AWS Deadline Cloud for 3ds Max

User guide | Service documentation | Deadline Cloud on GitHub

AWS Deadline Cloud for 3ds Max is a python package that allows users to create AWS Deadline Cloud jobs from within 3ds Max. Using the Open Job Description (OpenJD) Adaptor Runtime this package also provides a command line application that adapts 3ds Max's command line interface to support the OpenJD specification.

Compatibility

This library requires:

1. 3ds Max 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027.
2. Python 3.10 or higher.
3. Windows operating system.

Compatible Renderers

AWS Deadline Cloud officially supports rendering 3ds Max jobs using the following renderers:

• Autodesk Scanline
• Autodesk Raytracer (ART)
• Chaos Corona
• Chaos V-Ray 5 (CPU & GPU)
• Chaos V-Ray 6 (CPU & GPU)
• Chaos V-Ray 7 (CPU & GPU)
• Maxon Redshift
• Autodesk Arnold

Deadline Cloud Getting Started

3ds Max integration for AWS Deadline Cloud's Service Managed Fleets (SMF) leverages the Host Configuration feature of Deadline Cloud. At instance boot up, 3ds Max, and renderers such as V-Ray are installed to the host.

Please follow the README.md available at the Deadline Cloud Samples Github repository. link

Currently tested configurations:

• 3dsmax 2024
• 3dsmax 2025 + VRay
• 3dsmax 2025 + VRay + tyFlow
• Other examples to follow, or please request additional examples via the discussion forum.

Development Getting Started

This 3ds Max integration for AWS Deadline Cloud has two components that you will need to install:

1. The 3ds Max submitter plug-in must be installed on the workstation that you will use to submit jobs; and
2. The 3ds Max adaptor must be installed on all of your AWS Deadline Cloud worker hosts that will be running the 3ds Max jobs that you submit.

Before submitting any large, complex, or otherwise compute-heavy 3ds Max render jobs to your farm using the submitter and adaptor that you set up, we strongly recommend that you construct a simple test scene that can be rendered quickly and submit renders of that scene to your farm to ensure that your setup is correctly functioning.

Submitter

The 3ds Max submitter plug-in creates a shelf button in your 3ds Max UI that can be used to submit jobs to AWS Deadline Cloud. Clicking this button reveals a UI to create a job submission for AWS Deadline Cloud using the AWS Deadline Cloud client library. It automatically determines the files required based on the loaded scene, allows the user to specify render options, builds an Open Job Description template that defines the workflow, and submits the job to the farm and queue of your choosing.

The 3ds Max submitter plugin is packaged as part of the Deadline Cloud submitter installer. Please visit the Deadline Cloud downloads page in the AWS console to download the latest version.

To manually build the installer, please follow the instructions here.

Submission Hooks

The 3ds Max submitter supports Deadline Cloud submission hooks — pre-GUI, pre-submission, and post-submission — sourced from a directory named by the DEADLINE_HOOKS_DIR environment variable. A pre-GUI hook can pre-populate the submitter dialog (job name/description, parameters such as priority or Conda packages) before it opens. Enable environment hooks with:

deadline config set settings.allow_environment_hooks true

Hooks run when you open the submitter from the 3ds Max shelf button. The submitter shows a confirmation dialog listing the hooks it found before running them, skipped when the general-purpose settings.auto_accept setting is enabled.

For the hook types, the hooks.yaml format, the stdin/stdout contract, and examples, see Submission Hooks in the AWS Deadline Cloud client library.

Adaptor

The 3ds Max Adaptor implements the OpenJD interface that allows render workloads to launch 3ds Max and feed it commands. This gives the following benefits:

• a standardized render application interface,
• sticky rendering, where the application stays open between tasks,

Jobs created by the submitter use this adaptor by default, and require that both the installed adaptor and the 3dsMax executable be available on the PATH of the user that will be running the jobs.

Alternatively, you can set the 3DSMAX_EXECUTABLE environment variable to point to a 3dsMax executable. The adaptor supports both 3dsmax and 3dsmaxbatch.

The adaptor can be installed by the standard python packaging mechanisms:

$ pip install deadline-cloud-for-3ds-max

After installation it can then be used as a command line tool:

$ 3dsmax-openjd --help

For more information on the commands the OpenJD adaptor runtime provides, see here.

Versioning

This package's version follows Semantic Versioning 2.0, but is still considered to be in its initial development, thus backwards incompatible versions are denoted by minor version bumps. To help illustrate how versions will increment during this initial development stage, they are described below:

1. The MAJOR version is currently 0, indicating initial development.
2. The MINOR version is currently incremented when backwards incompatible changes are introduced to the public API.
3. The PATCH version is currently incremented when bug fixes or backwards compatible changes are introduced to the public API.

Security

See CONTRIBUTING for more information.

Telemetry

See telemetry for more information.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License.