Rendering nCloth doesn't include animation and deformations
So I have this very annoying problem where I have a whole setup for an nCloth object, everything is in place and the cached playback is giving me exactly what I want. It's all fine, even with an ordinary Arnold single-frame render, everything works as expected.
Yet, when I launch a sequence render, it renders everything according to the setup EXCEPT for the nCloth animation. It basically renders the object completely still as the object before it's affected by the nCloth, nucleus, etc. The lighting, the camera, it's all fine, but the nCloth animation and deformation just aren't there.
I've tried changing the type of cached playback, making the animation preferences play every frame instead of the classic 24fps x1 since I know it's usually best for hardware simulations, but it doesn't seem to change anything, I'm stuck with a static object.
I've tried rendering with the batch render instead, but as I have a peculiar student license that got weirdly renewed but not really at the beginning of the current school year, it's giving me Arnold watermarks on those renders. Plus, they're buggy and don't show the right angle.
I'm at a loss, and would very much appreciate if anyone had any insight into this issue. Thanks!
EDIT: So I ended up asking someone, and while I solved my issue for now I'll post the solution here in case anyone needs it.
Turns out I was only counting on the cached playback, which is simply a viewport rendering option, which doesn't usually translates well into Arnold rendering, especially sequence or batch rendering. I needed to properly create a cache for my nCloth simulation, so I had to select my nCloth object (not the mesh with an nCloth on it but the actual nCloth object in the outliner), go in the FX menus - nCache - Create new Cache - nObject, then the computer will calculate the proper cached animation and deformations for your object and it'll render as it's supposed to no matter what you do.
I hope someone will find this useful!