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Deadline FAQ

1 Deadline FAQ

General

What 3rd party software does Deadline support?

Deadline efficiently manages network rendering from a variety of sources - see the complete listing of Supported Products for more information.

Can we create our own plug-ins for Deadline?

Yes, and the Deadline team encourages you to do so. You can create your own plug-ins using the Plug-in Scripting Guide.

What are the requirements for Deadline?

The requirements are explained in detail here.

How much does Deadline cost?

If you are running two slaves or less, Deadline is FREE! If you are running more than two slaves, the license fee per node and the annuity for maintenance and support are listed on the Pricing section of the website.

Is annual renewal of Deadline Maintenance & Support required?

The Deadline Sales team encourages the purchase of a Maintenance & Support contract but it is not required for the continued use of Deadline.

What is LICENSE-FREE MODE?

LICENSE-FREE MODE allows you to run up to two Deadline Slaves without requiring a license, and is intended for anyone that has one or two extra machines that they would like to utilize for rendering. Note that if you're using LICENSE-FREE MODE, and you decide to purchase licenses for more machines, you must purchase a license for all the machines, including the machines you were originally using in LICENSE-FREE MODE.

Does the FLEXlm license server need to run on the same machine that the Deadline Repository is installed on?

No. The FLEXlm license server can run on any machine in your network.

On Windows, which version of the .NET Framework Run-Time does Deadline require?

See the System Requirements Documentation for this information.

On Linux and Mac OSX, which version of Mono does Deadline require?

See the System Requirements Documentation for this information.

I have Mono installed on Mac OSX, but the Deadline applications don't run.

Check if you have X11 installed. If you don't have X11 installed, you should be able to grab it from your Mac install CD.

On Mac OSX, the Deadline applications are no longer connecting to the Repository, and are instead complaining that the 'bin' folder cannot be found.

If the repository volume isn't unmounted properly, it will stay listed in your /Volumes folder. Then the next time you mount the repository, it will append a '-1' to the volume name. For example, instead of being mounted to /Volumes/DeadlineRepository, it will be mounted to /Volumes/DeadlineRepository-1. When this problem occurs, you need to unmount the volume, get rid of the folder it created in /Volumes and then remount it. Volumes can be found in Finder by selecting Go -> Go To Folder (shift, apple, g) and typing in /Volumes. You can do this in terminal as well.

Can Deadline split up a sequence of images across multiple machines?

Yes.

Can Deadline split up a single image across multiple machines? In other words, can Deadline do distributed rendering?

While Deadline doesn't directly support distributed rendering of a single image, it supports a feature called Tile Rendering, which splits up the image into regions and sends them off to multiple machines. Tile Rendering is only supported by the 3dsmax, Maya, and XSI plugins, and automated image re-assembly is only supported for certain formats. Other formats will have to be re-assembled manually using an application like Photoshop.

What is the Deadline Repository?

The Deadline Repository is a collection of files and folders that stores all the Deadline information, including jobs and slave settings. It is NOT a program.

How many machines do I install the Deadline Repository on?

Just one, preferably a server.

Is it possible to install the repository share on a NAS drive?

Yes. See the Deadline Repository Installation section of the manual for more details on how to do this.

Do I have to install the Deadline Client on the Repository machine?

This is only necessary if you plan to run Pulse on the Repository machine, or if you wish for the Repository machine to participate in rendering or job submission.

Are there any known issues with running the Deadline Client applications on the Repository machine?

Permission problems can occur on Linux and Mac OSX if the Client applications are connecting to the repository via a local path. To avoid these problems, you should mount the network path on the Repository machine and have the Client applications use that instead.

Do I have to uninstall the Deadline Client or Repository to upgrade the software?

This depends on if you're installing a major or minor upgrade. See the Upgrading documentation for more information.

When installing or upgrading the Deadline Repository, do I have to run the installer on the Repository machine itself?

While it's recommended that you run the installer from the Repository machine, it is possible to run the installer from a remote machine providing that the destination path is network accessible.

Where is the Deadline Repository upgrade installer? All I see is the normal installer.

The normal installer is also used to upgrade the software. Just run the installer as normal.

After changing screen resolution, or moving from a dual monitor to single monitor display, the Deadline applications appear offscreen.

In the local Deadline settings folder, open up the corresponding options xml file (monitorOptions.xml, slaveOptions.xml, etc) in a text editor and change the MainWindowLocation setting to (0,0), like so:

   <MainWindowLocation>
       <X>0</X>
       <Y>0</Y>
   </MainWindowLocation>

The Deadline seettings folder can be found in the following locations:

Windows: In the local user profile folder (ie: C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Prime Focus\Deadline\settings).
Linux: In the local user home folder (ie: ~/Deadline/settings).
Mac OSX: In the local user home folder (ie: /Users/[user]/Deadline/settings)

All of the Deadline applications crash, giving me a generic error message and the option to debug. What can I do to fix this?

This problem is often caused by a corrupt .NET Framework Run-Time installation. Reinstalling .NET will fix the problem in most cases.

In rare cases, this problem could be due to a missing Tahoma font (regular, not bold). Simply installing this font should fix the problem. Note that this problem doesn't seem to occur if both Tahoma regular and bold are missing, just when Tahoma regular is missing.

Which Remoting Software is Supported By Deadline?

There are many applications which allows you to remotely control another computer. See the Remote Access documentation for more information.