I am trying to render on deadline from Max and Redshift with splitted EXR render elements, but everytime I try it Deadline seems to get confused with the passes.
When I try the same file with Backburner, it renders just fine.
For instance it renders the beauty just fine but all the passes are blank, no information inside. Althouth the files are there.
I also noticed that it messed up with the passes names. It rendered Cryptomatte 2 times instead of the shadow pass.
I am using 3dsmax 2021 + redshift 3.0.24 + Deadline 10.1.9.2
The problem is two-fold. Firstly, there was a bug in that version (which will be fixed in 3.0.25). Secondly, Deadline doesn’t recognize Redshift EXR output. Redshift is actually writing the AOVs, but not using the 3ds Max buffers provided by Deadline. Deadline then overwrites the files with the empty buffers after rendering is complete.
This is actually an issue if you are using things like light groups with EXR and not separating light group files, because Deadline will overwrite the AOV file and you will lose your light group images. I suppose it’s also a performance issue in general because the files are written twice.
I will be in contact the developers to propose a proper solution for this, and ensure that Deadline knows about all the files to be written by Redshift.
Meanwhile, there IS a workaround. In 3ds Max’s EXR setup, you can check the “Automatically add render elements” checkbox. This makes Deadline think that 3ds Max will be writing everything to the main output file, and so it won’t write the AOVs. Then the ones written by Redshift will not get broken.
Deadline does not render. 3ds Max and Redshift render, and Deadline watches them do it In the setup shown in the screenshot, Local Rendering was requested, which means that the render output of the renderer is sent to a local temp. folder (the Deadline Worker via the 3dsmax.py integration plugin tells the renderer to change the output paths to it), and once it is done, the Deadline Worker looks for the render output files in the local temp. folder, and copies them to the actual location specified by the artist at submission time. This is done to avoid Redshift or 3ds Max writing large files directly over a network connection, and ensures that even if the network connection goes down, a local copy could be found on the render node as a last resort.
However, it would be interesting to check if rendering with the “Local Rendering” unchecked would produce a different result. In that case, Redshift and 3ds Max would be writing straight to the output folder specified by the artist, and the Deadline Worker will not touch any of the files in any way.
In the setup shown in the screenshot, Local Rendering was requested, which means that the render output of the renderer is sent to a local temp. folder (the Deadline Worker via the 3dsmax.py integration plugin tells the renderer to change the output paths to it), and once it is done, the Deadline Worker looks for the render output files in the local temp. folder, and copies them to the actual location specified by the artist at submission time. This is done to avoid Redshift or 3ds Max writing large files directly over a network connection, and ensures that even if the network connection goes down, a local copy could be found on the render node as a last resort.