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What the Submitter Can Do

The Cinema 4D submitter transforms your rendering workflow with powerful automation and intelligent features.

Key Benefits

🎯 Smart Asset Detection 🎯

Automatically finds and includes all textures, models, and other files your scene needs. No more missing asset errors or manual file hunting.

⚙️ Advanced Settings ⚙️

Provides additional configuration options beyond basic settings, allowing you to customize output paths, frame ranges, takes, and error checking to fit your workflow.

Interface Walkthrough

The submitter interface has several tabs to configure your job.

Shared Job Settings

Settings that apply to the entire job:

  • Farm Selection - Choose which farm your job will render on
  • Queue Selection - Select the specific queue within your chosen farm
  • Job Name - Give your render job a descriptive name
  • Job Description - Add optional details about your render job
  • Priority - Set job priority for queue management
  • Initial State - Control whether the job starts immediately or remains paused
  • Max Failed Tasks Count - Maximum number of tasks that can fail before the job is marked as failed
  • Max Retries Per Task - Number of times a failed task will be retried
  • Max Worker Count - Maximum number of workers that can work on this job simultaneously
  • Conda Packages - Specify additional conda packages required for your render
  • Conda Channels - Define custom conda channels for package installation

Shared Job Settings

Job-Specific Settings

Settings specific to your Cinema 4D render:

  • Override Output Path - Override the main render output path from your scene settings
  • Override Multipass Path - Override the multipass output path for additional render passes
  • Takes - Select which Cinema 4D takes to render
  • Override Frame Range - Override the frame range from your scene settings
  • Automatic Error Checking - Optional checkbox to activate/deactivate error checking during rendering
  • Activate detailed logging - Enable detailed logging to capture detailed logs for debugging rendering issues. When enabled, debug logs are automatically captured and printed to the job output for easy review
  • Task Run Timeout - Maximum time allowed for each task to complete
  • Cinema 4D Launch Timeout - Maximum time allowed for Cinema 4D to start up
  • Cinema 4D Shutdown Timeout - Maximum time allowed for Cinema 4D to shut down cleanly
  • Save Cinema 4D Project with Assets - Prevents missing file errors during rendering by creating a temporary copy of your project with all assets and fixing file paths before submission. Uses more disk space and submission time

Job-Specific Settings

Optional Tabs

Job Attachments (optional) - Select which files will be uploaded and attached to the job. Files are automatically detected and attached by default.

Host Requirements (optional) - Allows you to specify which types of hosts will be eligible for picking up tasks for this job.

The submitter handles the technical details so you can focus on your creative work.

Detailed Logging for Debugging

The Activate detailed logging feature helps you troubleshoot rendering issues by capturing detailed logs.

When to Use Detailed Logging

Enable detailed logging when you need to: - Debug Redshift rendering issues or unexpected behavior - Investigate rendering artifacts or errors - Analyze renderer performance and behavior - Capture detailed information for technical support

How It Works

When you enable the "Activate detailed logging" checkbox in the Job-Specific Settings:

  1. Log Capture - The system automatically enables Redshift debug logging by setting the REDSHIFT_DEBUGCAPTURE environment variable
  2. Log Output - After rendering completes, all Redshift logs are automatically printed to the job output for easy review

Viewing the Logs

To view the detailed logs:

  1. Open Deadline Cloud Monitor
  2. Navigate to your completed job
  3. Right-click on a task and select "View logs"
  4. Enable the "View logs for all tasks" button.
  5. Scroll through the task run logs to find the "Shut down DetailedLogging" for detailed logs.

The Redshift logs are output in HTML format and include timestamps at the start of each line. If you want to save and view the logs in a web browser without timestamps, you can use the provided cleanup utility:

  1. Download the detailed log file from Deadline Cloud Monitor (right-click on task → "Download logs")
  2. Run the cleanup script with the log file path: bash cd deadline-cloud-for-cinema-4d/scripts python clean_redshift_detailed_logs.py /path/to/detailed_logs.log Or run it without arguments and enter the path when prompted: bash python clean_redshift_detailed_logs.py
  3. Open the generated redshift_log_cleaned.html file in your web browser

The cleanup script automatically extracts the Redshift HTML logs from the detailed log file and removes timestamp prefixes (e.g., 2024/11/17 14:23:45-08:00) from each line, making the logs easier to read and compare.

Important Notes

  • Detailed logging is disabled by default to minimize overhead
  • Only enable it when you need to debug specific issues
  • Logs are captured on a per-job basis - each job has its own log output
  • The feature works across Windows, Linux worker nodes

FAQ and Glossary →