I started the process of updating our custom Deadline launcher to Deadline 7 and I was kind of surprised that things look very different. I’ve looked through the documentation but that really doesn’t describe the changes. Could someone provide some insight into what has changed? To highlight what modification I have made to previous versions:
I modified the ModoSubmission.py (I noticed that PyQt4 isn’t used anymore)
I wrote a custom python launch script that replaced the DeadlineModoClient.pl
I don’t see any analog to that file in the Deadline7 repository. I do see that there is an executable that installs a modo launcher which worries me that I my tool might not be compatible with Deadline7.
So again, if anyone can walk me through this it would be immensely helpful.
James
Hey James,
To test your Launcher submission script, try running it from the Submit menu in the Monitor. You can then look at the Console panel in the Monitor (View -> New Panel -> Console) and see if any error messages are printed out.
Also, modo now has a proper integrated submitter. We no longer run the perl script to call the Monitor submission script. However, in theory it would still work with your perl script. I suspect that there is an error in the Monitor submission script itself, and hopefully the Console panel in the Monitor will point you in the right direction.
Cheers,
Ryan
Hi Ryan, I ditched the pearl script a while ago and made my own custom python script that ultimately calls the deadlinecommandbg.exe command. The more I look into this I’m thinking I can still make it work. You guys just made a lot more work for me though and I’m sure I’ll be plenty busy on the forums here in the coming weeks. 
One question about the integrated submitter. How are you guys handling rendering out multi-layered EXRs with this?
James
We aren’t doing anything specifically to handle this. Deadline should just respect whatever output settings are defined in the modo scene itself. Although now, you should be able to right-click and view the images from the task list in the Monitor.
Cheers,
Ryan
In the old submitter we would use the optional Output Folder render layered EXRs. I create a file path to stick in there and set the file type as layered EXR. The problem with Modo is that there is no option to establish your Render Outputs as a layered EXR. I haven’t tested this yet, but my guess is that layered EXRs will not possible through the new integrated submitter.
I guess you should still be able to do this through the Monitor submission script for modo.
Strange that their API supports rendering to multilayer exrs, but you can’t actually set them via the modo render settings… Do you know if the Foundry is aware of this limitation?
Well, it’s just a quirk I think. If you render a single frame of render an animation, it renders the frame in their render window. Once the render is done, you can then save the file or sequence as a layered EXR. Where as with Deadline, we’re establishing all of the parameters before rendering happens.
I did a quick test of Modos “Render Animation” option that allows you to specify “layered images”. It doesn’t work unfortunately.