Deadline clients MAC & PC

Deadline
1

Hi

Anyone tried using deadline for rendering the same job on both MAC & PC’s?

Is there anything special i have to setup? certain settings?

Thanks.

2

Hi Mohamed,

A lot of our clients do this. The most important thing to set up is Mapped Paths, which is covered here:
thinkboxsoftware.com/deadlin … splatform/

If you let us know which application(s) you plan to render with cross-platform, we can point you to product-specific documentation about additional setup requirements.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
3

Thanks for the link.

We use Nuke 6.3, Maya 2012, Mentelray, & Vray.

4

No problem!

For Nuke, all you should need are the path mappings set up. Deadline will go through the comp file and swap out the read/write paths as needed:
thinkboxsoftware.com/deadlin … iderations

For Maya, as long as all your paths relative to the Maya project and output paths, you are good to go:
thinkboxsoftware.com/deadlin … iderations

Are you using mental ray and vray standalone, or are these the renderers you’re using within Maya? If it’s the latter, than no additional setup should be required.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
5

Thanks!

We are a small company and i dont have an expert to help me with this. Can you please give me examples of how to setup the following?

I have a MAC (Clien & Slave) and 2 PC’s (Slaves)

We are on the same network but everything is local ie no Xsan or something like that. Just an Ethernet connection.

MAC computer name= Selim
PC1= Nabil
PC2= Tantawy

Path to the repository on the MAC is /Volumes/Macintosh_HD/Applications/DeadlineRepository/
All project, assets etc. are in /Volumes/Mercury_07/Projects/

How do i setup the mapped paths to be able to launch a nuke job for example from my mac and render on it along with the 2 PC’s?

Edit: Also the mapped paths should be entered in each computer being used?

Thanks

6

These folders need to be shared so that all 3 of your machines can see these folders. The repository needs full read/write access so that your Mac and your PCs can read and write over everything. You PC slaves would probably end up connecting to this repository path once the folder is shared:

\Selim\DeadlineRepository

If you find you have problems with permissions, it actually might be easier to install the repository on one of your PCs. Then both of your PCs could access it through a UNC path (ie: \Nabil\DeadlineRepository) and your Mac would mount it and then use the path \Volumes\DeadlineRepository.

I’m also going to assume that your PCs can access the assets using a network path like this:

\Selim\Mercury_07\Projects

If that’s the case, then you’ll want to set up 2 path mapping entries for rendering. Once for Mac → PC:

Replace Path: /Volumes/Mercury_07/Projects/
Windows Path: \Selim\Mercury_07\Projects
Linux Path:
Mac Path:

And one for PC → Mac:

Replace Path: \Selim\Mercury_07\Projects
Windows Path:
Linux Path:
Mac Path: /Volumes/Mercury_07/Projects/

Hope this helps!

  • Ryan
7

Ok I set everything up.

All pc’s are looking at \Selim\DeadlineRepository

I did the mapped paths.

I started a test render from Nuke on the MAC with 1 slave on the same mac and the other on PC=Nabil

I have no errors but its only rendering on the mac and not the PC

The slave on the PC is launched and says Idle and thats it. Its doing nothing.

Here is the info printed on the PC Slave window :

Info Thread - Using process affinity of 4 CPUs
Checking repository integrity
---- September 14 2011 – 03:09 PM ----
Purging old job auxiliary files
---- September 14 2011 – 03:13 PM ----
Info Thread - Using process affinity of 4 CPUs
---- September 14 2011 – 03:15 PM ----
Purging obsolete slaves
---- September 14 2011 – 03:16 PM ----
Purging old statistics
Purging slave statistics that are older than Aug 15/11 15:16:39
Purging repository statistics that are older than Aug 15/11 15:16:39
---- September 14 2011 – 03:18 PM ----
Info Thread - Using process affinity of 4 CPUs
---- September 14 2011 – 03:19 PM ----
Checking repository integrity
---- September 14 2011 – 03:23 PM ----
Info Thread - Using process affinity of 4 CPUs

8 
I have no errors but its only rendering on the mac and not the PC

Just to confirm, the job being submitted has more than one task, correct? I just want to make sure it’s not a case of there being only one task for the job, and that’s why only one machine works on it.

Assuming that’s NOT the case, this sounds like a permission problem. What’s likely happening is that the job is being created in the repository with the current Mac user’s credentials, which the PC slaves don’t have permissions to access. Is the Mac using “/Volumes/Macintosh_HD/Applications/DeadlineRepository/” as it’s repository path? If so, that could explain why the files aren’t being created with open permissions. This is because the Mac is using the local repository path, not the shared one.

I don’t know if this is possible on Mac, but if you can somehow mount the \Selim\DeadlineRepository share back on your Mac, and use the new mounted path, that might work. I know this works on Linux. For example, I could have Deadline installed to /usr/local/DeadlineRepository, share it with samba, and then mount it to the same machine to /mnt/DeadlineRepository. If I then use /mnt/DeadlineRepository instead of /usr/local/DeadlineRepository for the Deadline applications, the open permission settings will be respected. If I just use the local /usr/local/DeadlineRepository path, everything gets created with local permissions only.

If this sounds like too much of a hassle, it just might be easier to install the repository on one of your PCs. If they’re not running a Windows Server OS, that should be OK because you only have 2 other machines connecting to it, so you shouldn’t run into the connection limitation that’s enforced in non-Server editions of Windows.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
9

I will check back tom when i go to work and post my findings. So your saying that there are limitations to the windows machines i can add if im on say Windows 7 and not running a server?

Is it easier to create the repository on the mac’s extra internal hardrive instead of the main Macintosh HD and share that?

10

Yes. I believe there is a 10 connection limitation for file sharing. If you have more than 10 connections open at a given time, other connections will get dropped or be denied. With only 2 other machines, this shouldn’t be a problem, but that can change when you start to grow.

That’s definitely worth a try. The thing to keep in mind is Deadline on the Mac needs to connect to a shared path so that the share permissions/settings are respected. If this doesn’t work for you, I’ll get someone here who is well-versed in this subject to help you out.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
11

Ok I tried installing the repository on a 2nd hardrive on my MAC but that didnt work. I now installed the repository on the PC machine and trying to Render a job on 2 macs and 1 PC (repo).

I also redid all the mapped paths again that you supplied.

I submitted the job from the MAC machine. The Macs’s are rendering fine and i can see that the PC machine is now turning up on the job’s slave list but im getting errors which are:

Error Message

Exception during render: An error occurred in RenderTasks(): Error in PreRenderTasks(): Access to the path ‘\Selim\Mercury_07\Projects\Test_02\Test_02.nk’ is denied.
at Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.RenderTasks(Int32 startFrame, Int32 endFrame, String& outMessage)

I checked that folder and its subfolders and files and they all have read/write permissions to everyone. I even tried accessing the files from the PC machine through the network and everything is good.

All the jobs that we will submit will be from this mac so i even if i transfer all the media and assets to the windows machine, that wont be practical for us.

Don’t know what the problem is.

12

Ok i figured there is something wrong with that hard disk so i copied all my assets to another. PC’s are working now but the other MAC gives this error:

Error Message

Exception during render: An error occurred in RenderTasks(): Error in PreRenderTasks(): Could not find a part of the path “/Volumes/Backup/Test_02/Test_02.nk”.
at Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.RenderTasks (Int32 startFrame, Int32 endFrame, System.String& outMessage) [0x00000] in :0

The assets folder is mounted on the mac with permissions and everything, so i don’t understand that message.

Also could you please tell me how to inverse the mapped paths to submit a job from a PC to MAC

Lets say computer name is Nabil and the project is in D:\Projects\

So its mounted on the mac as /Volumes/Projects/

I really appreciate the help and you must forgive me for all the questions as im trying to find a stable workflow for rendering.

13

And you’re able to open ‘/Volumes/Backup/Test_02/Test_02.nk’ yourself from that Mac?

14

Yes, I can.

15

Since the repository is on a Windows 7 machine and other Windows machines can access the files there, I’m assuming sharing permissions are working.
It’s also clear your mapped paths are correct, and the file exists.

OSX doesn’t mount that shares in “/Volmes” until you try and access files in it using the Finder as far as I know. Once you have accessed /Volumes/Backup from that Mac, try to render a scene to see if you still get the same error. For testing, you can white list that slave in the submission UI so that only it will try to render that job.

If the lack of auto-mounting is the problem, there are some great solutions here (especially within the comments):
stress-free.co.nz/using_osxs … mote_media

Here’s hoping that’s the right track.