After FX Mac/PC path remapping

Hi,

We’re running After FX through deadline and I’ve got it working great from the PC but our main compositing is done on the Mac. With the way we have our production setup it is just not possible to keep the footage in the same folder as the project file so the remapping doesn’t work properly. I’m just wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for getting this to work so that it remaps the footage paths correctly.

I’ve found a botched method for doing this by using Lloyd Alvarez’s Batch Search-n-Replace (aescripts.com/batch-search-n-replace-paths/) to convert the file before I then submit it. But this also means I have to:

  • run the script to replace paths
  • load file back up (hope it doesn’t auto find some footage and change it back to the mac path!)
  • Re-target the render output so I can submit the job
  • submit the job.

This is a bit of a painfully long winded process so I’m hoping someone else might know a better way or that this might be something that you’re already looking at (he says hopefully…).

Is there some way of running something like Batch Search-n-Replace when the job is loaded onto a slave so that it uses the remap settings I’ve setup in deadline? Or running something similar as the jobs are submitting and creating a platform specific file? Can we easily modify the submission script in the same way we can with studio max to make it remap the paths in a specific way?

Any suggestions or ideas for getting this working smoothly would be greatly appreciated!

Nick

Hey Nick,

We recently learned of the option to save AE projects as an aepx file (instead of an aep file):
help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffect … AF44a.html

In the upcoming Deadline 5.1 release, Deadline’s AE plugin will automatically detect if an aepx file has been submitted, and if it has, it will perform path mapping on the contents of the XML file. This way, you aren’t restricted to having all of your footage in the project folder in cross-platform environments. We’re aiming to have 5.1 released around the end of November, but if you can’t wait that long, you can still join the 5.1 beta:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5919

Cheers,

  • Ryan

Hah! Awesome. I think we can wait until the end of November it’s just great that you’re already implemented it!