Hi there,
So, we're looking at running Arnold on our Linux clusters, but we seem to have hit a snag.
So far:
- Linux boxes can see our license server and render without watermarks... yay
- Arnold renders using our batch file scripts... yay
UNFORTUNATELY:
- Kick.ass complains about missing 3ds Max plugins. These are:
"Max_UVGenerator" and "Max_Sky". So far, but imagine if we use other features in 3dsMax, we will get other errors.
How do we get the 3dsMax plugins required to render Max generated .ass files on Linux??
Do I need to open a support request to get these?
Has anyone successfully rendered a 3ds Max generated .ass file on a Linux box?
Any help from anyone would be really useful!
Thanks,
T
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by Stephen.Blair. Go to Solution.
The maxtoa shaders haven't been compiled for Linux.
Thanks for your answer!
Is it something that can be requested formally?
We have a support contract with Autodesk, but I'm amazed no one else has asked for this 🙂
There's no other way to render 3dsMax generated .ass that will render on Linux?
I'm already asking around internally. Only one other customer ever asked.
I think MAXtoA always adds Max_Sky, and it would be hard to avoid getting Max_UVGenerator, so you'll never have an ASS file that doesn't use at least one Windows-specific MAXtoA node.
We're working on removing these nodes and using only Arnold core nodes (which are available on all platforms).
Thanks for asking for me... I really appreciate it!
I guess that it may have added those automatically, which is a shame. It would be mega-cool if the MaxtoA was more standardised, in terms of inter-compatibility with the standard Arnold SDK build.
How far off would you say that may be?
Again, thanks for your reply... and I understand that only having two customers who need this probably won't make it a priority 🙂
I don't think it will make it for Christmas, but it should be done a little after that.
All the toA plugins have a few app-specific shaders that we want to get rid of, so that everything is an Arnold core shader.
That sounds brilliant, I was expecting to wait years, not months.
Thanks very much for your very quick responses and general helpfulness, I really appreciate it!!
Hey! Add me to the list of Autodesk Contract customer who also wants the ability to render on Linux Super Computers. This would be a game changer for our invironment.
In 3.0.57, there are no more c++ shaders specific to the plugin. All the Max maps that were previously translated to these shaders (that of course were Windows only), are now translated as graphs of native Arnold nodes, making it possible to render the exported scene on GPU, and on an OS other than Windows.
Of course, some editing of the .ass file generated from Windows will still be needed (for example, the paths to images are absolute Windows paths right now), but for that we have provided in the installer the python binding to the Arnold SDK, that let you load, inspect, edit, save a .ass (or even render it).
Let us know if you need help or if you encounter any problem.
Hi there Nicola,
That's great news, and I really appreciate you updating this post with this information!
Thanks VERY much!