As you might know there has been a significant change in the latest Shotgun API that’s somehow transparent to the CPython users, but presents a rather significant roadblock for IronPython users (including our duberPython bridge, that is based on the IronPython engine).
First, let’s discuss what’s changed in the API so dramatically that it breaks IronPython compatibility. It’s the introduction of a JSON formatting that requires a few specific CPython libraries that are not available in IronPython. The effect it has on CPython users is a faster data transfer to/from Shotgun, but other than that, the API looks to be unchanged from a user point of view. You still keep calling the same methods and you’re getting back the same objects. From IronPython point of view, you’ll hit a roadblock as there are a few modifications you’ll have to make to the Shotgun modules in order to make them run in IPy without issues.
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As with my previous post, I’m preparing a few handy tools for 3ds Max artists using Mari and Nuke. This bit is the fun part with Nuke: live communication between 3ds Max and Nuke.
Stay tuned!
I’m starting to write a useful set of tools for Mari and 3ds Max users. This is the very beginning – establishing reliable communication from 3ds Max’s MAXScript console directly to Mari. 
I’ll keep you posted.
We’ve launched a brand new website, courtesy of our friends at refresh.cz, with some latest finished projects showcase, including our new demoreel. Head over to duber.cz and leave a comment if you like, hell, even if you don’t like the new site. 
Thanks for watching!
I don’t think I have to praise regular expressions here, however, I wanted to point out one extremely useful case where regular expressions were pretty much the single most useful, fastest and not so obvious choice in my 3ds Max pipeline.
The thing with 3ds Max is that regular expressions are foreign to MAXScripters and they don’t usually use them. I too am more used to regex in Python or IronPython than MAXScript. However, since we do have access to .NET in MAXScript, we can use its Regex class inside MAXScript.
Why I’m mentioning this and why could it be useful to you? I bumped into a little issue with my pipeline’s handling of rendered files. They assume to be exactly the same as I set them up in 3ds Max, which is logical and correct. However, since I started using Deadline’s SMTD script for submitting my files to the render farm, which takes care of handling the path remapping and storing, it also accidentally took care of letter casing. So, in the end, my render files were being saved all upper cased: “\\SERVER\PROJECT\RENDERS\ABC.EXR” instead of what I set in the Render Dialog: “\\SERVER\Project\Renders\ABC.exr”. The reason was simple, I used simple MAXScript substituteString() method to re-map my local paths to my server, UNC, paths and I converted everything to upper case just in case I got a mismatch:
substituteString (toUpper srcPath) @"D:" @"\\RAMMSTEIN\__UNMANAGED_PROJECTS__"
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I just updated to the final release of Deadline 5.1 after beta testing it for a few months and I couldn’t recommend any other render manager more. If you’re still on Deadline 5 or prior, this update is highly recommended! Especially since it boasts a full CPython support, tight Shotgun integration, draft, the ability to run multiple instances on one render node and much more. For more details, read the official announcement.
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Here’s a video demonstrating the power and practical usage of Shotgun (data) brought over to 3ds Max natively via our Python plugin, duberPython.
I’ve been looking for the perfect phone since my good old Nokia 7650 I had in high school. It was a great phone, back then. Had a very comfy portrait keypad and a large screen. Since then I had a few more Nokias until finally switching to HTC phones. My first HTC was TyTN II, what a beast! Then, after the iPhone introduction, some more touch only or touch + type HTC phones. My last one was HD2. I loved and hated the phone equally.
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I’m, along with Gavin Greenwalt from Straightface, featured in Thinkbox’s study that took a look into the Deadline Power Management feature and how it can help save your studio money in the end.
Go ahead, it’s an interesting read.
Every TD knows that command line tools are among the most powerful in their arsenal of tricks and secrets.
I want to mention RVIO, as today it saved me quite a lot of time (again), which is absolutely key when a deadline is coming.
My client requested a minor tweak of animation (a lip sync, to be concrete) on an almost finished shot. So, the general approach would be to do the change, have the animation data go through the pipeline and at the end have the finished frames ready to be loaded in an existing edit, which then gets rendered out and the final result gets showed to the client.
All fine, until you realize your render farm is completely full with other shots, so you have to skip the “beauty” pass rendering and only present the client with a, somehow, polished preview directly from your 3D package, which isn’t the safest way, trust me. But this client is great and understands that what he sees is actually only a preview of the animation.
So, the last piece of puzzle to solve is to get the preview assembled with additional layers of information (such as frame number, shot name etc…), basically a slightly customized overlay. All this sounds nice and simple, you just open up (in my case) Premiere Pro, swap the layers, render out the portion you need and be done with it.
But this certainly isn’t the TD way.
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