Workflow

Deadline
1

Another newb question -
I am trying to setup an efficient workflow with our artists and Deadline. Quick background information:
~15 artists
main programs - 3DS Max, Maya, C4D, Adode CS
Deadline has 20 slaves (dedicated render machines)
Repository sits on network attached storage array that all artists have access to and access regularly for other purposes

What is the recommended workflow for submitting jobs to Deadline? Currently, the artists consolidate their projects (media, assets, textures, and project file) to a network location. Then I open their project on my workstation and change all the asset paths to be the network location. Then I submit the job and troubleshoot any issues. The artists check a couple of frames to make sure we have gotten all the assets and textures correctly defined and copied. If not, I cancel the job and troubleshoot and then resubmit. The process works, but I think it is rather inefficient and takes up a lot of my time (I am the only ‘tech’ guy here). I would like to streamline and have the artists submit directly from their desktops but, alas, they are artists and not too terribly tech-savvy so talking about asset paths is confusing to them. Is the intended workflow more like:

Artists process - all project assets should be living on network storage (mapped to the same drive letter as the render slaves) and they do all their work this way so that the submission process is simpler? Our artists are concerned about speed of working with files that do not reside locally. Is this how others work? Or is there another method?

Pardon my ignorance, just the network/computer guy who has no experience with this sort of thing

Joel Howden
MBA Productions

2

Hey Joel,

That’s generally how we recommend doing things. It saves a lot of time and effort on your part, since you know ahead of time that your render nodes will always be able to access the resources that your project files require. Some applications, like C4D, have built in ways to export an entire project to a network location prior to rendering, but since you are using multiple applications, you probably want to keep the workflow the same for all of them.

Cheers,

  • Ryan