What’s New In Deadline 6.2.0.11 (Beta 1)
This release focuses on fixing bugs and making improvements to Deadline’s existing plugins and scripts. It also adds support for many new versions of software that Deadline supports, and even brings back the DJV plugin from Deadline 5. Here are the highlighted changes:
New Application Support
Support has been added for 3ds Max 2015, Anime Studio 10, Composite 2015, DJV, Maya 2015, modo 8xx, Sketchup, and Softimage 2015. Support has also been added for the Redshift renderer for Maya and Softimage. Finally, a new integrated submitter has been created for Houdini.
Support has also been added for all the Maya Extension versions (2013.5, 2014.5, etc). For example, in previous versions of Deadline, you would either have to render with 2013 or 2013.5 on the farm. Now it’s possible to render with both.
Redshift Support and Optional GPU Selection
Redshift for Softimage was previously supported, but now Redshift for Maya is also supported. In addition, there is now a submission option when using the Redshift render to specify the number of GPUs to use per task. If set to 0 (the default), then Redshift will be responsible to choosing the GPU(s) to use for rendering. This can be used in combination with concurrent tasks to get a distribution over the GPUs.
If set to 1 or greater, we pass specific GPU(s) to the Redshift renderer based on the current render thread number and the GPU Per Tasks value. For example:
- if this is set to 1, then thread 0 would use GPU 0, thread 1 would use GPU 1, etc.
- if this is set to 2, then thread 0 would use GPUs {0,1}, thread 2 would use GPUs {2,3}, etc.
Fixed a Data Formatting Error in the Monitor
There was a bug in the Monitor in Deadline 6.1 that affected systems with certain regional settings (specifically, if a comma is used as a decimal point instead of a period). It would cause the Task List and the Slave List to not display properly. This has been fixed in Deadline 6.2.
General Improvements
- Changed the Deadline version number scheme. The first and second numbers are still the Major and Minor versions respectively. The third number (the “build” number) will be incremented for any service packs that are released for a specific minor version. Finally, the fourth number (the “revision” number) will typically only be incremented for beta releases.
- Fixed some line-ending character issues in job and slave error reports.
- Added additional checks for bad Mono installations on Linux.
- Modify python submitters that use subprocess.Popen to workaround a potential python bug on Windows.
- Added the Secondary Pool option to all submitters. They all default to being blank, which means no secondary pool is used.
- Removed stdout suppression from most of our plugins when collecting progress information.
- The FLEXnet 11.12 binaries are now shipped with the Repository installer (including 64 bit binaries for Windows).
Installer Improvements
- All the command line options are now displayed properly when running the installers with the --help command, and more detailed usage instructions are provided.
- The Linux installers now mention the “monoexec” command line option if they can’t find Mono because it’s not in the PATH for the user running the installer (ie: root).
- The installers now show the Deadline version number in the welcome page.
- Improved the titles of the Repository Directory and Database Directory pages in the Repository installers.
- Fixed an invalid character in the license agreements.
- The Linux client installer now creates menu shortcuts for the Deadline applications.
- Added program icons to the installers.
- The Windows Client uninstaller now shows a warning if it detects any running Deadline applications. This warning is not shown in unattended mode.
Launcher Improvements
- Fixed a bug in the Restart Slave If It Stalls feature that could cause the Launcher to start up multiple slaves.
Monitor Improvements
- When gathering slave data, the slave settings are now loaded first instead of the slave state. This prevents issues caused by the slaves having temporary “default” settings before their actual settings are loaded.
- Fixed some font issues in the drag & drop dependency confirmation dialog.
- The Remote Viewer scripts (VNC, RDC, ARD, and Radmin) now have a 1/2 second delay between connections to multiple slaves to avoid potential problems.
- The last selected page in the job properties, slave settings, and repository options is now remembered.
- Added option to save and load filter settings for individual panels.
- Fixed an error that occurred when marking a slave as offline.
- Fixed a bug in the job dependency view that would cause nodes for deleted dependencies to be drawn on top of each other.
- Fixed a time zone bug when setting the Idle Shutdown overrides in the power management dialog.
- The power management notification settings in the repository options now let you specify a separate email address for each feature. If you leave a field blank, you won’t get notified by that particular feature.
- Fixed some memory leaks.
- The status bar in the Monitor now shows if there was a recent database connection issue.
- Re-added the task right-click option to requeue all tasks rendered by a specific slave.
- Fixed an IndexError when deleting rows in the Mapped Path or Mapped Drive repository options.
- Fixed a display bug with the Mini-Map button in the job dependency view if the option was toggled on when the Monitor was last closed.
- Added a multi-select file browser option when choosing required assets for a job.
- Fixed a bug that caused the update timer in the status bar to occasionally get reset to 0 when disconnected from database.
- Fixed a data format bug that that affected the slave and task lists, which occurred if the regional settings used a comma instead of a period to represent floating point numbers.
- Slaves are now pinged in smaller batches and the UI is updated after each batch, instead of only updating after every slave has been pinged.
- Fixed a bug that could result in zombie ping processes on OSX.
- Fixed a report sorting issue in the job and slave report viewers.
- Statistic reports now respect the filter types (previously, everything used a string filter).
- Filter type is now set properly for the default column of a new filter.
- Remote commands are now logged in the history log.
Slave Improvements
- On OSX, the slave now properly cleans up the rendering process’ child processes if the task is canceled.
- If the slave can’t open a plugin’s dlinit file because it doesn’t exist, it now clearly says so, instead of saying “cannot open file”.
- Auto-configuration errors no longer crash the slave application.
- Fixed an issue when recording the Windows XP operating system in the slave state.
- If an error occurs while synchronizing a job’s plugin files, an error report is generated instead of failing silently.
Command Improvements
- Sped up the commands to get pools, groups, and maximum priority by about a third. The pools and group command speeds are now similar to what they were in Deadline 5.
Scripting Improvements
- Added job function GetJobExtraInfoKeyValueWithDefault, which accepts a default value that is returned if the extra info key doesn’t exist.
- SlaveUtils.SendRemoteCommand and SlaveUtils.SendRemoteCommandNoWait now send the remote command properly.
- Added SlaveUtils.SendRemoteCommandWithResults function that sends a remote command and returns the results as a string.
- Added RepositoryUtils.GetRepositoryDateTime function to get the current date and time of the repository.
Submission Improvements
- Fixed a submission warning that would complain about the SecondaryPool key/value pair not being supported, even though it is.
Shotgun Event Improvements
- Fixed some issues with the Shotgun event plugin.
Draft Event Improvements
- Fixed some issues with uploading to Shotgun.
3ds Command Improvements
- Added support for 3ds Max 2015.
- Added a Camera field to the Monitor submitter.
3ds Max Improvements
- Added support for 3ds Max 2015.
- Added a Camera field to the Monitor submitter.
- Output paths for things like vrmaps, GI files, etc are no longer viewable from the task right-click menu in the Monitor if those settings are disabled.
- In SMTD, added additional render element naming options if the submitter is being used to update the render element paths.
- In SMTD, added gamma override options.
After Effects Improvements
- The integrated and Monitor submitters now properly detect movie extensions when all the letters aren’t lower case.
- Fixed a bug when submitting from the Monitor submitter.
- The plugin can now force After Effects to run in English mode to ensure Deadline’s progress and stdout error checking work with non-English versions of After Effects.
Anime Studio Improvements
- Added support for Anime Studio 10.
- Added support for additional rendering options that were introduced in Anime Studio 10.
Arnold Standalone Improvements
- Added support for local rendering.
Cinema 4D Improvements
- Added ability to create a custom sanity check script for the integrated submitter.
Command Line Improvements
- Jobs can now be submitted if the executable file doesn’t exist on the submitting machine.
- The submitter now has an option to submit a Maintenance job.
Composite Improvements
- Added support for Composite 2015.
Draft Improvements
- Fixed a bug that could cause the submitter to not always upload to Shotgun.
- The Draft script is no longer submitted as an auxiliary file (since it always uses the network copy of the Draft script anyways).
DJV Improvements
- Added DJV support back to Deadline 6.
Houdini Improvements
- Created a properly integrated submitter for Houdini.
- The integrated submitter has options to submit one ROP, a list of selected ROPs, or all ROPs in the scene.
Maxwell Improvements
- Fixed an error when co-op rendering a “single file” job with local rendering enabled.
Maya Improvements
- Added support for Maya 2015, and added explicit support for Maya 2011.5 and 2013.5 (previously, you couldn’t have 2013 and 2013.5 on the same farm).
- Added support for the Redshift renderer.
- When using the RedShift renderer, there is now an option to pick the number of GPUs that will be used for each task.
- Added a Frame Number Offset setting to the submitter, which uses Maya’s frame renumbering option to offset the frames that are rendered.
- Fixed a GetStartFrame error in the MayaBatch plugin when rendering half frames.
- Arnold verbosity no longer defaults to 4 if it’s not set in the plugin info file (because that verbosity number is no longer supported, it’s set to 1 instead).
- Fixed some sanity check path issues in the integrated submitter.
- Fixed some typos in the integrated submitter.
modo Improvements
- Added support for modo 8xx.
- Added ability to view the modo output from the task right-click menu in the Monitor without having to override the output in the submitter (only works when submitting from within modo).
Nuke Improvements
- Added a view picker to the integrated submitter so users can choose specific views to render, instead of typing in their names.
- Added a submission option to make write node jobs dependent on each other based on render order.
- The “-V 2” option is no longer passed to Nuke 6 because it doesn’t support it. The “-V” option is passed instead.
Realflow Improvements
- Added support to use the -maxwell option to render previews.
- Added support to use the -reset option.
REDLine Improvements
- Added missing REDColor3 and REDGamma3 options to the submitter.
- The submitter no longer throws an error for an empty frame list. If it’s empty, a job with a single task is submitted, and the --start and --end frame options are not used.
- Codec settings in the submitter are now sticky.
- Removed processors option from the submitter, since it no longer is supported by redline.
- Output file name is now set correctly when submitting more than one r3d file.
- Added override check boxes to all color and curve settings in the submitter.
- Submitter controls are now disabled if their corresponding overrides aren’t enabled.
- “Internal Error” message now caught and render fails (ie: this happens when trying to render a pro res qt).
Rhino Improvements
- Fixed a warning message when clicking on the Rhino plugin properties in the job properties dialog.
Softimage Improvements
- Added support for Softimage 2015.
- When using the RedShift renderer, there is now an option to pick the number of GPUs that will be used for each task.
- Added ability to create a custom sanity check script for the integrated submitter.
Terragen Improvements
- Fixed a syntax error that occurred during rendering.
Vray Spawner Improvements
- Added support for Vray for 3ds Max 2015 and Maya 2015.
Vrimg2Exr Improvements
- Re-added the submission option to crop the data window.