One of the things I always add into our version of Deadline is an option (that persists) to automatically disable the VRay Frame Buffer as we always need it off for our render elements to save out correctly and I don’t want to rely on people remembering to do this. Can we have it in the regular build so I don’t have to add it in each time please? 
You could you add a sanity check to look for this and disable it.
I don’t think we want to expose an option in SMTD to always have it off. We try to not add options to SMTD that can already be configured in the scene settings. SMTD has enough options as it is.
My hack requires no intervention, we used to have the Sanity Check but now on submission it is turned off and turned back on again afterwards. With a sanity checker you’d have to manually turn it back on again afterwards.
I’m just thinking about the frequency of threads on the forum about render elements messing up, that this particular issue is a Vray, 3dsmax / Deadline Problem, and for me the work-around should be presented as an option.
Typically, the fix for the render element problem is to enable the option to restart the renderer after each frame. Does that not work for you?
With the VFB on you don’t get elements saved out (or didn’t last time I tested).
When was the last time you tested? I know we had issues with VRay’s VFB years ago, but AFAIK it works fine now. Can you test again, and if you still have problems, can you let us know when version of Max and VRay you’re using? Maybe send us a simple test scene to reproduce?
Thanks!
Ryan
So at the moment our NY office has vanilla 6.2 installed and they have kicked off a few renders without turning the Vray VFB off and they haven’t got the elements split out when they’ve been adding them in the standard max render element dialog, Not including them in the EXR options.
So I ask again to have an option to automatically turn it off I put it into our version each time. But there are also a few things which you can’t get unless you render with the VRay VFB on.
Chatted to Vlado about this today, he can make it so Deadline can use the VRay VFB… which could be quite nice…
I still maintain an option to automatically disable the VRay VFB should be included. 
Ok so I’ve finally had a moment to look into this and see where and when it does and doesn’t work.
It works under the current conditions:
VRay VFB is enabled
The Resolution is set to get from Max
You set your “Render to V-Ray Raw image file” to true
Set a Path
Set “Save seperate render channels” to true
Set a Path
[BUG] Turning off ‘get resolution from MAX’ seems to overwrite the image for some reason… Quite often if we’re rendering locally with a large image we’ll have the max resolution set to 50x50 (to save memory) and then the Vray resolution set to something high like 6000x4000. If the image was rendered 2x2 tiles then the tiles would be 3000x2000 each but the assembled image would only be 50x50 pixels, and only a strange crop., same with all the elements.
[BUG] Not having a path in the ‘Split Render Channels’ path causes the SMTD to error during the submission of the Tile Assembly Job.
So the standard workflow of having an output in the max render dialog, having render elements added in the dialog and not using the Vray Image output path does not allow you to render with Deadline and get the render elements. I’d like it to because then we wouldn’t have to change any of our existing scripts or pipelines and we would be able to use the Lens Effect Render elements properly.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the bug report, we will log these and investigate.
I’d like to see Deadline be able to use the Vray VFB without using the Vrayimage output path, if so it should use the conventional naming conventions not the VRayFrameBuffer style outoput of Passname_01.VrayDiffuse0001.exr
If not using the vrayimage output path it should be
Passname_01_VRayDiffuse_0001.exr
And these renders would therefore be in a VRayDiffuse folder…
Currently using the repro steps that do work put all the renders in one folder, which is a bit manic with lots of elements/frames.
These issues seem to already be fixed in v7.0 beta 7 (maybe earlier, but that is what I tested against). Do you have access to the v7.0 beta?
Currently this is already possible, by selecting a combination of the various RE options in SMTD under: “3ds Max Pathing Options”:
thinkboxsoftware.com/deadlin … Render_Tab
Scroll down on this link until you get to the section: “3ds Max Pathing Options”
If you want to carry out an automatic character swap-out of “.” for “_”, then the “Purify Filenames” (checkbox under 3ds Max Pathing Options) should work. You can use sticky/default ini’s to control the characters that are swapped out - (using “bit.charAsInt”)
PurifyFilenames = false
PurifyCharacterCodes = #(33,35,42,63), --#("#","!","?","*")
This thread is interesting for me, as I’m starting to implement jigsaw into our setup, but have issues with the padding and the draft job not patching the original render correctly - this has been raised with Mike and is in hand.
The quote above interests me, as we’re rendering out 18,000 x 4000 pano’s and are very memory heavy!! Does making the max FB smaller such as 50 x 50 really help?
Cheers,
Mark
Sorry guys, update for you. Adding support for the VRay VFB resolution override has been moved back to Deadline v7.1 due to some last minute issues.