Changing path to executable

Deadline
1

Hello there – I ‘m taking my first stab at getting deadline up on my modest farm. I am using it to render Houdini files and I am getting errors due to my version of Houdini being different and located in a different place than deadline expects. My slaves give this error



“RenderPluginException – Exception during render: RenderExecutable, “C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 7.0.231\bin\csh.exe”, does not exist.”



There must be a way to modify this path – any suggestions would be greatly appreciated !



Thank you in advance


  • scott
2

Hi Scott,



Which version of Houdini are you running?

We have a new Deadline ROP for Houdini 8 - the version for 7 might not work with 8.



In general, for any plugin, you can do the following:



*Open the Deadline Monitor

*Set SUPER USER mode via Tools>Super User

*Go to Tools>Plugins Configuration…

*In the left column, locate the Houdini entry

*Change the path in the right panel by either pasting, typing in or using the […] button to pick a valid executable from the Houdini \bin folder.



Hope this helps…



Cheers,



Borislav “Bobo” Petrov

Technical Director 3D VFX

Frantic Films Winnipeg

3

Btw, here is the corresponding page of the Online Help, just in case:



http://software.franticfilms.com/index.aspx?page=deadline/houdini/configuration



Regards,



Borislav “Bobo” Petrov

Technical Director 3D VFX

Frantic Films Winnipeg

4

fantastic ! now i have deadline pointing to the correct csh.exe. the slaves are running away - but not outputting any frames. ex -->



---- April 13 2006 – 07:16 PM ----

0: Plugin rendering frame(s): 52

0: INFO: Houdini job starting…

0: INFO: Executable: “C:\houdini\bin\csh.exe”

0: INFO: Arguments: ““c:/deadline/slave/plugins/hrender_dl” -e -v -f 52 52 -o “Z:/1618/s06/render/s06_05/s05_06.$F4.sgi” -d mantra1 “c:/deadline/slave/jobsData/s06_05.hip””

0: INFO: StartupDir: “C:\houdini\bin”

0: INFO: UseJobObject: true

0: INFO: HideDosWindow: true

0: STDOUT: cat: Command not found.

0: STDOUT: rm: Command not found.

0: INFO: Process return code: 1

0: INFO: Houdini job finished.

0: Render Time: 187.5 ms





wondering about those “cat” and “rm” not found commands. will the houdini 8 plug-in fix this ?



thanks SO much for your assistance.


  • scott
5

fantastic ! now i have deadline pointing to the correct csh.exe. the slaves are running away - but not outputting any frames. ex -->



---- April 13 2006 – 07:16 PM ----

0: Plugin rendering frame(s): 52

0: INFO: Houdini job starting…

0: INFO: Executable: “C:\houdini\bin\csh.exe”

0: INFO: Arguments: ““c:/deadline/slave/plugins/hrender_dl” -e -v -f 52 52 -o “Z:/1618/s06/render/s06_05/s05_06.$F4.sgi” -d mantra1 “c:/deadline/slave/jobsData/s06_05.hip””

0: INFO: StartupDir: “C:\houdini\bin”

0: INFO: UseJobObject: true

0: INFO: HideDosWindow: true

0: STDOUT: cat: Command not found.

0: STDOUT: rm: Command not found.

0: INFO: Process return code: 1

0: INFO: Houdini job finished.

0: Render Time: 187.5 ms





wondering about those “cat” and “rm” not found commands. will the houdini 8 plug-in fix this ?



thanks SO much for your assistance.


  • scott
6

Hi Scott,



You can configure the location of this file from Deadline Monitor. First, enter superuser mode by choosing Tools -> Super User. Now if you choose Tools -> Plugins Configuration, you will get a dialog which has options for all the Deadline plugins. Pick Houdini on the left, and there will be an option to choose the path for your csh executable.



-Mark