Hi All,
Does anyone use Modo in windows and submit to linux machines successfully through Deadline?
I seem to have no end of issues with the ‘server:/share’ path mapping that Modo uses going across OS platforms.
Thanks in advance,
Ant
Just to outline the way I’m submitting my job from a Windows 10 machine…
Open Modo
Create a New Project
Save Project to network location
Save Modo scene into project folder
Create a Sphere
Shape in view port
Apply MDD Deformer (attached as mdd in zip here Sphere.zip (49.2 KB) )
Go to render tab
Go to Final Colour Output and choose network location
If rendering in the viewport I get the expected image
When submitting with Deadline it fails due to the way Modo creates file paths
I don’t believe I should have to set the path aliasing, the Foundry sent me this video guide to the path Alias they use
Pixel Fondue Path Alias on YouTube MODO | Path Aliases
There’s no info on exporting MDD’s to standard UNC paths
https://learn.foundry.com/modo/content/help/pages/system_files/export_mdd.html
There is info on path data, although this doesn’t help
https://learn.foundry.com/modo/content/help/pages/preferences/pref_data.html
You can’t set the ‘Path Aliases’ in Modo to something that’s no there, so I can’t put in the linux path on a Windows box, and Deadline isn’t translating it
The documentation on Thinkbox site is missing some of the options that are available, so adds to the confusion (Resolve Path Aliases is not documented)
https://docs.thinkboxsoftware.com/products/deadline/10.1/1_User%20Manual/manual/app-modo.html#plug-in-configuration
From the tooltip this would suggest to have it enabled
This would change their mapping, ie server:\share\job to the Windows version \server\share\job, which would then be changed to the linux verions /mnt/share/job for rendering
I’m not sure if this is being done out of order, or it fails when the Path Alias is not set.
I’m going round in circles testing this stuff
Still having no joy getting an MDD applied.
Have tried all different ways in the options and recording the options too
The X and O relates to these options
Tried to do a command line myself but this doesn’t seem to work, there’s a PixelFondue guide here
And the Official (SDK) docs here
https://modosdk.foundry.com/wiki/Headless#Windows
(no linux though?)
I notice when Deadline is rendering Modo it creates and deletes two files,
job0.txt
EXECUTE
!render.animation {*}
and
ack0.txt
SUCCESS
Where does the actual file with the render settings go??
I found this thread on the Foundry page that spans almost 10 years
https://community.foundry.com/discuss/topic/70117/mdd-file-causing-scene-file-not-to-load-on-render-farm-emergency?mode=Post&postID=1196264
It is possible to open the file in the Hex Editor and edit, removing or changing the MDD entries, restoring it with path (should work if file is in same location as .LXO file). I’m not sure if this is done when Deadline submits??
In my continued googling of this problem I found a link to Render Street which also recommends stripping the path, leaving the file name and uploading the MDD in the same folder as the LXO
https://render.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/1838641-using-external-files-mdd-alembic-with-modo
Could Deadline possibly read the file and perform this action? removing the reference and dumping the file in with the file it uses?