Overview
This Deadline release introduces several new key features to help improve usability and performance, and extends upon some of the new features we added in 5.0. These features include Shotgun integration, native Python support, running multiple Slaves on one machine, and storing Deadline statistics in a database.
Note that a new 5.1 license is required to run this version, and that Deadline 5.1 now uses the new thinkbox license server (instead of the previous frantic server).
Highlighted Features
New License Server
Deadline now users the new thinkbox license server, instead of the previous frantic server. The process for setting up the new server and configuring Deadline to connect to it hasn't changed. However, you will need a new 5.1 license file. Please be sure to get your new license in place before upgrading to avoid any problems.
The thinkbox license server has auto-configuration built in. If a slave starts up and can't connect to the license server, it will send a broadcast to the network. If the thinkbox server is running, it will reply to the broadcast with the license server settings. Note that this is only support in IPv4 at the moment, but studios using IPv6 can still use Deadline's auto-configuration feature to set the license.
Shotgun integration
The Deadline/Shotgun integration enables a seamless render and review data flow. When Deadline starts a render, a version is automatically created in Shotgun with key metadata. When the render is complete, Deadline updates Shotgun with a thumbnail image, paths to frames, render stats, and playback links. Shotgun then dispatches targeted notifications with links back to the work. Studios can view versions in various contexts, create reports, and organize work into playlists for review sessions where they can quickly take notes with the Shotgun Note App.
Native Python Support
Deadline now comes bundled with a native installation of Python 2.6, and the new Python.NET integration allows Deadline to run native Python scripts and load CPython modules. Any existing IronPython script can be converted to a Python.NET script, allowing studios to integrate their custom Python libraries with ease.
Multiple Slaves on One Machine
Users can now launch and configure an arbitrary number of Slaves on a single machine. Each Slave instance can be given a unique name, and can be assigned its own list of pools and groups, which allows Slaves to work on separate jobs. Now a single high performance machine can process multiple 3D, compositing, and simulation jobs simultaneously.
Slave Stability Improvements
More system libraries are now used to gather data like CPU and memory usage, which greatly reduces the number of external processes the Slave starts up. We've also fixed the bug that could cause the Slave to run out of process handles, which prevented it from starting new processes (including the rendering process).
There was also a known issue on Linux and OSX where a Slave could grab all the tasks for a job and leave them in the rendering state with no Slave actually assigned to them. We had originally thought this was a permissions problem, but it turned out to be a file system issue. We have found a different way to move the task from the queued to the rendering state which should prevent this problem from occurring again.
Another known issue was when a network hiccup could cause the Slave to think its task had been requeued and it would move on. This would leave the task in a rendering state with no Slave actually working on it. Now, the Slave counts the number of task files it can actually "see" and compares then to the job's known task count. If the numbers are different, the Slave will assume there is a network problem because it is not seeing all the task files it should be. This should greatly reduce the chances of this problem occuring in the future.
Database Statistics
Users can now opt to store Deadline statistics in an existing Postgres database, allowing studios to write their own queries to gather the information they need. Any existing Deadline statistics currently stored in the repository can be easily imported into the database. In addition, if the database goes offline, Deadline will write the statistics to the repository so that they can be imported into the database when it is available again.
Draft
Draft is a tool that provides simple compositing functionality. It is implemented as a Python library, which exposes functionality for use in python scripts. Draft is designed to be tightly integrated with Deadline, but it can also be used as a standalone tool.
Using Deadline's Draft plugin, artists can automatically perform simple compositing operations on rendered frames after a render job finishes. They can also convert them to a different image format, or generate Quicktimes for dailies.
Active Deadline subscribers are entitled to Draft licenses at no additional cost. Note that Draft is currently still in beta, so active Deadline subscribers can request a Draft beta license by emailing sales@thinkboxsoftware.com.
Scene States Support for 3ds Max
If you have Subscription Advantage Pack 1 installed for 3ds Max 2012, you can now submit each state set to Deadline as a separate job.
Cross Platform Improvements for After Effects
If you choose to save your project as an aepx project file, Deadline will now perform path mappings on the contents of this file. This should allow you to perform cross-platform rendering with After Effects without having to place all your assets in the same folder as the project file.
Cross Platform Improvements for Cinema 4D
The integrated python submitter now writes the output paths to the job submission files. This allows you to view the output from the Monitor, and it also allows Path Mapping to work on the output path when rendering in a cross-platform environment.
There is also a new submission option in the integrated python submitter to export the scene prior to submission. This is great in cross-platform environments, since you no longer have to do the export manually before submitting to Deadline.
Renderman Export Job Type for Maya
In Maya, you can now submit a job that exports rib files from the Maya scene file. In addition, you can set up a dependnent PRMan job that will render the rib files after they are exported.
Batch Rendering Mode for Nuke
The new Batch Mode option keeps Nuke and the Nuke file loaded in memory between tasks to reduce overhead when rendering.
IDOC Rendering for RealFlow
In RealFlow, you can now split up IDOCs in the scene file into separate Deadline jobs that can render on different machines at the same time.
Supported Software Updates
Support has been added for After Effects CS5.5, Cinema 4D 13, Lightwave 11, Naiad, PRMan, RealFlow 2012, Vue 10, and xNormal.
General Improvements
- On OSX or Linux, if the libdgiplus library can't be loaded by Mono, the Slave, Launcher, and Pulse will print out a warning and then run without an interface ("nogui" mode).
- If an error occurs when setting the last write time for a job's task file (to calculate rendering time), the task will still get rendered. Previously, the task would enter the Rendering state, but then it would get skipped over.
- Deadline applications that broadcast WOL packets now do so from all network interfaces on the system (rather than letting .NET choose the "best" one).
- On Linux, Deadline now uses the proc folder to get CPU and Memory information, rather then launching separate processes to get this info.
- Logs for event plugins are now saved with the job that the event was handled for. Previously, only error reports were saved.
- You can now use an external database to store Deadline statistics. This can be configured from the Repository Options in the Monitor.
- Added option to prevent the slaves from manually scanning the repository if they can't connect to Pulse.
- Python executables are now bundled with Deadline's python installation
- The Repository Options have been separated into their own sections, which makes it much easier to find the settings you are looking for.
- Email SMTP settings in the Repository Option can now be tested from the UI.
- Remote Error Reporting has been simplified to simply use the email SMTP settings, rather than its own. Sending a "test" email to us is no longer necessary.
- Any internal dialog that supports tooltips now has an info icon in the bottom left corner. Hoverimg the mouse over this icon tells you that tooltips are available.
- There is now a per-job override for job/task failure detection.
- Unhandled application exceptions now print their stack trace to the application log.
- Performance when creating empty text files in the repository (for job tasks, limit stubs, etc) has been improved.
- Auto-upgrade now supports folders in the bin directory that are more than 1 level deep.
- The "Version" file upgrade system now works for the Python folders as well.
- Remote Error Reporting no longer sends bundled exception headers to us, which used to happen if a particular application has thrown a bunch of unhandled exceptions in short period of time. This could cause log files in the system temp folder to get out of hand, and usually the information in these headers was redundant, so it just made sense to remove them.
- In the User Security section of the Repository Options, you can now disable the ability for users to see jobs in the Monitor belonging to other users.
- On OSX, tool tips no longer appear behind the Deadline applications after clicking the mouse buttons.
- Added new events for when a job enters and leaves the Pending state. These events are "OnJobPended" and "OnJobReleased", respectively.
- WOL packet is now sent directly to the machine it wants to wake up because we already know the IP address. This is done in addition to the existing broadcasts it already does.
- In Auto Configuration, if you override the local Slave Data folder and leave the setting blank, the Slave will revert to using the default folder. Before, there wasn't a way to revert this change.
- Auto Configuration now has additional Hostname Regex and IP Regex options for filtering slaves.
- In Power Management, the Suspend option for the Idle Shutdown feature should work more reliably now.
- Added a Wake On Lan Settings panel to the Repository Options, which allows you to specify the port(s) that you want Deadline to send WOL packets over.
- Added a new Task Confirmation option in the Pulse Settings section of the Repository Options.
- Auto cleanup of Archived jobs now works properly.
- OSX Lion is now officially supported.
- Transitioning to using the Alternate Job Auxiliary File is now easier. Previously, existing jobs would "break" because their scene file couldn't be found, due to the fact that Deadline was looking for it in the alternate location now.
- Fixed some bugs with the Alternate Job Auxiliary File feature. Some job right-click options like Copy Data File Path didn't use the alternate location.
- Tile Assembler can now handle exrs with data windows that are smaller than the display window.
Installer Improvements
- Windows client installer now forces the installation of the VC++ redistributables (since they are needed for Draft).
- On OSX, the client installer's postflight script no longer needs to configure Deadline to use Mono's X11 drivers. Deadline will now use them by default.
- Windows repository installer now opens up the security options of the install folder so that everyone has read/write access.
- Linux client installer no longer fails because the "slaves" folder doesn't exist.
- The OSX Client installer no longer hangs when Mono 2.10.4 or later is installed.
- The OSX Repository installer no longer runs the Repository Setup Wizard after installing the Repository. Some changes made in Mono 2.10.3 and later required us to make this change. For reasons that we haven't yet figured out, we could not run the Setup Wizard as an X11 app from the installer, so we used Mono's Carbon driver instead. Mono 2.10.3 and later have removed that Carbon driver, so we can no longer run the Setup Wizard. However, all these settings can still be configured from the Monitor, and we note this in the Welcome screen of the OSX Repository installer.
- The Windows Client Installer now properly removes the Launcher autostart registry entry when the Launch Launcher At Startup option is disabled (or it is being installed as a service).
- All three client installers now write the Launch Slave At Startup setting to the system deadline.ini file AND the current user's deadline.ini file.
- The OSX Client installer no longer crashes with a NullReferenceException.
Launcher Improvements
- Added menu to add and remove Slave instances on the machine.
- The "Launch Slave At Startup" menu text now changes if there is more than one slave configured on the machine.
- The Launcher now prints info to its log whenever it starts up one of the Deadline applications.
- Symbolic links in the local Deadline bin folder no longer cause the auto-upgrade feature to fail.
- On Windows, when the machine becomes suspended, the Launcher closes its listening socket, and reopens it when the machine is resumed.
- On Windows, when a suspended machine is resumed, the Launcher will try to launch the Slave if Launch Slave At Startup is enabled.
Monitor Improvements
- Limits with a limit of 0 will no longer be highlighted in red, which is used to indicate that the Limit is maxed out.
- Marking a task as complete, failed, or requeuing it while Deadline is quickly changing its state behind the scenes should be more reliable. Deadline will try to determine the task's current state and switch it to the requested state instead of just popping up an error saying "the task has changed states".
- Added the option to enable/disable Slave pinging to the Slave toolbar. Also added a right-click option to ping the selected slaves.
- When adding a new column by making it visible, the horizontal scroll bar is now adjusted so that scroll to the right to see the new column. Previously, you had to play with the scroll bar a bit before you could scroll to the new column.
- Option to Ping slaves can now be configured in the User Permissions, and is disabled by default for Normal users.
- The Repository Options have been separated into their own sections.
- Startup time in Satellite Mode has been improved. Some redundant repository checks have been removed, and Monitor scripts are no longer loaded. They can be manually loaded from the Tools menu after the Monitor has started up.
- On OSX, the status bar is now updated with a menu item's description when you hover the mouse over it.
- Refreshing individual slaves when the Slave Availability Filter is enabled no longer causes them to disappear from the list.
- The Ping Slave toggle button is now disabled when the feature is disabled.
- Fixed some bugs with the Stats viewer.
- Added a Remote Control option to start all Slave instances on a particular machine from the Slave list.
- Added a Remote Control option to remove Slave instances from the Slave list.
- Slave affinity can now be set by selecting specific CPUs.
- Total GHz in the Slave list now takes into account multiple Slaves on the same machine.
- Put a group box around the Current Theme section in the theme editor.
- The date selector in Modify Job Scheduling is now sized properly.
- You can now change the Frame List for multiple jobs without changing the Tasks Per Frame, and vice versa.
- You can now drag and drop from the Job and Task lists into a spreadsheet. The other lists already worked as expected.
- The help buttons in the Integrated Submisison Script setup now properly link to the appropriate online documentation.
- After Effects CS5.5, Cinema 4D 13, and RealFlow 2012 options have been added to the Integrated Submisison Script setup.
- Renamed Elapsed Time to Clock Time in the job list and the Statistics tab in the task panel. Also added tooltips to the Statistics list to explain what the stats mean.
- The option to scan for missing output can now be done on multiple jobs at once.
- Commands that are executed remotely now process stdout as they run. This prevents applications like robocopy from deadlocking.
- Switching layouts is now a bit faster, and the columns no longer "jump around".
- Malformed job XML files will no longer cause the Monitor to crash.
- In the Slave Settings, you can now prevent Slaves from picking up jobs in the 'none' pool or group.
- Statistics can now be saved to a TSV (tile separated value) file.
- Added a Repository Option to disable the gathering of system resources (CPU and memory usage) when rendering on Linux and Mac.
- The Find Task In Task List feature in the Slave list now works on OSX and Linux.
Slave Improvements
- The Slave UI log no longer jumps all over the place while scrolling with the mouse wheel.
- When getting the machine's IP address, the Slave will now use the first non-loopback address it finds.
- The Slave now sets its status message in the Monitor appropriately if it was suspended instead of shut down.
- It is now possible to run multiple slaves on the same machine.
- Stalled Slave Delay minimum has been increased from 1 minute to 5 minutes (anything lower could result in false positives).
- When multiple Slaves are running, and one is told to shutdown or restart the machine after it finishes its current task, the other Slaves will finish up their current tasks first. The same happens if a Slave is told to restart and an upgrade is required.
- On OSX, more system libraries are used to gather data like CPU and memory usage. This greatly reduces the number of external processes the Slave starts up.
- On OSX and Linux, the Slave now properly kills external processes that are used to gather system data if they take longer than expected to exit. Previously, the Slave would just move on, and under heavy load, it was possible that the Slave could accumulate hundreds of process handles. This problem should now be fixed going forward.
- On OSX and Linux, it should no longer be possible for the Slave to grab every task of a job and leave them in a rendering state with no Slave assigned.
- The slave now queries the system CPU/memory usage every 5 seconds, instead of 10 times a second, which is complete overkill.
- Improved how a Slave determines if a task has been requeued. It now uses the known task count of the job to determine if it can "see" all the tasks for a job. If it can't, it assumes there is a network issue, and that its current task hasn't actually been requeued.
- Two or more Slaves with the same name can no longer start up on the same machine because they were launched at roughly the same time. This bug was affecting things like Power Management, because the system would send multiple start up commands that would each start up their own copy of the same Slave.
- Fixed an ArgumentOutOfRangeException error that could occur when the Slave was purging its bad job cache.
- Fixed a NullReferenceException that could occur when cancelling a task.
- CPU usage is now reported properly on Linux.
- You can now add MultipleSlavesEnabled=False to the system deadline.ini file to disable the ability to run multiple slaves on a single machine.
- ASCII control codes are now stripped from the render log to prevent reports from becoming corrupt.
- The Slave now does a better job of reporting the type of Windows operating system.
- All process handles are now explicitly disposed of, instead of allowing the Framework to automatically clean them up.
- On OSX, the slave will no longer complain that it can't get child process information due to a Format Exception.
- Fixed the "Scope 'ScriptPluginScope0' does not exist" error that could occur when executing a pre/post job script.
- The Slave no longer sets the process priority of the rendering process on OSX and Linux. This was a main source of the process leak problem.
- CPU speed is now collected properly on OSX. Previously, we were using an integer value, and this prevent us from properly collecting speeds over 2.3 GHz.
- We now use system libraries on OSX to manage the process tree of the rendering process. Previously, we were using 'ps' commands.
- Interruptible jobs no longer compete with each other when there are only a few tasks remaining for each job.
- Setting affinity on Linux machines with more than 64 CPUs now works.
- Setting affinity on Windows machines with more than 64 CPUs now works better. Previously, this didn't work at all. Now, Deadline can control the affinity on the first 64 CPUs. Any remaining CPUs will just remain on, as Deadline cannot currently control their affinity.
Pulse Improvements
- Fixed a NullReferenceException that occurs when Pulse is loading the networkSettings.xml for the first time.
- Fixed a bug in the web service thread that could result in it crashing if a bad command is received.
- The process of purging Limits no longer crashes if a particular Limit cannot be loaded.
- Jobs that were set to archive on complete can now get cleaned up by the Automatic Job Cleanup feature. Previously, these were mistakenly ignored when cleaning up old archived jobs.
- The NetworkRoot setting in the job info file is now ignored for Drop jobs. This ensures that Drop jobs are always submitted to the same Repository that they reside in.
- Fixed a possible error that could occur in Machine Startup if the Startup Command option is selected, but the commang itself is empty.
Command Improvements
- SetSlaveSetting and SetJobSetting commands now work with more settings.
- Fixed a FormatException error that would occur during job submission if the localization settings were configured so that decimal values used a comma instead of a period.
- The "SubmitDropJob" command now works. Previously, it would report that it couldn't find a submisson file called "SubmitDropJob".
- Submission results will no longer display an error message if Deadline Command couldn't connect to Pulse. This could give the impression that the actual submission failed when it didn't.
- Added RemoveRegistryKeyValue command to remove a registry key value.
- Using the -dependent flag with the SubmitMultipleJobs command will now append to any existing job dependency list instead of overwriting it.
- Added a "-startupdirectory" option for the SubmitCommandLineJob command.
- When a job is submitted, multiple attempts are now made to move the job folder from the Repository's temp folder to the jobs folder if an IO error occurs.
Repository Setup Wizard Improvements
- There is now an option to do a Basic or Advanced setup. Basic just sets up the network share (Windows only) and the Client settings (auto-upgrade and remote administration). Advanced lets you walkthrough all the settings.
- The Repository Options have been separated into their own sections.
- The network share permissions are now automatically configured so that everyone has read/write access (Windows only).
Screen Saver Improvements
- The OSX screen saver should now only start up one Slave instance on multi-screen displays.
- Added screen saver option to stop the Deadline Slave when the screen saver exits. This is now the default behavior.
Scripting Improvements
- Pre/Post task scripts can now use the global GetCurrentTaskId() function to get the ID of the task that is currently being rendered.
- All of the global Deadline functions now have equivalent Utils.* functions, or member functions for a particular class.
- Fixed the typos in the job scripts that would prevent them from working on Linux.
- The modal option for showing the ScriptDialog now works again.
- Upgraded IronPython to 2.6.2.
- IronPython now adds the bundled python lib folder to its search path.
- Non-modal ScriptDialogs no longer disappear immediately when running scripts from the command line.
- The RepositoryUtils GetJobs and GetArchivedJobs functions no longer return empty lists when used from Deadline Command.
- Added a job property to get auxiliary submission file names. It's called "JobAuxiliarySubmissionFileNames".
- Added SystemUtils.GetCpuCount() to get the machine's CPU count.
- Added IsDriveMapped and GetMappedDriveNetworkPath functions to PathUtils.
Event Plugin Improvements
Shotgun Improvements
- Shotgun integration is now supported out of the box, and has been built into most of Deadline's submission scripts.
- Shotgun Versions can now be created automatically when a job is submitted to Deadline.
Draft Improvements
- Draft can be used to create movies from rendered images after the main job finishes.
- Python template can be created to control the format of the rendered movie.
Plugin Improvements
3ds Max Improvements
- One Tile Assembler job gets submitted when tile rendering Render Elements. It will assemble the main image and the Render Element images.
- The FumeFX retime popup is now properly ignored.
- The minimum value for vray_system_raycaster_memLimit in 3dsmax.options is now correct.
- Added popup handler for VRay's "Render history note" popup.
- When rendering with a custom plugin.ini file, the user profile plugin.ini file is no longer loaded.
- Added a sanity check to SMTD to detect if the user is doing vray pre-calc processing, and adjusts the SMTD settings accordingly.
- Added a sanity check to SMTD to warn if workstation mode isn't enabled when submitted a VRay distributed rendering job.
- Added the ExtraInfo properties to the SMTDSettings structure in SMTD.
- Added option to SMTD to disable the forcing of Restart Renderer for vray, mentalray, etc.
- Updated the mental ray properties that can be modified from the Monitor after the job has been submitted.
- Added concurrent task option to SMTD.
- The customize.ms script is now executed immediatley after the scene file is loaded. Previously, Deadline was passing other settings in between like region rendering, which could cause issues becuase the actual frame resolution is set by customize.ms.
- Confirmed that 3dsmax 2012 rendering works with Backburner 2012.1 installed.
- VRay VFB settings can now be modified from the Monitor after the job has been submitted.
- iRay settings can now be modified from the Monitor after the job has been submitted.
- Added a popup handler for the Pencil plugin's progress window.
- Added support for the new Scene States feature.
- Added 3dsmax-specific option to choose where the scene file is stored during rendering.
- Added tooltips to SMTD, and rearranged the layout a bit.
- Fixed a crash in SMTD that occurred when pressing the Slave Info button.
- The tile gizmo now updates properly when typing in the X and Y tile values.
- The Sanity Checker in SMTD is now resizable.
- Fixed Sanity Checker dialog position and size store/restore between sessions.
- Added right-click to the 3 Edit Log buttons in SMTD to open Explorer with the log folder.
- In SMTD, the tile assembly job no longer tries to assemble the Render Elements when rendering with the VRay frame buffer.
- In SMTD, the tile assembly job no longer has a machine limit.
After Effects Improvements
- Refactored integrated submitter to improve the layout and added tooltips.
- Added submission option to ignore missing effect reference errors.
- Added option to load or merge the alternate path config file (MXP).
- Added a sanity check to fail the submission if Maxwell is the renderer and the Single Frame option is chosen in the 3dsmax render settings. In Single Frame mode, Maxwell will detach itself from the main 3dsmax thread and return success immediately, so Deadline moves on and closes 3dsmax when the render is just getting started.
- Added sanity check to warn the user if both the Vray VFB and Deadline's Tile Rendering features are enabled (currently the Vray VFB needs to be disabled for tile rendering to work).
- Added a popup to catch a DBX error.
- String settings (ie: camera name, output paths, etc) are now wrapped in quotes when printed to the log.
- Added support for After Effects CS5.5 (now both CS5 and CS5.5 can render on the same farm).
- Settings like Priority, Machine Limit, etc are now properly converted to integers before the job is submitted.
- Increased the width of the integrated submission window so that all the text would be displayed properly on OSX.
- If you save the AE project as an aepx file, Deadline can now perform path mapping on the contents of that file (because it's just XML).
- ASCII control codes are now stripped from the render log, so AE render logs should no longer get corrupted.
- Added a new Wacom Tablet popup handler
- Submission script now deals with some stderr output from deadlinecommand better.
- You can now select aepx files from the Monitor submission script.
Blender Improvements
- The scene submission in the Monitor submission script is now sticky.
Cinema 4D Improvements
- Added support for Cinema 4D 13.
- The pool and group no longer get switched when submitting a job using the integrated submission script.
- The integratd python submitter now writes the output paths to the job submission files. This allows you to view the output from the Monitor, and it also allows Path Mapping to work on the output path when rendering in a cross-platform environment.
- The integrated python submitter now writes the resolution values to the job submission files.
- Added an option to the integrated submitter to export the scene prior to submission. This is great in multiplatform environments, since you no longer have to do the export manually before submitting to Deadline.
- Added a Local Rendering option, which will tell C4D to render the frames to the local machine. The frames will be copied to their final destination after rendering is finished.
- Deadline catches the new "Error rendering project" error that C4D 13 prints out when it fails to render.
- The default frame range in the integrated submitter is now pulled from the frame range setting in the Cinema 4D Render Settings instead of always defaulting to the global scene range.
DJV Improvements
- DJV support should now work properly on Linux.
Fusion Improvements
- The IUP version of the integrated submitter no longer submits to the FusionCmd plugin when Command Line Mode is disabled (there was a bad boolean check).
- The console window is no longer hidden during rendering, which allows Deadline to capture Fusion's stdout when ConsoleSlave.exe is being used.
Houdini Improvements
- Integrated submitter no longer fails on Linux.
Job Transfer Improvements
- A transfer notification email is no longer sent if there are no email addresses to send it to.
Lightwave Improvements
- Integrated submitter no longer crashes for Lightwave 10 on OSX.
- The integrated submitter will now warn the user if their output paths don't have an extension specified.
Maxwell Improvements
- The interactive license option is now based on the actual Slave name, not the slave machine's hostname. This allows this feature to work if the Slave name and Machine name are not identical.
- Resuming from an existing MXI file now works better (we use the new -trytoresume command line argument).
- When rendering a cooperative job, the merge job is now a separate job. This allows us to support resuming cooperative jobs.
- When submitting a single frame job, the output flie name passed to Deadline is no longer padded.
- The single frame option in the submitter is now sticky.
- When selecting an input mxs file, the submitter will try to detect if it is part of a sequence or a standalone file, and set the single frame and frame list settings appropriately.
- Path separator in paths is now set based on the operating system the job is running on.
- Error when MSX file can't be opened is no longer ignored.
Maya Improvements
- The interactive license option for Maxwell renders is now based on the actual Slave name, not the slave machine's hostname. This allows this feature to work if the Slave name and Machine name are not identical.
- When submitting each layer as a separate job, the frame list in the submitter is disabled unless you are overriding the layer setings.
- When overriding the layer settings while submitting each layer as a separate job, the default frame range for the override is now pulled from the submitter, instead of from each layer's individual frame range.
- Refactored the layout of the integrated submitter so that the different job types (maya render, mental ray export, vray export, renderman export) are no longer submitted by selecting their respective tabs. Instead, there is now a job type drop down, and the rollouts beneath it are updated based on the job type.
- Resuming Maxwell jobs from existing MXI files is now supported.
- The Use MayaBatch option is now enabled by default in the submitter.
- Added a new Renderman export job type for Maya.
- When submitting a non-animation job, the integrated submitter will now set the frame range to be the current time.
modo Improvements
- The scene file is now loaded after modo finishes loading. This should help catch scene load errors that would normally be thrown away by modo when passing the scene file as one of the command line arguments.
- The modo plugin no longer issues separate commands for each frame being renderered in a chunked task. Instead, we issue one command that tells modo to render a particular range. This allows Deadline to support modo features like Walkthrough mode.
- Because we no longer issue separate commands for each frame, the render progress is now based on modo's stdout.
- Assembling tiles from certain image formats should now work properly. Previously, only the last tile would show up in the final image.
Naiad Improvements
- Added Naiad support to Deadline.
Nuke Improvements
- Added an option to render in Batch Mode, which will keep Nuke and the Nuke file loaded in memory between tasks to reduce overhead when rendering.
- Added progress information when submitting a job using the integrated submission script.
- The option to submit each write node as a separate job now supports write nodes that are embedded in group.
- If an error occurs while prepping the OFX cache, it will no longer prevent the job from rendering.
- The interactive license option is now based on the actual Slave name, not the slave machine's hostname. This allows this feature to work if the Slave name and Machine name are not identical.
- Added submission option to use Nuke's "Continue On Error" option.
- When submitting each write node as a separate job, there is now an option to override each write node's individual frame list.
- Default Frames Per Task is now 10.
- Integrated submitter is now a bit taller to remove the vertical scrollbar.
- Integrated submitter now checks output paths for write nodes to make sure they have extensions.
- Minor versions of Nuke 6 are now supported.
- If a job is submitted from a minor version of Nuke that we don't support yet, the Nuke plugin will default to the *.0 version. For example, if job is submitted from Nuke 6.5, which our plugin doesn't support at this time, it will use the 6.0 render executable and print out an appropriate warning.
- The priority setting is now sticky in the Monitor submitter.
- The OFX cache prepping can now be disabled in the Plugin Configuration.
- On OSX and Linux, the process used by the OFX cache prepping is now cleaned up properly.
- You can now select the Global, Input, or a Custom frame range in the integrated submitter.
PRMan Improvements
- There is now a separate PRMan plugin and Monitor submitter for Deadline. The PRMan plugin is used by our new Renderman export job type for Maya.
- This plugin works with the frame folder structure where multiple rib files are stored in separate folders for each frame.
Quicktime Improvements
- Quicktime jobs now throw a meaningful error when a QT settings file isn't submitted with the job.
- Quicktime submitter now uses absolute path to deadlinequicktimegenerator when creating the QT settings.
RealFlow Improvements
- Added support for RealFlow 2012.
- You can now split up IDocs in the scene file into separate Deadline jobs that can render on different machines at the same time.
REDLine Improvements
- The REDAlert plugin is now referred to as the REDLine plugin.
- The REDLine plugin uses the redline command line tool to render files created by Redcine-X (and previously REDAlert).
- redline is now available on Windows, so we've updated the plugin to include a default Windows path.
- Added option to force 32 or 64 bit version.
- Updated some of the submission drop down options, since a few were out of date.
Rhino Improvements
- The VRay License Server popup is now handled appropriately.
- The plugin now checks to see if the scene file exists before starting up Rhino. This is because Rhino will just render an empty scene without error if it can't find the scene file.
RVIO Improvements
- Added a Job Script to setup an RVIO job from the output of an existing job.
Softimage Improvements
- Canceling the selection of limits or dependencies no longer results in the cancelation message being shown in the text field.
- Submitter now uses progress bars when loading the script and during job submission.
- Implemented workaround to ensure Softimage doesn't try to process our submitter logic code as VBScript instead of Python.
- When submitting each pass as a separate job, there is an option to use the submitter's frame range instead of each passes' individual frame ranges.
- Version 2012 has been added to the Monitor submission script.
Vue Improvements
- Added support for Vue 10.
xNormal Improvements
- Added support for xNormal.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 8:16AM