I want to try submitting from AE 2022 Beta in order to run tests on new plugins n such before updating our production machines. My thought process - if I can specify to use the Beta version I don’t have to temporarily disable a handful of machines to do my tests before deciding if the changes should go through or not
I followed the directions here to specify a new render executable for the AE Deadline Plugin - Support for Adobe After Effects 2022 - #6 by garrett_gkp
However, I’m not sure how to get the beta to be recognized since it’s another flavor of AE 22 without redirecting all AE 22 jobs to use the beta aerender.exe
2022-03-16 11:51:15: 1: INFO: Submitted from After Effects version: 22.4x10
2022-03-16 11:51:15: 1: WARNING: Worker's After Effects version is NOT the same as the After Effects version that was used to submit this job! Unexpected results may occur!
2022-03-16 11:51:15: 1: STDOUT: aerender version 22.0x111
Jobs submitted from AE 2022 show up as
SubmittedFromVersion=22.0x111
Version=22.0
Jobs from AE 2022 Beta show up as
SubmittedFromVersion=22.4x10
Version=22.4
Does this make sense what I’m trying to do? Is there a better way to approach this?
Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated!
Hi @JJ_Painter, that workflow makes perfect sense to me! Short answer, try adding a second RenderExecutable for the beta version and see if beta vs formal release pair with the correct RenderExecutable. This may warrant a support ticket to Deadline as it could turn into a feature request or require more in-depth knowledge of the mapping of Ae version to RenderExecutable version. They’re always super friendly!
My first thought was “add a second entry in AfterEffects.param for the beta executable”, but then I realized I don’t know how the submitter chooses the plugin version as each major release has only one “RenderExecutable” in the default file. I can see in “SubmitAEToDeadline.jsx” (line 1623 for me in SubmitComp) where it sets both “Version=22.0” and “SubmittedFromVersion=22.0.1x2”. That mapping is easy to figure out, however one of my compers has “SubmittedFromVersion=22.2x120” and “Version=22.2” but still gets the “22.0” RenderExecutable - which is what I want in this case. I see in the python code that there is a DeadlinePlugin.GetRenderExecutable() function which takes in the preferred exectuable and the Ae version as a fallback, but I can’t find that function to see what it does.
All that said, maybe try adding the second “22.4” RenderExecutable as a second and see how Deadline handles both a beta submission and a regular release? That’s where I would start, then over to support. Good luck and post your findings, please!