Troubleshooting Render Issues in 3ds Max

The troubleshooting guide does not handle some differences specific to 3ds Max rendering. This guide will focus on the specifics related to how Deadline runs 3ds Max renders.

To start isolating 3ds Max job from Deadline, we would need to make sure that you are able to render (not just open) the scene that errored on render node while signed in as the user the Worker is running as. It’s important to test on the same render node that had the error so that if the issue is related to the configuration of the individual render node, we’ll be testing for it. You can find the name of the render node at the end of the task report on the line with “Worker Name:”. If you're able to, try isolating your 3ds Max job from Deadline. The steps are outlined here:

Step 1. Submit the same job with the 3ds Command submitter, if you don’t have the submitter installed then here is a documentation you can follow. To make sure the file paths to ensure a simpler file path, uncheck the “Submit the Scene File with the Job” on the submitter window. We do this to simplify the way 3dsMax is run. Our 3ds Max application plugin communicates with 3dsMax by starting a socket to send commands to it and get output. 3ds Command runs 3dsMax using only command line flags which allows us to best identify and troubleshoot issues. We choose to not submit the scene file with the job, as it copies the .max file to a temporary location and we may lose the file by the time we go to the next step.

Step 2. Now click on the “Submit” button and let the job run for a bit. If it generate errors, we would need to pull the logs from the job. In the render log look for a line that contains the phrase “Full Command”. The following command is what we used to start 3dsMax. Run the command in the Command Prompt, Terminal, or Shell as applicable on the render node while signed in as the user running the Worker to recreate the worker’s render behavior. You may need to adjust the paths used in the command, just double check it to be sure. If the render fails, then the issue would be either in the scene or in the render node itself. Try testing with a simpler scene, or on a different render node to identify which of the two is the issue.

Step 3. If the render finished successfully through 3ds Command, then is likely to be an issue in how the Worker is starting 3dsMax and the setup environment it is using. We would need to investigate the issue within Deadline, please email AWS Thinkbox Support with the log you used from step #2 and the output from your command prompt test so we can compare them to see what the Worker is doing that's causing this file to fail.