Table of Contents

This page provides information on how to submit render jobs with V-Ray and Deadline.

Overview

Rendering with Deadline render manager offers flexibility and a wide range of management options for Windows, Linux and macOS-based render farms. It can compute clusters of all sizes and allows users to easily access any combination of on-premise or cloud-based resources for their rendering/processing needs.

V-Ray Deadline node uses numeric job priorities, machine groups and pools, and job-specific machine lists to control the distribution of rendering resources among multiple departments.


How does the Deadline work

The Deadline Render Management system has 3 main components, a render database, a repository where the scene and output resides and the clients which receive the jobs and force its node to render. The first two components the database and repository work as a single system where the control and data are stored. The client connects to that system to receive jobs and render. All of those components can be installed on separate machines.

  • Database: stores jobs information, settings and worker configurations. It's recommended to be installed on the server.
  • Repository: stores the scene files, scene assets, plugins and logs. It could be installed on the server or on a separate machine.
  • Client:  submit, render and monitor jobs. It should be installed on the server and each of the render nodes participating. Its main components which we are using in this article are: Deadline Launcher, Deadline Monitor and Deadline Worker
    • Launcher: Launches the job from the workstation and facilitates remote communication on render nodes.
    • Monitor: is a UI application that monitors the render jobs
    • Worker: controls the render nodes and communicate with the Database and repository
Keep in mind that there are other Deadline Client components (that provide even more control and amenities) which we will not mention in this article. For more information use this link.


Job - jobs can be either sequence of frames (animation) or a single frame.

How to submit V-Ray scene to Deadline

1.Make sure you have installed the latest Deadline software on your workstation, server and render nodes. It's essential to keep the same version on all machines participating in the process. 

Database and Repository quick installation guide here. Application Configuration here.

2. Launch Deadline Monitor on your workstation and Deadline Worker on the render nodes:

    • Through the Monitor window, one can view information about the render jobs and available servers, submit jobs and generally control the whole process.
    • the Worker node will provide information of its name, assigned job and process status

3. We would recommend using the SuperUser mode

4. Submit the job through Submit > 3D > 3DSMAX (or any platform that your V-Ray scene was created with). This will force a Submit information window to pop-up.

Submitting jobs are usually handed via submission script, which is written for a particular render application.  But in this case, we will review how to submit jobs through Deadline Monitor.

 

4. Filling the submission options. The main options that you need to focus on are:

  • Job Name - Set a job Name which will be 
  • Machine List -  Add machines that will participate in the rendering process by pressing the ... button and mote the desired worker machines in the Selected list.
  • 3dsmax File - Set the path to the scene file
  • Frame List - set the frames which you want to be rendered. For example, 2-11 will render 10 frames of the animation starting from frame 2 and ends with frame 11. Or you can set specific non-consecutive frames separating them with comma ",". In example 1,3,5
  • Version - set the Version of the platform used. For example, if 3ds Max 2022 is used set it to 2022