IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL USERS:
Please read the following threads for important information regarding Deadline 6.1:
viewtopic.php?f=85&t=4484
viewtopic.php?f=85&t=4483
Downloads
Installers: thinkboxsoftware.box.com/s/4w38p1sduoo7g1juyhie
Documentation: thinkboxsoftware.box.com/s/8029p98jynab1jehgfl7
Note that the Deadline 6.1 user guide and scripting references have been updated. The user guide is still incomplete, but the scripting references are now up to date.
What’s New In Deadline 6.1.53441 (Beta 9)
In addition to a handful of bug fixes, this release introduces new scheduling options that can be set in the Job Scheduling settings in the Repository Options. Previously, you had control over how a job’s pool, priority, and submission date affected its scheduling order. Now, you have the following options:
- First-in First-Out: Job order will be based solely on submission date, and will be rendered in the order they are submitted.
- Pool, First-in First-Out: Job order will be based on the job’s pool first, with submission date being the tie-breaker.
- Pool, Priority, First-in First-Out: Job order will be based on the job’s pool, then priority, with submission date being the tie-breaker.
- Priority, First-in First-Out: Job order will be based on the job’s priority first, with submission date being the tie-breaker.
- Priority, Pool, First-in First-Out: Job order will be based on the job’s priority, then pool, with submission date being the tie-breaker.
- Balanced: Job order will be balanced so that each job has the same number of slaves rendering them at a time.
- Pool, Balanced: Job order will be based on the job’s pool first, with a balance being applied to jobs that are in the same pool.
- Pool, Priority, Balanced: Job order will be based on the job’s pool, then priority, with a balance being applied to jobs that have the same pool and priority.
- Priority, Balanced: Job order will be based on the job’s priority first, with a balance being applied to jobs that have the same priority.
- Priority, Pool, Balanced: Job order will be based on the job’s priority, then pool, with a balance being applied to jobs that have the same pool and priority.
- Weighted: A weighted system that takes priority, submission time, number of rendering tasks, and number of job errors into account. Note that it does not take pools into account.
- Pool, Weighted: A weighted system that still respects pool priority.
Note that the “Pool, Priority, First-in First-Out” option is still the default. For the weighted options, you can control how much weight is applied to the job priority, submission time, number of rendering tasks, and number of errors. Deadline then sorts this weight in ascending order, so jobs with the smallest weight value are processed first.
General Improvements
- Added new balanced scheduling algorithms to repository options.
- Added new weighted scheduling algorithms to repository options.
- The Deadline applications no longer require the current working directory to be the Deadline bin directory when they are launched.
- Found a few cases were the Deadline applications weren’t acquiring the Python GIL when interacting with Python objects. This has been fixed.
- Added a Repository Option to run the housecleaning in a separate process.
- Added better error messages to the cloud plugins, and fixed a few bugs.
- Added Release or Debug tag to version number in About box.
Installer Improvements
- The DeadlineConnect.py file, which was missing from the Deadline standalone Python API, is now installed correctly in the Repository.
Launcher Improvements
- The Python environment is now set properly after an auto-upgrade.
- The Launcher now notifies the user when an upgrade is available while the Slave or Pulse is running and gives them the option to upgrade.
Monitor Improvements
- Added separate user group permissions for whitelists/blacklists in the job properties.
- Fixed a bug when using the Edit Filter dialog which could result in the removal of all previous filters.
- Fixed a bug where adding, removing or clearing groups in the Manage Groups window wouldn’t properly update the selcted slaves (this fix applies to the Manage Pools window as well).
- Fixed a bug in the Manage Groups window where groups weren’t removed properly if the slave was configured to not accept jobs in the “none” group (this fix applies to the Manage Pools window as well).
- Improved the node drawing performance in the Job Dependency view.
- Added secondary pool column to job list.
- Added secondary pool quick filter to job list.
- The custom script menu shortcuts now take precedence over any built in shortcuts.
- When launching the Monitor with super use mode enabled by default, panels like Cloud and Remote Commands are now opened properly if they were open during the previous session.
- Log and error reports now contain more information about the slave at the bottom of the log.
- The required assets chooser in the job properties now properly checks for padded files when editing an existing asset.
- The Search boxes now suppot regular expressions.
- Fixed some sorting issues in the Task list.
- When filtering date-based columns, there are additional options that allow you to filter based on Today, Yesterday, and the current or previous Week, Month, or Year.
- Fixed a bug in the Amazon cloud plugin that prevented the Clone option in the Cloud Panel from working.
- Added option when resubmitting a job to resubmit it as a maintenance job.
- Updated Job dependency view to allow Middle click zoom to extents.
- Added icons for add asset and add script in Job Dependency View.
- Fixed connection socket location bug in Job Dependency View.
Slave Improvements
- The Slave now suppresses any power management messages when power management is disabled.
Pulse Improvements
- The Pulse server thread now gets the connected client info regardless of the request type it received.
Command Improvements
- Fixed some stack overflow errors that could happen with the SubmitJobAndNotify and SubmitMultipleJobs commands.
Scripting Improvemetns
- The ProcessUtils.KillProcesses function now returns false if there are no processes with the given name to kill.
- The JobEntry object returned by JobUtils.CalculateJobStatistics function now only computes statistics for completed tasks for the job.
- Added task state counts to the job object.
3ds Max Improvements
- Updated the message when SMTD is opened after RPM was used.
Cinema 4D Improvements
- The integrated submitter now gives a better error message if it can’t access the repository.
Maya Improvements
- Dependent kick jobs are now setup properly for Arnold Export jobs that have multiple renderable cameras.
Nuke Improvements
- Batch mode now defaults to True in the Nuke plugin (it was already defaulting to True in the submitters).
- Added a BatchModeIsMovie plugin info property. If True, BatchMode will render the frame sequence as one chunk, instead of one render command per frame. This is necessary for movie renders, otherwise only the last frame will be written to the movie file.
- Nuke plugin now calls nuke.scriptClose() at the end of the job.