AWS Thinkbox Discussion Forums

Slave saves files to the wrong location

Deadline
#1

I’m using Deadline with XSI and I’m having a problem. I have my final scenes saved to a storage server at a UNC location. I have save UNC file paths checked in XSI, but when I have Deadline handle the render management, the render slaves save their output to their local C: drive rather than back out to the storage server.



Any ideas on how to fix this?



Thanks



Paul

#2

For the scene output path, try specifying the full resolved path instead

of something like “[Project Path]\Render_Pictures”. For some reason when

running XSI in batch mode, it doesn’t respect the [Project Path] setting

in the scene (which might be because the scene file is being copied

locally to the slave instead of being rendered from within its project

folder).



This problem will be fixed for XSI 6.01 when we do our next release,

because XSI 6.01’s new batch rendering syntax lets us explicity specify

the output folder (in previous versions, overriding the output filename

would just mess things up, especially when rendering multiple passes at

the same time).



Cheers,

#3

Ryan,



I spent some time with XSI tech support this morning and got some info. I tried calling, but it looks like you guys are having a phone system issue.



As far as paths, I loaded my scene in the full XSI on my render machine and it rendered properly - both textures and output files went to the correct location. I then rendered the scene with XSIBatch with the same results.



So it appears now that Deadline is not handling XSI paths properly for anything (textures, objects, output, etc.). The XSI guys were not sure why Deadline was making a local copy of the scene on the render machine, when you could just provide a front-end for XSIBatch to render the scene over the network. Since it’s making a local copy, batch looks locally for textures, output directories, etc.





As far as XSIBatch randomly freezing, they are looking into it to determine the issue. I forwarded the threads you sent me.



Thanks,



Paul

#4

Thanks for the info. By default, we always copy the scene locally to the

slave before rendering so that the scene doesn’t have to be loaded over

the network (saves some bandwidth). It also allows one to create their

scene locally on their machine and submit it to the farm without having

to copy the file to the network before submission. However, it’s obvious

that this is causing some issues with XSI.



What you can do is in the submission dialog, uncheck the “Submit XSI

Scene File” box. This simply submits the path where the slaves can find

the scene file, and they load the scene directly instead of copying

locally first (of course, the scene has to be network accessible). This

should fix the problems you’re having. Give it a try and let us know if

the paths (for textures, objects, output, etc.) work properly.



Cheers,

#5

Thanks Ryan - that does the trick.



Though is there any reason why DL doesn’t pick up the frame range for the scene? If I submit a scene using DL Monitor, it renders the first frame only. I have to go in and manually configure the frame range to get it to work.



I’m supposed to talk to XSI support in a minute. I’ll let you know what they say about the pausing issue.



Paul

#6

When you submit from the Monitor, you have to manually specify the frame

range in the Frame List box. When submitting from within XSI, we can use

its scripting capabilities to pull this information directly from the scene.



Cheers,

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