max render - local copy

[LaszloSebo]

Is it possible to avoid putting max files into the aux path, but still have the deadline slave copy the max file to its local drive?

We do multiple submissions from the same file, which currently results in the same file being copied several times to the network (to each job’s own aux folder). It could be reused from the same common location.

If we use #networksave or any of the other modes that is not a ‘repo save’ method, the file never gets localized. Which is a problem, because we have to modify the max file on the slaves… Off the network, thats not possible (as they share the same file). Not to mention, files load slow-as-hell off the network…

Any tips?

(this adds 2-5x speed hit to our submission time from max)

[Bobo]

I guess an option could be added to the JOB to force remotely located scene files referenced only by path in the JOB file to be copied to the Slave and loaded from there. In fact, I wasn’t aware they weren’t being copied to the Slave until you mentioned it.

[LaszloSebo]

Yeah was a bit of a surprise to me, since max loads files from a local drive orders of magnitude faster than from a network drive. Same goes for maya etc.

[LaszloSebo]

I’ve modded the 3dsmax.py, and it seems to work ok! Will do some further testing.