Over the last few weeks I moved a real production scene from Windows/Corona to Linux V-Ray Standalone on AWS Deadline Cloud. This isn't a hello-world write-up—it's the practical path that got 400 frames moving reliably, with the guardrails that kept things from falling over.
Why V-Ray Standalone on Linux
- Cost and scale: spot capacity on Linux is abundant and significantly cheaper; per-frame costs dropped materially.
- Stability: lean workers, faster boot, fewer moving parts than full DCC stacks.
- Portability: a well-formed .vrscene plus clean paths travels across environments.
Architecture at a glance
- Submit: 3ds Max exports a .vrscene and a tiny JSON sidecar with frame range and metadata.
- Queue: the render manager expands the frame list (e.g., 0-399x1) into 1 task per frame.
- Workers: Linux images/containers with V-Ray Standalone and a small pre-task that rewrites Windows/UNC paths to Linux mounts and validates every reference.
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Storage options:
- Job Attachments: upload scene+assets once; content-hash dedupe; great for portability.
- Sync/Mounts: Resilio/NAS to EFS/FSx mounts; great for giant libraries and rapid iteration.
- Output: frames land in S3 (or mounted storage) and mirror back on-prem if needed.
What I shipped first (MVP)
- One .vrscene
- One asset bundle (attachments) or a mounted project share
- One pre-task: path mapping + sanity checks
- One queue with a clean frame list
- Checkpointing enabled (tunable interval) to survive interruptions
Path mapping that kept me sane
I avoid "parse everything" and instead declare path intents. A simple JSON map drives a conservative rewrite; anything not matching known roots is left untouched, then validated.
Example path map (sidecar)
{
"mappings": [
{ "win": "C:\Projects\", "linux": "/mnt/projects/" },
{ "win": "\nas\assets\", "linux": "/mnt/assets/" }
],
"fps": 25,
"start": 0,
"end": 399,
"step": 1
}
Pre-task outline (Python)
- Read scene.meta.json and path map.
- Scan the .vrscene for Windows/UNC paths, rewrite to Linux.
- Verify existence; if any missing, print a short remediation report and exit non-zero.
- Hand the cleaned .vrscene to V-Ray.
Attachments vs Sync (when I pick which)
Attachments
- Pros: portable, deduped, reproducible; perfect for contained shots (<20-30 GB).
- Cons: pay upload cost; less ideal for very frequent micro-edits.
Sync/Mounts
- Pros: great for giant shared libraries, instant edits; familiar artist workflow.
- Cons: cold caches and path drift can bite; reproducibility depends on discipline.
Rule of thumb now
- Shot-specific data → Attachments
- Global/shared libraries → Mounts
- Hybrid is fine
Licensing notes that saved time
- Bring-your-own licenses work well if the server is reachable with low latency—preflight a license ping and fail fast if checkout trips.
- Usage-based licensing is a clean burst option when seats run tight.
Checkpointing/resume (aka sticky rendering)
- Keep it on, but measure the overhead. I start at 10 minutes; 5-15 minutes is the practical band depending on frame length and disk I/O.
- Store checkpoints on local NVMe; avoid remote writes in the hot loop.
How I made ~400 frames feel easy
- 1 task per frame → clean retries and metrics.
- Target workers ≈ frame count, respecting license ceilings.
- Guardrails: budget tags, per-queue caps, idle scale-in after the tail finishes.
Observability that actually mattered
- Per-frame: queue wait, time-to-first-pixel, render time, upload time, cost per frame.
- Per-fleet: desired vs healthy, interruptions, cache hit rates.
- Logs I read first: pre-task "missing assets" summary, V-Ray headers/footers.
Things that failed (and fixes)
- Mixed slashes/whitespace in texture paths → normalize separators and quote paths.
- "Works on my machine" exports → validation that lists all external refs by type before export.
- UNC vs drive letter roots → always include both in mapping.
Submission checklist (copy-paste)
- Render Setup has the correct frame list (or the submitter enforces it).
- Export .vrscene + scene.meta.json + pathmap.json.
- Pick one storage mode per shot (Attachments vs Sync) and stick to it.
- Select the Linux V-Ray queue; set frames (e.g., 0-399x1).
- Enable checkpoints; pick interval.
- Tag the job (project, shot, budget).
- Submit; only open logs when a task fails—start with the pre-task.
If you're starting today
- Ship the pre-task and one shot with attachments first; it removes 80% of unknowns.
- Add sync mounts later if iteration speed demands it.
- Keep exporters simple and submitters smart: the job owns the frame list; the .vrscene is the payload.
What I'd love to hear
- Your path-mapping rules for mixed Windows/UNC environments.
- Checkpoint intervals that worked best for long frames.
- Any gotchas with VRMesh/proxy paths across platforms.
If there's interest, I'll post the pre-task template, a scene.meta.json schema, and a ready-to-use dashboard for frame-time and cost.
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