Explicit plugin executable path

Deadline
#1

Hi guys,

We’re trying to have each build of our DCCs (Houdini, Katana, Nuke etc) in a separate folder, which gives us a bunch of benefits in deployment, management and flexibility. One of the few remaining issues is how to deal with it with Deadline. The list of executables in the plugin config doesn’t look suitable for this for workflow - is there a way to explicitly specify executable path per job?

I’ve found this: Q: Set custom path to executable with event plugin on submission? - should we follow that route?

Thanks

#2

Looking at that forum thread, I think that’s a good path to follow. At least there’s no obvious landmines I can think of. And that was for at least Deadline 10.0.21 which is at least the same major version.

If you do jump in and try it, report back with whatever successes and failures, I’d like to help!

#3

we’ve thought more about it, and it seems like a better idea to create different ‘versions’ for each build, in the plugin param file. The problem with this is that the Deadline submitter is not writing a full build version in the job properties.

#4

Oh that’ll be a pain to make right. You’d need to customize all your submitters to set the full build number, instead of the Major.Minor format that most DCCs use.

It would look a lot like the steps for adding unofficial support of a new software version to Deadline. I’ll quote the steps for AE2020 (the first one I found already written up) for reference.

Here are the steps to do this:

  1. Go to DeadlineRepository10\plugins\AfterEffects directory and backup your AfterEffects Param file.
  2. Add the following additional entry for RenderExecutables:
[RenderExecutable17_0]
Type=multilinemultifilename
Label=After Effects CC 2020 Render Executable
Category=Render Executables
CategoryOrder=0
Index=11
Default=C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2020\Support Files\aerender.exe;/Applications/Adobe After Effects 2020/aerender
Description=The path to the After Effects CC 2020 executable file used for rendering. Enter alternative paths on separate lines.

Makes sure you have the right paths for the AE2020 executables here.

  1. Go to \DeadlineRepository10\scripts\Submission and backup AfterEffectsSubmission.py file and add
("CC2020", 17.0),

to AFTER_EFFECTS_VERSIONS dict.

Relaunch the monitor, you should now be able to see this in the plugin configurations.

The important part is updating the submitter, but adding the whole quote for future folks. And that doesn’t address updating the integrated submitters, each of which will be its own kettle of fish. I don’t think it would be too bad, just tedious.

And you’ll need to install the submitters using the ‘manual’ steps instead of the installer.

Hopefully that’s enough to get you going? Or at least to plan the scope of work involved.

1 Like
#5

Hi,
Yes I think we’ve pretty much figured it out, we’ll be testing next week. It really does make sense for us to have the complete build version - maybe something you guys can consider for the future? Truncating when you don’t need it is ok, but not having it in the first place seems less than ideal.

Thanks

#6

Continuing the thread, we’ve been using this system for a couple of weeks with Houdini and it works well.
In fact, it might be beneficial to pin other versions for the render as well - for instance of v-ray.

Realistically we only use 4-5 other submitters, so fixing this is easy.

Was discussing this with a colleague, and decided doing this does not open you up to more breakage, but makes existing issues more apparent, instead. Otherwise mismatches would simply be hidden away, maybe not even visible in Deadline logs.

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