I’ve noticed a problem generating our VRay prepass IRMap and Lightcache through Deadline 6.0.0.51561.
The way its meant to work is that it generates a Lightcache for the whole animation on the first frame/task of the prepass and then calculates the IRmap every task for the remaining job frames. But what is happening is that it’s generating a full lightcache for multiple frames - sometimes the first couple, sometimes the first 4 or 5, sometimes every frame.
See the screengrab of the monitor which shows a tasklist where it generated a lightcache for the first 6 frames then continued as I’d expect after that, just generating IRmaps (I’ve also attached the logs for this job).
I am not sure what is happening that is causing this, as each log file seemed to be for only one frame, but I do see the following in every log, which seems problematic:
0: WARNING: Lightning: Not saving render element 0 because its output path is empty
0: WARNING: Lightning: Not saving render element 1 because its output path is empty
0: WARNING: Lightning: Not saving render element 2 because its output path is empty
0: WARNING: Lightning: Not saving render element 3 because its output path is empty
0: WARNING: Lightning: Not saving render element 4 because its output path is empty
This is basically saying the render elements are empty so it’s not doing them. That seems like an odd result.
Hi Rob,
In this example job, the first 6 frames 400-450 are re-loading the 3dsMax plugin between “renders” and then for the subsequent frames 460-650(as far as I can see in the screen-grab/job reports), 3dsMax plugin has been told NOT to re-load (the normal default setting) and then your cache cals are as expected. Is it possible that the job property “Reload Plugins between Tasks” was enabled either by a user or maybe, an event plugin you have installed? Very strange. Does the RC, view job history show that anyone has altered any settings since the job was submitted?
Mike
Mike- the job is set with the option to reload plugins/3ds max between tasks disabled. It does appear that it’s not respecting this. The property has not been changed by another user, I was the one who submitted the job and nobody else touched it. Deadline and 3ds Max are pretty vanilla - we’ve not got any trickery or customisations going on with either one at the moment.
Dwight - I never picked up on the render element thing. I always disable render elements for precalc tasks. I’ll check on this just in case it’s causing the issue.
It’s extremely likely that I’ve messed up somewhere, but I seem to be doing it consistently if I have! The only other thing which I think it could be is that I’m using RPManager to submit the jobs and I’ve noticed that with the DL6, the submission script is a bit “forgetful” between tasks. It often resets the network submission settings for no apparent reason. I’ll get in touch with Grant Adam about this to see if he’s got any ideas.
I didn’t resolve it and ended up just running the precalcs locally just to get the job done without worrying about it failing. I checked render elements/reloading plugins and these were all disabled for the imap precalcs.
I never actually run Pulse since updating to DL6.
I’m in the process of finally updating to Max 2014 this week (still on Max 2012) and I’ll also be installing Deadline on a brand new server so we’ll see if anything fixes itself just by doing this.
Hi Rob,
Could you possibly send Thinkbox a small test max file which has this error? I believe it’s fixed in v6.1 in a couple of edge cases, but would be great to verify and then I can let you know. Alternatively, are you interested in joining the v6.1 beta? - If so, send an email to sales@thinkboxsoftware.com, requesting access.
Cheers,
Mike
Alternatively, are you interested in joining the v6.1 beta? - If so, send an email to