MAXscript issue: suspending a split scanline network render

[Thion]

I'm working on a script that automatically sends a scene to our backburner server, including 3 networkjobs (photon map, FG map and the actual render - all in mentalRay) with split scanline rendering. I'm using the commandline rendering technique, and that can pretty much set everything I need, except dependencies. I've tried working around the issue by attaching a postrenderscript in the FGmap-file that should unsuspend the initially suspended final render file.

 

That postrenderscript is triggered, and it executes all the code, except the one line: mJob.Resume()

The script executes the line, but when I look at the queue monitor, the job is still suspended.

 

Is there a problem with unsuspending jobs through the netrender interface in max2011? Or alternatively, has anyone else encountered a similar problem and found another workaround?

 

Thanks in advance,

Davy.

[Dave Buchhofer]

thats actually a major problem, theres a couple threads on that in the cgtalk maxscript forum, search for BBSetDependency.py by Keith Morrison / KramSurfer

 

Its not very straightforward, but its possible.. its also possible to convert the python script (after you edit it) to an exe that you can call from the commandline.

[Thion]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't done any programming in python before, so I have no idea what's possible. I think the company would prefer sticking with MAXscript though. I'll take a look at the python script nonetheless and see if I can come up with a solution. If someone knows of a MAXscript solution, I'd be happy to hear about it

[Dave Buchhofer]

I'm sure it could be translated somewhat, its just a bit of an odd process.. requires archiving the job, editing the xml, and un-archiving it on the server i believe.

 

I haven't really looked into it much, I've been using LPM to do something similar for a while now.