AWS Thinkbox Discussion Forums

Deadline / 3dsmax 9 / Vista

Deadline
#1

Hi.



We are currently looking for a render farm solution for 3dsmax 9. (Possible upgrade to 3dsmax 2008 over the summer)



Jobs would be submitted from our Vista 64 machines, running 3dsmax 9 64-bit, but would be executed on our dedicated render nodes, consisting of High-Spec rackmount servers, currently using Windows XP 64. These are twin-cpu, Quad-core (supermicro) machines with 16GB of RAM each. These also have 3dsmax 9 64-bit installed. Render space is provided by a dedicated server, with a 2TB drive.



All machines operate under Microsoft Windows Active Directory. Each user has their own login, and it is important that each user does NOT have the ability to access other user’s jobs. This is not a workgroup scenario. Users are NOT able to log into workstations as Administrator.



Bearing all THAT in mind, does Deadline fit the bill?








#2

Hi Paul,


  1. We are currently looking for a render farm solution for 3dsmax 9.

    (Possible upgrade to 3dsmax 2008 over the summer)



    Deadline 2.7 supports 3dsmax 9, and a patch which is available on the

    forum adds support for 2008. Deadline 3.0, which is currently in beta

    (and should be released in a couple of months), will support 3dsmax 2009

    as well.




  2. Jobs would be submitted from our Vista 64 machines, running 3dsmax 9

    64-bit, but would be executed on our dedicated render nodes, consisting

    of High-Spec rackmount servers, currently using Windows XP 64. These are

    twin-cpu, Quad-core (supermicro) machines with 16GB of RAM each. These

    also have 3dsmax 9 64-bit installed. Render space is provided by a

    dedicated server, with a 2TB drive.



    The only known issues with running Deadline on Vista is that the user

    must be logged in as Administrator to run the Slave application.

    However, there are not any known issues with submitting jobs or

    monitoring them from a Vista machine, so this setup should work fine.

    Deadline 3.0 will be fully Vista compatible.




  3. All machines operate under Microsoft Windows Active Directory. Each

    user has their own login, and it is important that each user does NOT

    have the ability to access other user’s jobs. This is not a workgroup

    scenario. Users are NOT able to log into workstations as Administrator.



    Normal Deadline users cannot modify other user’s jobs, and there is a

    optionally password protected Super User mode that allows admins to

    control any job they wish. In addition, any changes made to a job are

    logged in its history.





    Deadline should definitely be able to meet your requirements. If you

    would like to give Deadline a test run, you can download it and run it

    on up to 2 machines without a license. You can also request a 30 day

    trial license to test Deadline out on your entire render farm to make

    sure it will work for you:

    http://www.franticfilms.com/software/products/deadline/download/



    If you have any additional questions or concerns, let us know!



    Cheers,
#3

Would I be correct in thinking that we will need a Deadline License for each of the client (submitting) machines as well as each of the slave (execution) machines?

 

 

#4

Would I be correct in thinking

that we will need a Deadline

License for each of the client

(submitting) machines as well

as each of the slave

(execution) machines?







No, this is not correct. Only the slave machines require licenses. Submitting and Monitoring jobs can be performed from any machine on the network without a license.

You only need licenses for your workstations if you want them to participate in rendering as slaves, for example overnight when nobody is working on them…



Regards,



Borislav “Bobo” Petrov

Technical Director

Frantic Films VFX

#5

First up, please accept my apologies if this is a stupid question…



I now have the repository installed on a server, and the slave software installed on one of the “worker” machines. It’s running as a network user, with rights to the repository, and the shared area.



Now, what do I need to install, and where, to get 3ds max 9 working with Deadline? Please note that the “client” machines are separate from the “worker” machines…



(I think my confusion here is that Deadline works in a different way to the render farm solution I am familiar with (Qube!))


#6

Hi Paul,



The Deadline client software and 3dsmax 9 needs to be installed on every

machine that you will be rendering on. The Deadline client software

should also be installed on any machine you plan to submit or monitor

jobs from. This check list contains some things you should consider

prior to setting everything up, but it sounds like you already have most

of it covered:

http://www.franticfilms.com/software/support/deadline/networksetup.php



Once the client and 3dsmax software are installed, you will need to

configure Deadline so that the render nodes can find 3dsmax 9 when it

goes to render (specify the render executable path, as it appears

locally to your render nodes):

http://www.franticfilms.com/software/support/deadline/3dsmaxconfiguration.php



Then, you should configure your workstations so that you can submit jobs

directly from 3dsmax:

http://www.franticfilms.com/software/support/deadline/3dsmaxscriptsetup.php



Hopefully this is all the information you will need. If you need

clarification on anything or run into any problems, let us know!



Cheers,

#7

Right. I am now able to render 3dsmax jobs, sending from a Vista machine, but executing on an xp64 machine. (using the plugin)

Some problems, though:

  1. What’s the proper way to stop the slave auto-running on my client machine (Which is not used for rendering by the farm)?
  2. The “worker” machine has 8 cpus and A LOT of RAM. The slave software sees the 8 cpus, but still only executes one task at a time.
    I have fiddled with the “override concurrent jobs” setting (now set to 8). How do I get Deadline to use all 8 cores?
  3. I have to use the 3dsmax plugin, rather than the 3dsmaxcmd plugin, as the cmd one takes HOURS to process simple jobs. (example, 6 hours+ for 100 simple frames) This means that max is using one of the licenses from our Pool. Not ideal, I’d rather that the cmd version worked…
#8

Glad you’re able to render max jobs now! For your problems:

  1. Right click on the Deadline Launcher (the purple icon in the system tray). There should be a check next to the option to start the slave on startup. Uncheck this option to prevent the slave from auto-running on your machine.

  2. This SHOULD work. Check the job - does it have more than 1 task, or are all the frames included in a single task? I’ll be out of office next week, but when I get back in, I’ll double check this to make sure it is working properly.

  3. With the 3dsmaxcmd plugin, Deadline is just using 3dsmaxcmd.exe to do the rendering, which requires max to start up and for the scene to be loaded for every single task. The 3dsmax plugin starts max and loads the scene for the first task only. To reduce this overhead, we recommend increasing the number of frames per task if you know ahead of time that the frames won’t take long to render. In your case, you might want to set 5 or 10 frames per task, and I’m sure you’ll notice an improvement. Hopefully this can get you buy until we figure out why concurrent tasks aren’t working with the 3dsmax jobs.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
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