Deadline crash with render elements?

Deadline
1

Is there any known gotchas with deadline and render elements? We’re experiencing crashes occurring on the very end of renders, after the frame has rendered and just at the point when it should be saving out the files. Debug info from deadline:

Scheduler Thread - RenderTask: 3dsmax exited unexpectedly (it may have crashed, or someone may have terminated)

Exception Details
RenderPluginException – RenderTask: 3dsmax exited unexpectedly (it may have crashed, or someone may have terminated)
RenderPluginException.Cause: JobError (2)
Exception.TargetSite: Void RenderTasks(Int32, Int32)
Exception.Source: DeadlinePluginLoader
Exception.StackTrace:
at Deadline.Plugins.PluginLoader.RenderTasks(Int32 startTask, Int32 endTask)
at Deadline.Plugins.PluginLoader.RenderTask(Int32 task)
at Deadline.Plugins.Plugin.RenderTask(Int32 frame)
at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.RenderCurrentTask()
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

We’re using Max 2008, mental ray, Deadline 2.7.

Thanks,
Adam

2

There aren’t any issues that we are aware of. Have you confirmed that this only happens when render elements are present? Is there a simple test scene that you post that we could use to reproduce the problem here?

Thanks!

  • Ryan
3

Confirmed it’s when render elements are on. I tried making a MR teapot test scene, and luckily hit the jackpot first time (see attached)
This file will render on slave just fine but errors out right about the time it should be saving the files. It renders just fine locally and
saves out render elements correctly as well - all files saved to their network destinations.

Is there any place to get more debugging information than that deadline logging error message?
deadline_render_elements_crap_out.zip (21.4 KB)

4

I’ve been able to reproduce this problem with Deadline 3.0 as well, with Max 9, 2008, and 2009. The problem seems to be with using the mental ray depth of field multipass option combined with render elements. The main image is created correctly, but there seems to be problems applying the multipass effect to the render element images (which is where the crash occurs). We’re looking into it, and hopefully we can figure something out.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
5

Thanks Ryan - good to know it’s reproduceable! Look forward to hearing what you come up with. If you need anything else just gimme a shout.

Cheers,
Adam

6

The problem actually appears to be a more general multipass/render element issue. We’ve fixed the issue internally and the fix will be included in the next 3.x release. Thanks for helping us track this one down!

Cheers,

  • Ryan
7

Addedum to the render elements issue. Last night I tried rendering a multi-pass dof beauty pass only. The frames all rendered without error, but saved only black, blank frames. Hope this helps.