Partitioning not working in 2.3 Beta1

Deprecated Stoke MX Beta Bug Reports
1

HI,

we’re having an issue running the partitioning process.
Every time we get the error message “Unknown system exception” from MaxScript (see the attached screenshot).
The source is from FumeFX 4.0.5.

Let me know if you need any more info, .max file, etc.

Cheers,
Holger

stoke_partitioning.jpg
stoke_partitioning.jpg1929×1182 424 KB

2

Thank you for your report!

I have reproduced the problem, and I logged it as a bug. I think we should be able to get you a fix sometime next week.

3

Hi Paul,

thanks for the reply!
So i guess we’ll go back to 2.2 in the meantime since we can’t proceed otherwise at this point.

Cheers,
Holger

4

Just in case this is important: the same scene was completing without any error message on our Deadline farm - but also without producing any output (Deadline Job archive attached).
alexn__3dsmax__STOKE SIM [RANGE 1 TO 10 OF 10 PARTS] __57f6667174fc3216848f639f.zip (72.7 KB)

5

Unfortunately, after switching back all machines to v2.2.1 we now get the following errors when opening the scene:

  1. Error Loading EmberHolder
  2. Invalid file - only partially loaded.
  3. File Open Failed: X:\pe12\sky_001_010\ […blablabla…].max

in that order.

To get around that we merged everything but the Stoke objects into a new scene.
But it still won’t partition on the farm machines (which are also on 2.2.1 again). Archive of the job in question attached.

Cheers,
Holger
alexn__3dsmax__STOKE SIM [RANGE 1 TO 10 OF 10 PARTS] __57f7676174fc3216a4697ff9.zip (92.6 KB)

6

To fix partitioning on Deadline using Stoke 2.3, you can unzip the following file, and copy it into the “C:\Program Files\Thinkbox\Stoke MX\Scripts” directory on the submitting machine:

StokePartitionTasksOnDeadline.zip (2.41 KB)
We don’t have a fix for partitioning locally in Stoke 2.3 yet.

I’m looking into this now. I just want to make sure that I understand: you’re not seeing any error, but it’s not producing any output, right?

7

hi Paul,

yes, that’s right. Maybe we’re also missing something. So if you want, please have a look at the Job Archive that was attached to this post:

https://forums.thinkboxsoftware.com/posting.php?mode=reply&f=162&t=14792#pr67221

We’ll try the script first thing on Monday and let you know whether this works. If we can start partitioning on the farm again that will already be a big help.

Cheers,
Holger

8

Alright, great!

Regarding the issue with Stoke 2.2.1: Unfortunately, I was not able to reproduce this problem. Here’s what I did:

  1. I loaded the file pe012_sky_001_010_cgfx_comet-addparticles_v003_an.max from your attachment,
  2. made a simple PRT sequence to replace the missing files,
  3. ran the FumeFX simulation, and
  4. submitted the partitioning job to Deadline.

This produced partition files as expected. I wonder, does it work if you create a simple scene from scratch?

I’m hoping we can get 2.3 working for you, so we won’t need to worry about this.

9

well… this is embarassing!..
The partitioning with Deadline wasn’t working due to a wrong version of FumeFX being installed on the machine(s) in question. :frowning:
The interesting thing is that there is no such warning or error message in the logs. But i guess that is neither Stoke’s nor Deadline’s fault but rather that of 3ds Max and/or FumeFX?

10

Hi Holger,

I’ve attached an updated script which should fix local partitioning in Stoke 2.3 Beta 1.
StokePartitioning.zip (7.78 KB)