ass file unknown parameter error on AWS linux instance

[jaseo]

Hi,

ass files exported from Houdini and used in Windows Maya 2020.2 Arnold scene.

This renders fine locally, but when using Deadline to render on AWS linux instances (Maya2020.2 and arnold 6.0.4.0), there is the following error -

2020-09-18 03:14:20:  0: STDOUT: 00:00:03   594MB WARNING |  [ass] line 163: /obj/EXPORT_TRAIL_CURVE/curves:3.q57:IgRV:$n6Hc5hdL:I^@9:$cm- c5`@):Ia`\9us>0c5+nA:IW8U9ufaNc5&3X:J+gs9siJ4c7Q5F:IvSp9srrFc7DVJ:Il@`9t'<7c77w,:Ib.%9t0Q]c7+A%: unknown 'q57:IgRV:$n6Hc5hdL:I^@9:$cm- c5`@):Ia`\9us>0c5+nA:IW8U9ufaNc5&3X:J+gs9siJ4c7Q5F:IvSp9srrFc7DVJ:Il@`9t'<7c77w,:Ib.%9t0Q]c7+A%' parameter 2020-09-18 03:14:20:  0: STDOUT: 00:00:03   594MB WARNING |  resetting parameter points on /obj/EXPORT_TRAIL_CURVE/curves:3 (found: nans or infs) 2020-09-18 03:14:20:  0: STDOUT: 00:00:03   594MB ERROR   |  [curves] /obj/EXPORT_TRAIL_CURVE/curves:3: invalid number of points (found 0, expected 3369)

Issue is with ass file sequence or just using a single ass file. On the Deadline side, the ass file gets copied to S3 before rendering starts. When the rendering starts, the ass file is copied from S3 to the local drive on the linux render node for arnold to read. All the path mapping seems ok. Could it be some ascii encoding issue?

In all the ass files I have tested, the line that arnold reports has

 basis "linear"

thanks for any help!

cheers,

Jason

[Stephen.Blair]

I think if you compare the original ass file to the one that Deadline has created on the render node (and probably applied path mapping to), you'll see that they are not the same. The ass file created by Deadline has been corrupted, and it cannot be parsed correctly (that's why we see "resetting parameter")

[jaseo]

Thanks Stephen, I will look into this. It could be the way Deadline uploads the ass file to S3. It might need to have --encoding=UTF-8 set.