Hi all, I’m intrigued by Deadline (to use with 3ds Max 2025), but I have a couple simple questions. Because Max’s own network render app is no longer supported, and because I can no longer get Max’s command line render to work, I need to find an alternative (and one that doesn’t depend on command line as some do). But all I really need is to be able to queue jobs on a single local machine, nothing fancier than that.
So the first question is can I even do this? And the second is that if I can how do I calculate the cost. The website has me baffled on the second question.
Thanx in advance.
It’s free, the only cost requirement is the render engine you use. 3ds Max runs free to render, but using Arnold or V-Ray, Redshift etc will require a license (per machine)
If it’s on the same machine you should be able to use 3ds batch mode? there’s also the Backburner app if you’re just using 3ds Max on a second machine.
Deadline will require a ‘server’ running a database. It’s not advisable to run this on a machine that’s rendering as when the CPU hits 100% the database stops working and your queue will fail.
Are you looking at Deadline or Deadline Cloud? They’re 2 separate apps, one is for mainly onsite and the other is mainly cloud, but both can do both, just in different ways.
Thanx for the helpfull info. Backburner no longer works, that’s what I’ve used for literally decades, and I’d be happy to continue using it. I can’t remember what the problem I have with Batch mode is, maybe if the camera changes from frame to frame. But in short nothing that comes with Max will do the job for me. I do use V-ray so I’ll have to see what the license cost is.
So it sounds like I’d be using Deadline (not Cloud), the website is not exactaly clear on those differences. But based on what you say about the server, and as I only will be running one computer, it sounds like that won’t work for me either.
I’m still exploring other products, so hopefully I’ll be able to make one of those work. Thanx again.