Hi,
this is actually originating from a Deadline 9 issue i’ve been discussing with Dwight and who asked me to bring this over here to the Deadline 10 beta forum to be able to discuss this more in detail with the dev team. I just got access and have not yet had the time to install and take a look at Deadline 10. So please excuse in case not all of the things i’m describing below are still valid for Deadline 10.
So here we go:
we’ve been holding off upgrading to Deadline 9 due to some issues we’re having regarding the new design of the Pipeline Tools integrated into the Submitters. First of all, it’s actually a good thing this will be much more unified across the different applications.
But that change is affecting some of our internal pipeline scripts which modify information for the integration into the project management (Shotgun in our case but i’m guessing the issue is the same with NIM and ftrack). Basically that part of our scripts isn’t working anymore.
Currently, with Deadline 7 we’re able to modifiy e.g. ‘Version Name’ and ‘Description’ for the user automatically (in Nuke, we’re doing this by modifying the ShotgunKVPs in Nuke’s Root node). Since Deadline 9 doesn’t use that anymore but a local text file on the harddrive it’s become more difficult to have access to that data. Initially i was thinking of modifying that data inside the NukeShotgunSticky.txt hoping that’ll be automatically read by the Pipeline Tools and used for submission. But i realised that this won’t suffice since there’s no way (or i didn’t find it) to tell the Submitter to ‘Create New Version’ without opening the Pipeline Tools and activate the checkbox there. But even then - although the (modified) data from the file is being read and visible in the respective fields of the Pipeline Tools app - it’s not possible to just click ‘OK’ because then i just get the following message:
“You must complete the Shotgun from in order to create a new Shotgun Version for this Job.
Please fill in any missing info before proceeding.”.
Which is kind of strange since the info is there. I can see it in the “Version Name” and “Description” boxes. But it won’t be effective/accepted before connecting to Shotgun again.
Overall this feels like a regression because it’s rather slowing down our artists’ workflow and making it more error-prone since there’s more manual work involved - when it should actually be doing the opposite.
In an ideal world, for us i think it would be like this:
It’s absolutely fine to open the Pipeline Tools and connect to Shotgun when first setting up an empty scene.
But it’s just very likely that from this point on only very specific info - mainly the “Version Name” and “Description” (and maybe the Login Name / Connected User) will change while the scene is progressing - which is the most common scenario in our pipeline. But for just updating those two info boxes it’s kind of wasted effort to always open that separate window and connect to Shotgun.
One should of course always be able to do so and change even the link to a Shot or Task - but only if really needed.
All the other things like the Project Management (Shotgun/Ftrack/NIM), “Include Film Strip”, “Upload Movie” and Draft Settings usually don’t change and should carry over from Version to Version. If they need to be changed one can open the Pipeline Tools again.
So maybe you guys can find a way to not only store that info in the NukeShotgunSticky.txt but also in Nuke’s Root node again (and wherever the other applications allow this kind of data to be stored). And if the data is there we can modifiy it within our pipeline and it will be used when submitting the Job. If it’s not there the info from the sticky file will be used and if that isn’t there the user will have to connect to Shotgun via the Pipeline Tools anyway.
Even more ideally, some of the very basic checkboxes and knobs could be exposed near the Pipeline Tools button - like e.g. “Create New Version”, Version Name, Description and the status of the optional Draft Job (enabled/disabled) - to not have to open the Pipeline Tools for that.
If yolu have any further questions just let me know.
I’m more than willing to get involved and help in whatever way i’m able to.
Cheers,
Holger
. I put this into our system internally but hadn’t actually posted my reply on this topic.
). The point of the sticky settings for pipeline tools (Shotgun in this case) was to prevent the need to “connect” to it since you already have all the valid data, aside from checking “Create New Version”. So we’re getting that fixed at the moment.