotel\shots\HH_103\HH_103_010\AfterEffects\takes\HH_103_010_v001.aep” -comp “HH_103_010” -s 1001 -e 1301 -output “O:\Projects\0192_Hotel\shots\HH_103\HH_103_010\AfterEffects\previews\HH_103_010_prev_v002.mov”
0: INFO: Startup Directory: “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS5\Support Files”
0: INFO: Process Priority: BelowNormal
0: INFO: Process is now running
0: STDOUT: aerender version 10.0x458
0: STDOUT: WARNING:After Effects warning: timeSpanStart of 0 seconds will cause render to have frames outside of range defined by comp displayStartTime (33.37) and end of comp duration (43.4). Render will succeed, but may have blank frames.
0: STDOUT: PROGRESS: Total Time Elapsed:
0: INFO: Process exit code: 0
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Log Details
Log Date/Time = Apr 09/12 17:00:31
Frames = 1001-1301
Slave Machine = Autobot006
Slave Version = v5.0.0.44528 R
Plugin Name = AfterEffects
Thanks! Here’s the culprit:
So there technically isn’t any error, which is why the job succeeds, but that message basically explains why there is no output. It sounds like AE doesn’t like the way the start/end frames are defined. Deadline is currently trying to render frames 1001 to 1301. Is that correct? The reason I ask is that there is currently a rounding issue in the way Deadline figures out the frame range for the render queue item. This will be fixed in an upcoming Deadline 5.1 maintenance release. The workaround to this rounding error is to correct the frame range in the submitter before submitting the job.
Cheers,
- Ryan
Thanks Ryan. It would seem that even if I change the frame range in the submitter I still end up with the same issue. So currently Deadline needs After Effects comps to start on frame 0 to render quicktime properly?
If that is the case, it would be an AE requirement, not a Deadline requirement. As you can see in the log you posted, Deadline just builds up the command line arguments and passes them to aerender.exe. Since the frame range being passed to aerender.exe is correct, that means that Deadline is just the messenger here.
Maybe something you could try is to enable the “Submit The Entire Render Queue As One Job With A Single Task” option in the submitter. In this mode, Deadline doesn’t pass the frame range to AE, so maybe that might help.
Hey Ryan, still a no go. Tried changing frame ranges, enabling “Submit Entire Render Queue As One Task”, tried “Use Comp Frame List” off and on… no such luck. I am going to come back to this next week when I have some free time and see if I can fix it. Will let you know if I make any progress. 
Installing Quicktime on said machine(s) would help.