ciomax 0.2.8

Max plugin for Conductor Cloud Rendering Platform.

Conductor for 3DS Max

3ds Max plugin submitter for the Conductor Cloud rendering service.

Install

To install the latest version.

pip install --upgrade ciomax --target=$HOME/Conductor

To install a specific version, for example 0.1.0.

pip install --upgrade --force-reinstall ciomax==0.1.0 --target=$HOME/Conductor

Setup the Plugin startup file from a command prompt or Powershell on a Windows machine.

python ~/Conductor/ciomax/post_install.py

NOTE An alternative is to install from the Plugins page in the Conductor Companion app

Usage

To set up a render, go to Rendering menu in 3ds Max and choose Render with Conductor.

For detailed help, checkout the tutorial and reference documentation.

Contributing

NOTE: These instructions were written from the point of view of a developer coding on Mac or Linux, and where 3ds Max on Windows has access to $HOME/ConductorStaging over the network.

Clone the repo.

git clone [e-mail]:ConductorTechnologies/ciomax.git
cd ciomax

Set up a clean virtual envirionment with Python 2.7 for development (optional).

python -m virtualenv venv
. ./venv/bin/activate

Install development dependencies

pip install -r requirements_dev.txt

Build and install from this directory into to a convenient location for testing.

pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt --target=$HOME/ConductorStaging

When you install from the file requirements.txt, the dependency on ciocore is specified as a local sibling of this project, meaning you can develop ciocore and ciomaya in parallel. If you have no interest in using a dev version of ciocore, then replace -r requirements.txt with a dot . instead.

As we are working on a different platform, you'll have to tell 3ds Max on Windows where to find the installation. This means you have to create in MaxScript stub file in one of the locations 3ds Max searches for plugins.

Create the following stub file. Te content's must be a location reachable from the Windows machine.

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Autodesk\3dsMax\2021 - 64bit\ENU\scripts\startup\ciomax_stub.ms

-- Calls the Conductor 3DS Max plugin..
(
  include "Z:\\Mac\\Home\\ConductorStaging\\ciomax\\Conductor.ms"
)

NOTE The above file is created automatically for customers when they use the Companion app, as it runs a post_install script.

If you develop natively on Windows, please consider adding your workflow steps to this section.

License

MIT

Changelog

Version:0.2.8 -- 12 Mar 2021

• Add .circleci/config.yml. [c922ffe]
• Change output path to something simpler: renders. [46aa00d]

Version:0.2.5 -- 03 Mar 2021

• Scenes that used Conductor prior to this release should work fine, however, we recommended to delete the ConductorStore object and reopen the dialog to get the latest defaults and to avoid unanticipated conflicts.
• Remove sampling flags from default kick command. [28857a0]
• Adds a drop-down menu to choose the render camera. The presubmission scripts then attach this camera to the active view so that the vrscene or ass files use it to render through. [f97866c]
• Changed behavior of the presubmission script Execute button. It now runs, and then displays the Preview tab to show you how the fully resolved submission object looks. [35f551a]
• Presubmission scripts have a different return type. They now return an object the same shape as a regular submission, which means any fields can be amended during presubmission. A concrete example is adding the ARNOLD_PATHMAP variable to the environment. Extra Assets and Environment amendments work, but several fields are yet to be implemented. [d73690c]
• When rendering ass files, we now generate a path remapping file and set the ARNOLD_PATHMAP variable to point to the file on the remote render nodes. This is required to allow the renderer to find windows paths that start with drive letters on the Linux filesystem. ARNOLD_PATHMAP was introduced in Arnold 6.0.4.0 so we now limit the available versions of mtoa to those later than 4.0.4 for compatibility.
• This release adds two new validations. [dcc77e5]
  1. Ensure either Vray or Artnold are the selected renderer.
  2. Ensure Legacy 3d Maps Support is off when Arnold is the renderer.
• The <timestamp> token now has 1-second granularity as opposed to 1 minute. This helps to reduce conflicts when 2 jobs are submitted close to each other, especially if using an upload daemon. [0e90e9a]

Version:0.2.4 -- 19 Feb 2021

• Disable pathhelper and add a validator (#8). [c637b36]
• Improves template command and presubmit script. [1ab2650]
• Vray presubmit now writes out a remapPathFile, used by the task command. [c6e7136]
• Fix bug in frame section resolve method. [42c2831]

Version:0.2.3 -- 10 Feb 2021

• Adds validation and confirmation to flow. [4204ed9]
• Refactor, abstract buttoned panel. [81c0d2a]
• Displays correctly on high DPI screens such as MBP retina. [c7765b8]
• Adds icons for validation severity panels. [390aeb8]
• Reading from saved settings no longer crashes when old scene oppened with missing keys. [74a40ff]

Version:0.2.2 -- 02 Feb 2021

• Set maximum retries to 5. [96fe970]
• Remove timestamp from renderoutput path template. [6ea4eec]

Version:0.2.1 -- 02 Feb 2021

• Fix export ass script. [e9b53e0]
• Remove autodefault to stop close on enter. [e6f63e8]

Version:0.2.0 -- 01 Feb 2021

• Bump version file to 0.2.0. [59cd56d]

• Ct 1568 change software selection to include only Arnold and Vray (#6)

• Adds a close button

• Adds safe store getters, in case old scene is missing some properties. [fe1300e]

Version:0.1.10 -- 24 Jan 2021

• Save collapsible state of sections between invocations. [2c1b9b3]
• Adds per-renderer defaults and renderer detection. [0747f07]

Version:0.1.9 -- 15 Jan 2021

• Ass export support and simplified UI. [b14b6b4]

Version:0.1.8 -- 07 Jan 2021

• Require 0.2.17 core which has UNC path support. [8c2ca64]

Version:0.1.7 -- 07 Jan 2021

• Adds presubmit script with test functionality. [1169a6c]
• Sections namespace and - presubmit script wip. [96ce40f]

Version:0.1.6 -- 28 Dec 2020

• resolve() function works in all sections.. [fb5a765]

Version:0.1.5 -- 23 Dec 2020

• Signals and slots in advanced section. [7f1a220]
• Assets section store signals and slots. [fadce90]
• Sots and signals for kvpair widgets: env and metadata. [aba9d1a]

Version:0.1.4 -- 17 Dec 2020

• Frames info calculation working. Remove fixtures directory option (assume ~/Conductor/fixtures). [09236b6]

Version:0.1.3 -- 14 Dec 2020

• Post_install to use ~ because env-vars are invalid in companion. [28d02b4]

Version:0.1.2 -- 14 Dec 2020

Version:0.1.1 -- 14 Dec 2020

• Fix path variable bug in post_install. [9bc1984]
• Fix readme. [43a20e8]

Version:0.1.0 -- 14 Dec 2020

• Post_install and prep for pypi. [fbc9529]
• Implement software section and provide dialog object to sections. [59ac89f]
• Populate from store. [e4662c6]
• Projects and inst types sourced from coredata. [a6197c0]
• Wip implementing resolve. [18595ce]
• Consolidate single sections into advanced section. [cd874de]
• Adds destination path - plus aesthetic improvements. [bcaf90d]
• Ct 1530 general (#3)