What’s New In Deadline 8.1.0.2 (Beta 1)
Deadline 8.1 adds some new features, including some improvements to Remote Commands, and several newly supported applications. It also adds some bug fixes and minor features requested by users running previous versions.
Please note that a new 8.1 license is required to run this version. If you have a license for Deadline 8.0 or earlier, you will need to contact our Sales department to get an updated license. In addition, the version of Draft that ships with Deadline 8.1 has been upgraded to 1.6, which will require a new license as well. The new license can still be used to run Deadline 8.0 and Draft 1.5, once acquired.
Here are highlighted changes so far:
Remote Command Improvements
We have added the capability of sending Remote Commands to slave machines indirectly, through the Pulse machine. The idea behind this new feature is to provide clients who have completely separate subnets for user machines and farm machines a mechanism to provide limited control of those machines to their users. This functions by first sending the remote commands to Pulse, which should be set up on a machine that can view/access both subnets, which will then forward the command onto the intended recipient (likely a Slave).
In addition to this, we have also added improvements to the shutdown/restart machine remote commands, and added a dedicated ‘Check for Upgrade’ command.
New Application Support
Brand new plugins have been added to support Altus, Cinebench, Keyshot, and Redshift standalone.
Explicit support for new versions has been added to existing plugins for Composite 2017, Maya 2017, and MicroStation CONNECT.
Deadline Client Improvements
General Improvements
- Fixed a bug where Requeue Reports weren’t getting generated through certain flows that caused Tasks to get requeued.
Balancer Improvements
- Added an error limit to the Balancer; it will now stop trying to start instances after a configurable number of cycles in which errors are encountered.
Monitor Improvements
- Changed the ‘Wasted Time’ column in the Reports panel to be a generic ‘Task Time’ column, which is now applicable to regular log reports.
- Fixed a bug where the Clock Running Time wasn’t being properly aggregated in grouped Job batches.
- Added a right-click Job script to clean up temporary Nuke files for a particular Job.
- Greatly improved the search functionality of the Job and Slave report panels.
Slave Improvements
- Added a per-job Plugin Initialization timeout setting. It is functionally similar to the Start Job timeout, but the operations they govern are mutually exclusive.
Power Management Improvements
- Power Management will now include a comment in the Event Log on Windows when restarting/shutting down a machine.
Application Plugin Improvements
3ds Cmd Improvements
- 3dsCmd plugin refactored to support VRay Dynamic DBR off-load support, initially for VRay 3.2+.
- Added “IsMaxDesign” option to 3dsCmd plugin.
- Refactored “CmdExecutable” param to support both 3dsMax and 3dsMax Design (for older 3dsMax versions).
- Added support for IsMaxDesign to in-app and monitor submitters for 3dsCmd plugin.
3ds Max Improvements
- Updated 3ds Max plugin to set the GPU affinity when using Redshift.
- Improved Redshift GPU affinity log messages to be consistent with our other plugins.
- Added support for Corona 1.4.
- Add “Dynamic Start” support to VRay DBR off-load in 3dsMax plugin.
- Improved existing SMTD Sanity Check for VRay requiring Workstation Mode.
- Added additional SMTD Sanity Check to check for Workstation Mode if VRay off-load enabled.
- Improved the display of NIM information in the 3ds Max submitter.
- Added black/whitelists for the VRay DBR “master”.
- Redshift render properties can now be modified post-submission on a 3dsMax Job via the ‘Modify Job Properties’ dialog.
- Fixed an edge case for VRay 1.6, which was preventing the “VRay Default Lights” option from appearing when using VRay 3.x onwards.
After Effects Improvements
- Added option to delete files that fail the file-size check.
- Fixed a bug in the file-size check that was comparing values in bytes (B) to values in kilo-bytes (KB).
Arnold Improvements
- Added ability to set CPU affinity.
Cinema 4D Improvements
- Added the ability to skip frames when rendering in Cinema 4D.
- Added Path mapping to (absolute) references in the C4D Batch plugin.
Draft Improvements
- Added LUT support to Quick Draft.
Houdini Improvements
- Addes support for NIM integration to the Houdini submitters.
Maya Improvements
- Added additional handlers to the Maya plugins in order to detect new error types.
- Added support for Maxwell cooperative rendering in the Maya integrated submitter.
- The Override Layer Settings dialog now pulls the frame range for each layer from its render settings.
Modo Improvements
- Added VRay DBR support to the Modo submitter.
Nuke Improvements
- Added a VRay standalone submitter for Nuke.
Rhino Improvements
- Added ability to select a view to render in Rhino at submission time.
VRay Spawner Improvements
- Added VraySpawner.log and vraylog.txt streaming (3ds Max only).
- Resolved edge cases to handle “MaxRT” being wrongly identified as “Max” rendering for log streaming.
- Added default VRay executable paths to the plugin configuration.
- Fixed an issue with the location of vraylog.txt for 3dsMax.
Cloud Plugin Improvements
Google Cloud Platform Improvements
- Added SSH options. Key will be attached to instances when they start.
- Added subnet to instance creation.
- Added ability to create VM images from a specified source through the Monitor.
Event Plugin Improvements
General Improvements
- Added ability to enforce the execution order of different Event Plugins.
- Added a new event plugin that will clean up Nuke temp files on Job completion.
FTrack Improvements
- Added a check to make sure the thumbnail being uploaded is a supported image format.