Working with Plugins

For those that are using the native MassFX plugin or external plugins that are not native to 3DS Max

As there are countless 3DS Max plugins and scripts out there, the Render Farm is unfortunately unable to support each and every plugin. Instead, you are able to request a plugin to be added that you are using in your file.

Note that the plugin will only be available whilst the Render Farm is handling your job, so you will not be able to interact with these plugins whilst you send off a job.

Baking Plugin Effects

Before you submit your file, as much as possible, bake in any effects of plugins so your file is as free from any dependencies as possible.

For example, the MassFX plugin has an option to bake out its simulation into animation keyframes, you can also collapse certain plugins to bake its effects into the geometry if you don't require the mod stack anymore, and some modifier plugins can also be baked out.

Non-Native Plugins

Requesting a Plugin

Please e-mail ABP-Technology at [e-mail] with a copy of the plugin file (.dll, .dlm etc.) that is compatible with 3DS Max on the farm, along with your use case and any relevant documentation such as the webpage.

We will only consider plugins that are open-source and does not require a license to use.

Submission Workflow

This section is to be read in conjunction with the main article:

pageRender Job Setup

As these plugins will only be available to the Farm while it is rendering your job, you will not be able to interact or interface with these plugins when you send off a job, so make sure you have made all necessary changes and checks locally.

Opening your 3DS Max File

You may get a missing plugin error, ignore this by clicking on [Open].

You will then be met with the Scene Convertor, this tool can be found under [Rendering > Scene Convertor] and is usually to deal with transitioning between render engines.

You have a choice here to remove these plugins altogether here, alternatively just close this to continue with the setup process.

If you are saving down from a newer version of 3DS Max, some utilities may sneak in even when downgrading. You can google the element to see if it is a function exclusive to your version of 3DS Max, if it is then it is recommended that you Remove it instead of ignoring it.

You may now go back to the Setting Up Your Render Job page and continue with the setup process. In the next step of job submission.

You may also apply the steps in the MassFX Physics section below as well just in case.

MassFX Physics

This section is to be read in conjunction with the main article:

pageRender Job Submission

MassFX has been disabled on all Rendering Machines but is enabled by default on all remote connections, therefore you will not get an error when opening files that have made use of MassFX. However, they will end up failing on the Render Farm.

Bake all simulation results into your scene through the MassFX toolbar.

Disabling Plugins

To deal with this, when you get up to the next step, enable the following option to ignore missing plugins in the Deadline Submission Manager > Render > 3DS Max Startup > Ignore Missing DLL Errors.

Note that this will mean you will no longer get any plugin warnings for your job so you may not know if it is rendering incorrectly due to other missing plugins.

Monitoring Jobs with Plugins

This section is to be read in conjunction with the main article:

pageMonitoring And Checking Progress

When you are monitoring the progress of your job, look out for tasks that are cycling between 'Starting Up' and 'Queuing' statuses. If so, check for any 'Missing dll' messages in the log as this indicates a missing plugin.

Encountering issues?

If you encounter any issues please see the troubleshooting section first. If your issue is not resolvable with the information provided here please log it with Stop1.

Please note that any issues with the Render Farm must be lodged via Stop1 for us to be able to process. Thank you for your help in establishing and making this new service more robust; We can only fix problems that we know about. So please log any issues you encounter with Stop1.