argh.. help! (Need help with 3dsmax)

[versatek]

I am trying to get our evaluation of QUBE! installed this weekend but I am running into some pretty serious hurdles.? I am posting this here, because it's the weekend and nobody has returned any of my phone calls or emails. (understandably)

Hopefully someone monitors the forums and can get back to me.

We are stirctly windows XP sp2 and Windows 2003 server.? ?
 
1.) your 3dsmax jobtype is out of date.? It does not recognize max 8.? I was able to edit the maxscript to get it to run in max 8, but the perl scripts are also out of date, and I do not know how to program in PERL.? I will need an updated jobtype for max 8, or instructions on how to edit the scripts.
 
2.) I suspect that your maya jobtype is also out of date, as it mentions maya 7, but we are running maya 7.0.1.? I have not tested this yet though, as we are primarily a 3dsmax house, and have little use for maya at this time.
 
3.) --There is no #3--
 
4.) I do not understand the configuration of workers/supervisor/clients very well.? There is a GUI, as well as a config file.? They all seem to live in different locations.? configuring within the GUI does not seem to change the values of the .conf files.? Whats going on here?
 
5.) Why does qube keep asking for a login and password?? What is this, and can I disable it?
 
6.) After submitting a test job (which failed), I was unable to kill it.? It said I did not have permission.? Why?? How do I grant full admin control to all clients?
 
7) Our artists are used to setting up their workstations as renderslaves when they go home at night.? Your worker application runs as a service, thus is invisible to the artists.? Is there any way to allow them to start and stop the service with some visual feedback?? They will never remember to stop the worker service if they cannot see some indication that it is running.? They will also have trouble remembering how to start and stop services on their computers.? Remember Artists are not IT professionals.? They need pretty pictures, and big red buttons that say "GO" and "stop"
 
Do I need to configure Max and Maya in any special way on the workers?? Do I have to install the max and mel scripts manually, or somehow tell Qube where the applications live so that it knows how to launch them??

9) I'm pretty early into the deployment, but there does not seem to be a way for the Artists to easily submit their jobs and monitor the job status.? There also doesn't seem to be any real feedback on the jobs in QUBIC that is important to the artists.? IE: Job details, render settings, error reporting (nobody is going to go hunting for a .log file when their job errors out, it needs to be accesible through a gui)

10) It seems that most of the functionality in Qube is through a CLI.? Artists do not know how to use CLI, they need big pretty red buttons, that don't require them to think.? Since we do not have dedicated render-wrangler type employees, is it possible that QUBE is just not a good solutions for us?? (see number 7)

Thanks for any insight you can share with me.

--Steve

[anthony]

Hey Steve,

     1)    In answer to all of your questions, yes the 3dsmax job type is out of date.  Our support for max 8.0 is forth coming and will be available soon.

     2)    The maya job type unlike the 3dsmax job type will work with maya 7.0.1

     4)    The configuration gui modifies the only qube! configuration file which is located here:  C:\winnt\qb.conf or C:\windows\qb.conf     The files I suspect you're looking at are located in the etc directory under the qube installation dir.  These are only there for example purposes.

     5)   The gui asks for a login and password because of the limitations of the Windows Active Directory authentication model.  qube! requires your account's password and login in order to run your jobs under your account.  Normally qube! is setup with a simple account called qubeproxy which you must configure with all if your applications (maya, 3dsmax)  This account's login and password are already known to the qube! worker so it is able to login without user intervention.  If your studio uses Active Directory for user management, you should just type your password into the dialog and the supervisor encrypts and stores the data.  To disable the login, you may also (on the supervisor) turn off the "enforce windows password" check box under the supervisor configuration.  The supervisor at this point will ignore password information and accept jobs without question.  Please keep in mind that because of this, the supervisor may issue the same job to a single host which may lock out users who havn't prior logged in. 

     6.   qube! enforces user permissions and normally doesn't allow users to affect each other's jobs.  In larger environments this can be pretty important.  Especially if users are under deadlines.   However you are also allowed to setup default permissions for users and also use the group management features as well.   The simplest method to grant all users control of all jobs is to goto the configuration gui and turn the administrator check box on for default permissions. 

     7.   You are allowed to lock any host or make any host available through the qubic! gui.  Just select the host and switch to the lock tab.  You are allowed to use several methods to lock and unlock a host.  It's probably best for the artist to setup a simple calendar which places the worker online during the weekends and nights based upon the artist's schedule.

     8.   The qube! installers take care of much of the configuration, however placing the render commands in the user's PATH is required for maya.

     9.  The qubic! gui allows access to the data you're referencing based upon the "subjobs" double click on the subjob rows and you'll get access to the render's log data.

     If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

          Thanks,
             Anthony

[versatek]

3dsmax 8 has been out for a long time now.  I find it distressing that you did not update your jobtype within 5 days of it's release. 

[anthony]

We apologise for the lost man hours and your disappointment on the max 8.0 support.  qube! 3dsmax support includes support for max script as well as individual frame by frame controlled rendering. 

3dsmax 8.0 job type is now publicly available for download, please take a look at the downloads section to obtain the latest release.

Anthony