Author Topic: PipelineFX 3dsmax jobtype 6.3-2 maintenance release  (Read 3461 times)

jburk

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PipelineFX 3dsmax jobtype 6.3-2 maintenance release
« on: July 26, 2012, 06:24:11 PM »
A new maintenance release of the 3dsmax jobtype, version 6.3-2 is available now.

NOTE: You must also upgrade your Qube! GUI to version 6.3.5 or above to be able to use this version of the 3ds Max jobtype.

 http://ftp://ftp.pipelinefx.com/pub/jobtypes/6.3/

Changes from the previous version are listed below.
----

This version adds support for 3ds Max v2013.

There has been a lot of changes, especially to the internals, in this
version.  Some of the more visible changes were:

* Added a "legacy mode", to maintain backwards compatibility. The
  "legacy mode" check box in the submission GUI may be set to use this
  mode, which will use old code from 3ds Max jobtype 6.3-1.  The use
  of the legacy mode is required for running jobs with older versions
  of 3ds Max (prior to v2008), but is not recommended otherwise,
  unless you are having issues with the new default mode.  In
  particular, the legacy mode does NOT, and WILL NOT, support 3ds Max
  v2013 and above.

* Logging info from max is printed to stdout, and most everything else
  to the stderr, so that the logs don't get mixed up.

* The "About Qube..." dialog in the in-app Qube! menu has been removed

* The name of the jobtype has changed to "_3dsmax" (from "3dsmax") for
  techincal reasons.

Other, more internal changes include:

* The new jobtype does not use a binary DLL (i.e., qbXX.dlx), but uses
  the dotnet via maxscript to open a named pipe in the running
  3dsmax.exe program, and takes command via the named pipe to process
  the rendering.

* Many maxscript and perl routines were refactored and reorganized.

==== CL 9844 ====
@CHANGE: modified 3dsmax submission simplecmd GUI to submit with prototype "_3dsmax" to support the new _3dsmax jobtype.

@TWEAK: more tweaks to the new _3dsmax jobtype.

@FIX: mental ray DBR max.rayhosts file must now be written to the "mentalimages" subfolder, not "mentalray", since 3ds Max 2011

@NEW: added code to retry creating a named pipe in the maxscriptServer.ms code.

@CHANGE: cleaned up the utils::cleanupRayhostsFile() routine.

==== CL 9820 ====
@FIX: fixed in-app submission dialog to properly submit a job with the new "_3dsmax" name.

@CHANGE: removed "About Qube!..." dialog from in-app menu, as it relies on the plugin providing info. The info should be fetched from the GUI's "About" menu for now (we should add a "-about" option to the GUI in the future)

@TWEAK: added INFO to print when NOT loading the legacy DLL plugin

==== CL 9815 ====
@NEW: initial add of new _3dsmax jobtype, which works without binary plugins.

==== CL 9714 ====
@CHANGE: call Win32::GetLastError() in case of errors in creating or attaching to the 3dsmax processes, for better diagnostics information to print in the stderr log

==== CL 9554 ====
@CHANGE: back-end code now respects the 3dsmax.exe exit code-- i n particular, if non-zero exit status is returned, the subjob will report "failed" to the supe.

Also changed qbQuitMaxWithStatus routine to reportjob("failed") if the given status is "failed".

ZD: 6426