we’re having an issue with a 3ds scene rendering incorrectly on the farm with Deadline (7.2.0.14 but also versions before).
The issue is that it does not render an animated ‘Focal dist’ value (in the ‘Depth of field’ section in the V-Ray tab of the render setup).
Initially, we set up the scene with an expression for this value. After this failed, we used a baked keyframe curve for it but this is still failing. All those scenes are rendering just fine locally in 3ds Max that’s why we assume it’s an issue with Deadline in some way.
I uploaded a zip file containing the scene with the expression (v007) and the baked curve (v009) as well as rendered EXR files of the correct local renders (only one object in focus and the rest blurred) and the incorrect renders from the farm (everything blurred/out of focus). The weird thing is that some frames rendered correctly on the farm but most of them didn’t. We tried to find a reproducible way for this but were unsuccessful.
When opening the scene please note that there needs to be a specific Krakatoa version installed due to a bug (support ticket #480111). You need to use version 2.4.0.58782. Otherwise the objects from the PRTLoaders will be wrongly positioned. This shouldn’t affect the described rendering issue, though.
Here’s the link to the zip file: owncloud.celluloid-vfx.com/inde … BQMEz0TwZW
(Link valid until Sept. 4th)
Please let me know if you need any more info.
Is Restart Renderer Between Frames enabled? Try turning this off/on to see if it makes a difference.
Try turning off the export of VRay renderer specific advanced renderer settings in SMTD -> Options Tab -> “Export Renderer-Specific Advanced Settings”. Does the job run ok now?
You say no pattern, but if you sort the tasks (frames) in the task panel by “Slave”, is it always the first frame that each slave renders is ok, but subsequent frames are busted? Did all the correct frames get rendered by just 1 or 2 slaves? If so, what is unique about these machines? Missing plugin or script?
As Conrad mentioned, a basic scene file (teapot + vray) with these settings to reproduce is always the best option for us to help here.
‘Restart Renderer…’ is TRUE according to the Job Properties.
We now tried rendering one of the scenes with this option set to off/false. While doing this i think we found a bug:
we unchecked it, but when re-opening SMTD it’s back to on/true. That’s why we accidentally submitted the job with ‘Restart Renderer…’ ON.
Next weird thing: i thought i could maybe just resubmit suspended, change that setting and then have it render (a different frame range to compare) with that setting off. I set the ‘Restart Renderer…’ to 'False. After confirming it now says ‘RestartRendererMode=False’ in the ‘Submission Params’ tab instead of ‘RestartRendererMode=0’. All the job that were submitted by SMTD show the value as integers but the resubmitted job with the settings changed afterwards now uses a boolean value. Don’t know whether this is relevant but i thought i let you know.
Apart from that, we now got two jobs rendering on the farm. One with expression, the other with baked FoV animation. The sh***y thing is: so far both rendered without error. We’re a bit stuck right now. But we’re not gonna give up. Stay tuned
Another thing: on one of the machines for that job we kept getting this error message
Error: Access to the path ‘C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2012\dl.ini’ is denied. (System.UnauthorizedAccessException)
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.File.InternalCopy(String sourceFileName, String destFileName, Boolean overwrite, Boolean checkHost)
at Python.Runtime.Dispatcher.TrueDispatch(ArrayList args)
at Python.Runtime.Dispatcher.Dispatch(ArrayList args)
at Deadline.Plugins.DeadlinePlugin.StartJob()
at Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.StartJob(Job job, String& outMessage, AbortLevel& abortLevel)
at Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.StartJob(Job job, String& outMessage, AbortLevel& abortLevel)[/code]
On the other machines that did not show this error i could not even find this file.
ok, I think we will need to park this one, until it can be reliably reproduced.
SMTD is hard-coded to ensure the Restart Renderer Between Frames checkbox is enabled if using VRay as the renderer, because literally 99.9% of the time, it’s needed. Booleans and Integers match in our KVP’s, so True=1 and False=0. All is good here.
“dl.ini” is a temp plugin ini file that loads our Lightning plugin, so it’s deleted once the job is done. More than likely, you had a hung instance of 3dsMax on the slave in question. Give it a machine reboot to be sure.
Update:
the job with the baked animation expression was rendering correctly but the one with the expression wasn’t. It just wasn’t immediately visible in the first frames as the issue/difference is very subtle there but becomes very apparent towards the end of the sequence.
I attached QTs of those two outputs as well as the archives of the render jobs.
v013 is the one with the expression wich is wrong and v014 is the one with the baked animation which rendered correctly. At the end of the sequence the difference is very apparent (in focus vs. out of focus).
