This is the ninth beta build for Deadline 8.1, and the second Release Candidate build. This means that going forward, 8.1 development will be solely focused on bug fixing.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL USERS:
Please read the Deadline 8.1 Licensing and Compatibility thread for important information regarding Deadline 8.1:
forums.thinkboxsoftware.com/vie … 09&t=14476
NOTICE OF KNOWN BUG WITH AUTO-UPGRADE:
There is also a known bug when auto-upgrading from a version older than 8.1.4.6 – the auto-upgrade will fail to set execute permissions on the newly-added “deadlinesandbox” shell script on Linux/Mac OS. For this reason, we recommend using the Client installers to upgrade to this revision from versions older than 8.1.4.6, or be sure to manually add execute permissions to that script after the auto-upgrade.
Full release notes can be found in the Deadline 8.1 documentation (see Downloads below).
Downloads
Installers and Documentation: thinkboxsoftware.box.com/s/cgw3 … nag2ufnagk
Note: The Amazon Spot event plugin that was supposed to ship with 8.5.1.11 was accidentally left out of the Repository Installer, so it’s been uploaded separately to the download location above. If you wish to use the new Spot plugin, simply download Spot.zip and unzip it to the events folder in your Repository folder.
[u]Deadline 8.1 RC 2 Release Notes (8.1.5.11)[/u]
This release includes various bugfixes and minor improvements across the board, but also includes all the fixes made in intervening builds of Deadline 8.0, up to (and including) 8.0.15.1.
A new Amazon Spot event plugin is also included in this version. It allows you to take advantage of cheaper AWS Spot Fleet instances by automatically scaling the Fleet size based on the jobs in the Deadline render queue, with the trade off that those instances can be terminated at any time. This was implemented as an event plugin because the Deadline Balancer system isn’t currently compatible with the way Spot Fleets operate, and the configuration of this plugin is done via the Event Plugin configuration, and not the Cloud Plugin configuration. As a result, the Spot Fleet instances will not appear in the Cloud panel in the Deadline Monitor.
Note that this version no longer ships with the MongoDB database binaries. Instead, the Repository installer will download MongoDB if required. This allows the installer to target the recommended MongoDB version for the current operating system without having to ship multiple versions of MongoDB with Deadline, which cuts down on installer size and complexity. The installation documentation has also been updated to include step by step instructions for manually installing MongoDB in the case where an internet connection isn’t present, or the installer doesn’t support installing MongoDB on the current operating system.
[u]Application Improvements[/u]
General
- Added global remote communication port overrides to Slave, Pulse, Balancer, and License Forwarder. Note that the per-application overrides will still take precedence.
Monitor
- Fixed a mixup in the remote balancer commands in the Monitor. Stopping the balancer would restart it, and restarting the balancer would stop it.
- Added missing permissions Feature for the regions page in the repository options, and updated the balancer page to actually use the balancer permission Feature.
- The Submission Params page in the Job Properties now sorts the entries alphabetically.
- The job dependencies panel now automatically zooms to fit when a new job is selected.
- Improve consistency for calculations of estimated time remaining.
Command
- Fixed some commands that weren’t returning an exit code of 0 on success.
Proxy Server
- Removed an endpoint that wasn’t being used, but allowed for the download of arbitrary files.
- Fixed a permissions issue that could occur when retrieving files from the Proxy Server.
License Forwarder
- Added MAC address override and remote port override to License Forwarder settings.
- Fixed a bug that prevented the License Forwarder from fully shutting down when shut down with a remote command.
- Changed the default forwarder listening port override to 5060. It was originally 5058, which was the same as the balancer.
- The License Forwarder can now be used as a proxy server between the Slave application and the Cloud License Server (for Usage Based Licensing). Previously, you would have to set up your own proxy server.
[u]Application Plugin Improvements[/u]
3ds Cmd
- Added option to respect the gamma setting in the scene file, and not explicitly override it.
3ds Max
- Fixed a bug where handling duplicate filenames would cause an error to occur on submission. We now ensure that no duplicate filenames on submission by copying any duplicates to the temp directory as a unique file.
- Added support for path mapping on the contents of the scene file.
- Exposed some additional timeouts to the plugin configuration.
- Added a new sanity check for V-Ray’s VFB.
- Add support for V-Ray 3.55.01.
After Effects
- Fixed a bug in the After Effects submitter to catch a case where there are no items in the renderQueue.
- Added “Limit Tasks to Slave’s Task Limit” option to the integrated submitter.
- Fixed a regression in the After Effects plugin.
Altus
- Support for Altus 1.7 has been added.
Anime Studio / Moho
- The default executable paths now include the new Windows Anniversary edition path.
- The submitter now allows the selection of *.mohoproj files.
Cinema 4D
- Added support for Redshift GPU affinity.
- Fixed a bug in the scene path mapping code.
Command Line
- Fixed issue where CommandLine.py plugin was unintentionally being restricted from rendering multiple frames per task.
- Added generic “Progress: x%” stdout handler to the CommandLine plugin.
Command Script
- Added generic “Progress: x%” stdout handler to the CommandScript plugin.
Draft
- Updated Draft version to 1.6.3. Note that this version of Draft removes support for DNxHD.
- Updated the Draft submitters in the Monitor to use the new GetRepositoryPath() API function.
Houdini
- Removed a bunch of duplicate code from the integrated submitter.
Maya
- When rendering with Mental Ray, the “scene/%s token” is now respected.
- Fixed a bug in the strict error checking functionality.
- Removed strict error checking for legacy layers, since it was resulting in false positives.
- Added support for local asset caching for Maya.
Nuke
- Fixed a regression in the Monitor submitter.
- Updated integrated submitter to not fail if the node is set to use a frame offset yet none is defined.
Python
- Added generic “Progress: x%” stdout handler to the Python plugin.
[u]Event Plugin Improvements[/u]
Amazon Spot
- Added a new Event plugin that acts like a “balancer” for Amazon Spot instances.
NIM
- Fixed a bug in the Nim validation code that was failing because we were trying to do string manipulation on a value that may be an integer.