Anima + 3ds Max + Deadline = Not Rendering

Anima Issues
1

We have installed anima on our render farm that runs deadline as render nodes, but it will not render the people unless we load into 3ds Max first and create an anima object. To do this on 50 machines would be painful. It feels like an license issue or potentially a firewall. Any thoughts?

image.jpg
image.jpg1250×809 172 KB

2

Hello @rheinspiel

The Anima Render Nodes are free to use since version 5.6.0, so it should work right away after installing it, without needing any kind of manual action.

Can you share more info about the error you get when it does not work? Also, what is exactly the process you follow to make it work?

If you want to avoid sharing private info in the form, like your user account or screenshots of your project, feel free to contact our Support Agents through the Chaos Help Center.

3

The anima assets will not render on the render farm unless I do the following step:

1) Launch 3ds Max on render node
2) Add Anima obj to blank scene
3) Point Anima to an anima project file
4) Once Anima project loads shut 3ds Max down
5) Turn on Deadline Worker
6) Render Node picks up render and now renders anima on the node

4

Thanks for explaining the process in more detail but, unfortunately, it does not help us understand what may be going on.

Please, open a ticket and share the deadline logs of the nodes in both situations, when they do not work, and when they do work.

Also please send us the Anima logs on both situations. You will find them here:

  • "%localappdata%\Chaos\Anima\System\logs"

If you have already opened a ticket, please share with me the ticket ID.

5

Albert,

The thing is these renders nodes don’t create a system long since its not getting activated…these render nodes that I manually “activate” do create these logs after I do the manual activation…It’s really strange…Vray + Phoenix works fine and using the same license manager…I will create a support ticket.

6

Ticket # is 471993

7

Hi everybody,

Just a quick note to mention that this issue is somehow related to 3dsMax never being started before in an interactive session on the node machines. It seems that something happens in the first 3dsMax manual start which does not happen when it starts as a render job from Deadline and is needed for the Anima plugin to be properly initialized. Once 3dsMax has been started just one time on that device, the plugin will always work as expected. There is no need to import any Anima project or anything similar, just start and close 3dsMax with no further action.

The issue has been reported to the Anima developers for further analysis [AN-1221]. If you have a large number of devices with this issue, as a workaround until the problem is properly fixed, you could use a batch script on the nodes to automatically start and close 3dsMax at least once:


@echo off
setlocal

:: 1. Configuration - Update this path to match your version
set "MAX_PATH=C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2025\3dsmax.exe"
set "EXIT_SCRIPT=%TEMP%\temp_exit_max.ms"

:: 2. Create the MaxScript file on the fly
echo Creating temporary shutdown script...
echo quitMax() > "%EXIT_SCRIPT%"

:: 3. Launch 3ds Max
echo Launching 3ds Max and waiting for initialization...
echo (Max will close automatically once the UI and plugins are loaded)
:: -U MAXScript tells Max to run the specified script upon startup
start /wait "" "%MAX_PATH%" -U MAXScript "%EXIT_SCRIPT%"

:: 4. Cleanup
echo.
echo Process complete. Removing temporary files...
if exist "%EXIT_SCRIPT%" del "%EXIT_SCRIPT%"

echo Done.