PipelineFX Forum

Qube! => SimpleCmds => Topic started by: Scot Brew on April 23, 2008, 08:04:13 PM

Title: SimpleCmd Overview (Installing, Using, Tweaking, Troubleshooting, & Developing)
Post by: Scot Brew on April 23, 2008, 08:04:13 PM
Overview
The SimpleCmd framework provides a simple, quick, and easy way to leverage the power of command-line jobs and auto-generate artist-friendly submission dialogs.

It takes the parameters from a submission dialog and turns them into a command-line submission to Qube. Since it uses standard cmdline and cmdrange backend on the Worker machines, no addititional installation of files is necessary on the Workers. 

The framework provides a straightforward way to expose parameters to artists in just a few short lines.  The framework does use python, though no expert knowledge of python is needed for most cases.  One can use python to write parsers to scan the "help" files as done with mayabatch and xsibatch.

Installing

Using

Tweaking
It may be desirable to tweak some of the default parameters, like the executable path.  To do so:

Troubleshooting
Most likely, an invalid executable path is the most likely cause for a simplecmd to fail after installation.  Make sure that either the application you are using (Maya, Max, XSI, etc) is in the Worker's path, or that the full path is explicitly specified when submitting the job.  See "Tweaking" above for setting the defaults.

Developing
See the "SimpleCmd Developer Guide" for more detailed information and existing simplecmds as examples. The guide can be found from the QubeGUI (version 5.3 and above) help menu under "Help->SimpleCmd Developer Guide".  It can be manually found under .../pfx/qube/api/python/qb/gui/README_SIMPLECMD.html.