Hello!
I have a question about render speed: why on the same machine (Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 + 3DStudio Max 2009 Design SP1 x64 + Vray SP2 + Deadline 3.0.32934) render time in Deadline is ~ 10-15% more than render time in 3DSMax (3m38s vs 3m16s)? Task priority is 100% (highest), scene not changed…
And one more trouble - task with settings from “Batch render” checked, fail with error:
Exception during render: An error occurred in RenderTasks(): RenderTask: Unexpected exception (Exception caught in 3ds max: -- Runtime error: fileIn: can't open file - "C:\ProgramData\Frantic Films\Deadline\slave\plugins\SubmitterSettingsStruct.ms"
2008/09/08 20:43:00 INF: Loaded C:/ProgramData/Frantic Films/Deadline/slave/jobsData/teapot.max
2008/09/08 20:43:00 INF: Job: C:/ProgramData/Frantic Films/Deadline/slave/jobsData/teapot.max
) (Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException) (Deadline.Plugins.RenderPluginException)
в Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.RenderTasks(Int32 startFrame, Int32 endFrame, String& outMessage)
If there are some solutions for this problems, please answer.
PS Sorry for my English ))
When rendering through Deadline, there is the overhead of starting up 3dsmax before the frame actually renders, which would likely account for the ~22 seconds difference in render time. Note though that Deadline keeps the scene loaded in memory between tasks, so subsequent frames won’t require that overhead.
We’re going to look into the batch render problem later today and see if we can reproduce the problem.
Cheers,
Thanks Ryan,
i’ll wait for Batch Render problem’s solution.
Sorry for the delay on this. We were able to reproduce the problem, and I’ve attached a patch here. Just unzip it to \your\repository\submission\3dsmax and overwrite the file it asks you to. The next time you submit a job, it should work properly. If you continue to have problems, let us know!
Cheers,
Ryan, thanks for reply with patch - error is gone, but render still not working…
Job submitted in Monitor, after starting nothing happened and job stand still with status “Active” and “Progress”=0% for hours (single camera render ~ 2 min).
Single frame/camera render works fine.
BTW in any case (BR on/off, Vray/Scanline) not working function “Show The Virtual Frame Buffer While Rendering”. Frame buffer not showing while rendering process on.
In the Monitor, does the job name imply that this is the Batch Master job? Also, when this job is active, have you checked the slave that it is rendering on to see what it is doing? The Batch Master job needs to start 3dsmax in workstation mode and then submit the batch jobs individually, so maybe something funky is going on during this process.
For the VFB issue, I can’t reproduce this (it’s working fine for every render we’ve tested). Are you looking for the VFB to popup on the machine you’re monitoring from, because this setting controls whether or not the VFB is displayed on the slave that is rendering the job.
Cheers,
That is all I see in Monitor 
img381.imageshack.us/img381/2894/monitorto7.gif
About VFB - now I try to explore Deadline on only one machine before I’ll use it on the render farm. So, monitoring and rendering machine it’s the same one.
Has 3dsmax started up on the ‘Workstation’ machine? You should see 3dsmax show up in the task bar. The slave interface should also be logging what it is doing, so that information might be helpful as well. By the way, if you installed the client as a service, then the slave interface won’t be displayed. If this is the case, then for the purposes of figuring out this problem, it might be a good idea to uninstall the client and reinstall in non-service mode.
Cheers,
H-m-m…
After long time Monitor get error:
An error occurred in StartJob(): 3dsmax startup: Timed out waiting for 3ds max to start - consider increasing the LoadMaxTimeout in the 3dsmax plugin configuration
(Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException)
OK, i’ll try to reinstall client…
I made it. BR job is starting, after Max ask about LUT and system units and momentally closing with error
An error occurred in StartJob(): 3dsmax startup: Error getting connection from 3dsmax: Dialog popup detected: Title "3ds Max", Message "Do you want gamma/LUT correction to be DISABLED
to correspond with the setting in this file?" (Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException)
It strange 'cause Max settings are not changed, but scene lost information about gamma and units was converted to feets.
When add “single” job - all works perfectly. Question about render speed is over - render in Deadline a little bit faster than in Max. 
Can you post the full long for the render that produces this error message? When deadline detects a dialog, it should be dumping out the contents of the dialog. With this information, we can create a popup handler that can either ignore it or press the appropriate button on it.
Thanks!
This is full error report:
[code]Error Message
An error occurred in StartJob(): 3dsmax startup: Error getting connection from 3dsmax: Dialog popup detected: Title “3ds Max”, Message “Do you want gamma/LUT correction to be DISABLED
to correspond with the setting in this file?” (Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException)
Slave Log
er history settings.*" by pressing “OK;No”
0: INFO: Handling popup windows with titles matching regex “.Warning - the software has encountered a problem.” by pressing “Don’t show me this error again;Continue”
0: INFO: Handling popup windows with titles matching regex “.Frantic Films FPS Watchdog.” by pressing “OK”
0: INFO: Stdout Handling Enabled: False
0: INFO: Popup Handling Enabled: True
0: INFO: Using Process Tree: True
0: INFO: Hiding DOS Window: False
0: INFO: Creating New Console: False
0: INFO: Render Executable: “D:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2009\3dsmax.exe”
0: INFO: Render Argument: “-p “Y:\Temp\dl.ini” -q “C:\ProgramData\Frantic Films\Deadline\slave\plugins\deadlineStartupMax2009.max””
0: INFO: Startup Directory: “D:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2009”
0: INFO: Process Priority: BelowNormal
0: INFO: Waiting for connection from 3dsmax
0: WARNING: Detected popup dialog “3ds Max”.
0: WARNING: ---- dump of dialog ----
0: WARNING: Static:
0: WARNING: Button: &??
0: WARNING: Button: &???
0: WARNING: Static:
0: WARNING: Static: Do you want gamma/LUT correction to be DISABLED
to correspond with the setting in this file?
0: WARNING: ---- end dump of dialog ----
0: INFO: Disconnecting socket connection to 3dsmax
0: INFO: 3dsmax process has 3 objects
0: INFO: Waiting for 3dsmax to shut down
0: WARNING: Program 3dsmaxProcess did not close cleanly, it is being terminated forcefully.
0: INFO: Terminating 3dsmax child processes
0: INFO: 3dsmax has shut down
0: WARNING: The 3ds max process has already quit
FREE MODE: Repository has less than two slaves - no license required.
Scheduler Thread - Render Thread 0 threw an error:
Scheduler Thread - An error occurred in StartJob(): 3dsmax startup: Error getting connection from 3dsmax: Dialog popup detected: Title “3ds Max”, Message “Do you want gamma/LUT correction to be DISABLED
to correspond with the setting in this file?” (Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException)
Error Type
RenderPluginException
Error Stack Trace
в Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.StartJob(Job job)
в Deadline.Plugins.Plugin.StartJob(Job job)
в Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.RenderCurrentTask()
[/code]
After first popup window (LUT) follow next one about convert units… I haven’t error about that popup.
There is another error report, but I can’t remember this event (I think it from OS because Max not Russian localized) :
[code]Error Message
An error occurred in StartJob(): 3dsmax startup: Error getting connection from 3dsmax: Dialog popup detected: Title “Список быстрой вставки”, Message “Щелкните строку списка для её вставки в позицию курсора.” (Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException)
Slave Log
ndows with titles matching regex “.Render history settings.” by pressing “OK;No”
0: INFO: Handling popup windows with titles matching regex “.Warning - the software has encountered a problem.” by pressing “Don’t show me this error again;Continue”
0: INFO: Handling popup windows with titles matching regex “.Frantic Films FPS Watchdog.” by pressing “OK”
0: INFO: Stdout Handling Enabled: False
0: INFO: Popup Handling Enabled: True
0: INFO: Using Process Tree: True
0: INFO: Hiding DOS Window: False
0: INFO: Creating New Console: False
0: INFO: Render Executable: “D:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2009\3dsmax.exe”
0: INFO: Render Argument: “-p “Y:\Temp\dl.ini” -q -s “C:\ProgramData\Frantic Films\Deadline\slave\plugins\deadlineStartupMax2009.max””
0: INFO: Startup Directory: “D:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2009”
0: INFO: Process Priority: BelowNormal
0: INFO: Waiting for connection from 3dsmax
0: WARNING: Detected popup dialog “??? ??? ???”.
0: WARNING: ---- dump of dialog ----
0: WARNING: Static: ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ? ??? ???.
0: WARNING: SysListView32: List1
0: WARNING: SysHeader32:
0: WARNING: Button: &??? ???
0: WARNING: Static: ??? ???..
0: WARNING: Static:
0: WARNING: ---- end dump of dialog ----
0: INFO: Disconnecting socket connection to 3dsmax
0: INFO: 3dsmax process has 10 objects
0: INFO: Waiting for 3dsmax to shut down
0: WARNING: Program 3dsmaxProcess did not close cleanly, it is being terminated forcefully.
0: INFO: Terminating 3dsmax child processes
0: INFO: 3dsmax has shut down
0: WARNING: The 3ds max process has already quit
Scheduler Thread - Render Thread 0 threw an error:
Scheduler Thread - An error occurred in StartJob(): 3dsmax startup: Error getting connection from 3dsmax: Dialog popup detected: Title “??? ??? ???”, Message “??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ? ??? ???.” (Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin+FailRenderException)
Error Type
RenderPluginException
Error Stack Trace
в Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.StartJob(Job job)
в Deadline.Plugins.Plugin.StartJob(Job job)
в Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.RenderCurrentTask()[/code]
Our popup handlers are only configured to handle english dialogs, so that would explain the problem. We might be able to add handlers for different languages, but we’ll need the log from the slave interface that contains the error and the dialog dump. The slave interface logs keep the output as is, whereas the logs in the monitors often replace characters that would give our xml readers some problems.
In the slave interface, you can just select the desired lines and right-click and select Copy. Send us the logs for the 2 different dialogs you posted about, and we’ll see what we can do.
Cheers,
OK, in attach 4 error logs. Send to you more logs because I’m not sure which one is needed.
errors.zip (6.02 KB)
You actually sent us the error reports from the Monitor. 
We need the slave logs from the machine(s) that that the slave is running on. An easier way to get these logs would be to navigate to c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\frantic films\deadline\logs and grab a couple of slave logs. Just make sure the logs you send us contain the error messages that are in the error reports.
Thanks!
Hmm… what about this logs? 
errors.rar (8.7 KB)
Thanks! Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to handle those popups. Once thing we can try though is to force silent mode with the batch job which should suppress popups.
First, we’re going to have to make the Silent Mode option sticky. Go to \your\repository\submission\3dsmax and open the file SubmitMaxToDeadline_StickySettings.ini in a text editor. Find this line:
UseSilentMode=false
and change it to this:
UseSilentMode=true
Then save and close the file. Now the next time you open up the 3dsmax submission script, go to the Render tab, check the Force Workstation Mode option, check the Enable Silent Mode option, and then uncheck the Force Workstation Mode option. Now close the submission script and then run it again. Select the Render tab again, and you should see that the Enable Silent Mode option is still checked (even though it’s disabled). If this is the case, try submitting another batch job and see if you have better luck.
Cheers,
