Topics

1

Jobs / Animation Artist - Edinburgh

« on: 2024-05-03, 13:47:26 »

Ink is hiring! We are currently looking for Animation Artist to join our architectural visualisation team.
For more details visit: https://www.inkvisual.co/job-vacancies/animation-artist

2

[Max] I need help! / Tile map displacement mapping on displaced edge.

« on: 2024-04-08, 15:41:03 »

Hi,
Is there any way to preserve the colour/texture of the tile on the vertical part of the displaced surface?
Acording to my tests the majority of the colour comes from the gap colour rather than tile one. (see attached example)
Cheers.

3

[Scatter] 3ds Max - Bug Reporting / Scatter instances move between frames when Camera clipping enabled

« on: 2023-01-23, 12:14:03 »

Hi,
We recently rendered animation with dozen of scatters. As the parsing times were growing, we decided to try the active camera clipping option for a higher density ones (grass lawn, hedges etc).
At first glance it worked fine and reduced parsing times a lot for some of the sequences, however later we noticed that with clipping option enabled, scattered objects started to move between the frames.
Activating temporal consistency did not help.

Please see attached videos for comparison between the clipping option ON & OFF.

Max 2022, Corona 8 and Corona 9 (same issue on both versions).

4

[Scatter] Feature Requests / Chaos Scatter Trello Board

« on: 2023-01-17, 11:16:31 »

Hi,
Is there any chance the Chaos Scatter Trello board with indicative development plans can get some more love? It seems to be forgotten.
https://trello.com/b/G1m8efQ0/scatter-tentative-road-map-3ds-max

Just like Corona board gets updated every version, would be great if this was the case with Chaos Scatter so that users have a rough idea in which direction the development is going?
Many thanks!

5

[Scatter] Resolved Bugs in 3ds Max / Chaos Scatters heavily affecting viewport FPS

« on: 2022-11-10, 19:37:37 »

Hi all,
I don't think I've seen any post related to this issue.

We recently produce more animations, so previewing cameras movement in the viewport became very important element of production.
Our scene is split into many Xrefs, that made us realize that whenever Landscape Xref is loaded, problems arise.

We managed to narrow down the issue to Chaos Scatters. When scatters are enabled, (doesn't matter in what display mode) viewport playback performance drops significantly. From 50-60fps to around 5fps.
(please note viewport navigation is fine, it's about timeline scrubbing and playing viewport animation with "/" button)

When scatters are removed from the scene, all is back to normal.

Now here are some additional findings:
-annoyingly hiding scatters layer doesn't help, changing visibility to dot, point cloud or even "none" doesn't help.
-in order to bring back high fps, scatters need to be either removed from the scene completely, or disabled in the scatter lister.
-we are certain this is not just one of the scatters causing issues. Gradually deleting some of them helps (as per screenshot, we have more than 20 in file), so the more scatters we have the worse the issue is, 2 scatters will be ok, 10 will already affect fps heavily. etc
-fun fact, having Chaos Scatter Lister window open, again kills fps from 50fps to 5fps (even with scatters disabled).
-some screenshots for reference of fps values while scatters are disabled/enabled etc.

Can this be looked at?
We can send sample scene for tests if needed.

Thanks!

6

Jobs / Full time, Mid-level & Junior CG Artists wanted, Edinburgh, UK

« on: 2022-02-11, 18:17:53 »

Ink Visual is currently looking for a Mid-level & Junior CG Artists to join our architectural visualisation team. You will get the opportunity to work closely with architects on some of the most respected and recognized projects across Scotland and Middle East. Projects range from small scale residential villas to large scale masterplans and high rise towers.

- Excellent eye for image composition and storytelling is essential. 
- Proficiency in 3ds Max, Corona Renderer/Vray and Adobe Photoshop is a key. 
- Intermediate knowledge of 3DS max and Corona / Vray
- Good high and low poly modelling skills
- Experience in using Railclone or similar procedural modelling tools,
- Knowledge of Blender, Twinmotion and Unreal Engine is a great advantage.
- Candidates should be able to understand architectural drawings and terminology. 
- Desire to grow professionally and ability to efficiently learn new tools and techniques is a key.
- Have a flexible approach to working and willing to work extra hours when required
- Fluent English

This is a full time-position. Although currently, the team is working on flexible basis, candidates will be expected to work locally from our Edinburgh Studio in the coming months.
 
If you are interested and would like to receive more info please email us on:
hello@inkvisual.co 
with a relevant portfolio (pdf or website link) and CV.


https://www.inkvisual.co/

7

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Serious MAX freezes while using slate material editor

« on: 2021-02-17, 18:22:33 »

Hi,
In some of our files slate material editor is often freezing 3ds max for 3 minutes or so.
Opening the slate material editor itself can also last ages - 3-5mins.
Editing simple materials and applying them to objects in the scene can also cause lag, or freeze max completely.
This however does not happen with compact material editor, files are perfectly usable while using it.

Anticipating questions,
-this happens even if material editor is cleaned of all the materials.
-merging all the objects to the new scene does not help.
-merging files in groups to identify the problem didn't give us much of a success,
we think the issue might be associated with some scatters/proxies/shaders brought from the older scenes that were using older Corona versions,
but we could no identify particular cause of the above

We use Max 2019 (in Max 2021 problem is still present), Corona 6 Hotfix 1

Can you please help us to identify the problem?
I am just about to archive the scene for you as well as provide the dump file.

Thanks in advance

8

Gallery / Home of the Future

« on: 2020-05-15, 18:11:55 »

A bit of an abstract mood for the weekend. Have a look at our vision of Home of the Future project in Dubai!
We also invite you to check our Behance: https://www.behance.net/gallery/97153769/Home-of-the-Future

Thanks for watching.
Render by @inkvisual.co
Design by @kettlecollective.co

9

Gallery / Campus Library Building in Zhuhai, China

« on: 2020-05-04, 19:12:30 »

Hi guys! I'm just doing some cleanup in our archives and decided to share some older images with you. Here's a competition project we worked on last year.
Campus library building in Zhuhai, China.
Hope you like it!

Feel free to check out our other projects too: https://www.behance.net/inkvisual

Thanks for watching!

10

Gallery / Uptown Al Zahia, UAE

« on: 2020-01-24, 12:16:06 »

Hi,
I'd like to share with you one of our older projects that was finally made public.
The set of images you see below is combining two stages, one focused on the residential development, the other highlighting the retail zone.
You can also check a 360 panorama tour available at the following link: https://theviewer.co/share/hello@inkvisual.co/927bac78-bf21-4b1f-a7db-0b1a5d7bcf63?linkType=ShareLink

Al Zahia Uptown development is an important new urban centre connecting the suburban villa development of Sharjah, UAE.
Uptown is a special meeting place, it is a model of mixed use urban planning and development, a new centre for community activity for the wider Al Zahia masterplan
and an important link to the larger retail offering in the mall.

Feel free to visit this and our other projects on Behance: https://www.behance.net/gallery/89792975/Uptown-Al-Zahia-Retail
Design: Kettle Collective
Visualisations: Ink Visual

11

[Max] Bug Reporting / Phoenix FD - rendering ocean mesh with smoothing crashes max

« on: 2019-10-03, 23:53:20 »

Hi,
I'm not yet sure whether it's a problem with Corona or Phoenix FD itself but couldn't find anybody on Chaosgroup forum having this issue. I also cannot compare the behaviour in Vray as I don't have a license.
I created simple "moving ship in a water" simulation using liquid container which I then render in Ocean Mesh mode.
Everything is ok until I turn on Mesh Smoothing option with "Use Liquid Particles" enabled. It smoothes out water surface in the viewport but after pressing "render" MAX usually freezes or crashes.
I did try doing it on higher and lower resolution containers but this didn't seem to have any impact, both were crashing.

I'm using max 2020, latest Phoenix FD version, and Corona 4h1 (I tested most recent Corona daily too, with same issue).
I'd appreciate any help on this.

12

General CG Discussion / Houdini in Archviz workflow

« on: 2019-07-02, 18:47:28 »

Hi,
I was just curious if anybody in here was trying to incorporate Houdini into their archviz workflow. Recently I have been working on the big mountainous terrain and went through couple of programs dedicated to terrain creation
(worldmachine, gaea etc) although I haven't been completely satisfied with the results. I kept looking further and ended up using new Houdini heightfield tools. I must say I'm pretty amazed by the workflow and ease of use.
Considering that terrain tools are only a tiny percent of what Houdini's offering, adding water/smoke simulations, procedural modelling etc, all for the price of 269$ annually for indie license, it makes it pretty amazing tool even for freelancers.
I'm not yet sure how smooth is exchanging data between Houdini and Max as I didn't have a chance to test it all out, but I'm pretty positive about the experience so far.
What are your thoughts?

13

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Corona Scatter is not highlighted when selected

« on: 2018-12-05, 13:45:20 »

Hi,
After updating to Corona 3 scattered objects are not highlighted anymore when selected.

Old Behaviour (corona 2):
https://imgur.com/YruOqpG

Current behaviour, only scatter square window is highlighted but not the point cloud objects:
https://imgur.com/tK0f0Jp

It works ok only for full mesh type of Previz:
https://imgur.com/eZ2CMTh

Can you please look into this issue?

14

[Max] Feature Requests / Corona doesn't seem to support Forest Pack's ''Frame from map'' feature

« on: 2018-06-14, 18:52:07 »

Hi,
I'm just doing some tests with animating objects using Forest Pack and I think Corona is not supporting some of it's features.
When I try to control animated object's scale using map, rendering output is different from what I see in the viewport. (see attached screenshots)
After converting scene to Vray everything works as it should.
Anybody has experienced similar issue?
Thanks

-----
Corona 1.7 (hotfix 4)
Latest version of Forest Pack Lite

-----
Just tested it using Vray RT and it's giving me the same wrong result like Corona

15

[Max] I need help! / Rendering gets stuck on first pass

« on: 2018-06-13, 16:48:29 »

Hi all,
For some time already I have problems with renderings on one of the machines in the office. Some scenes stuck on first pass while rendering, I tried to identify the source of a problem but without success so far.

1. It all starts with quite slow scene parsing and GI calculation.
2. Once that's done the first pass starts to clear up but never progresses further, estimated rendering time rises to infinity (see attached)
https://ibb.co/hM5WHy
3. I've attached mini dump file from the 1st pass stage. I've also some minidumps from GI calculation stage if needed
https://we.tl/p5qewQM47U

Few points to note:
-the problem starts mostly at the very final project stage when we render stuff at higher resolution (5000px wide), lower resolutions (2k, 3k) would normally work fine
-it only happens on machine running on dual Xenon E5-2680 0 @2.7 GHz, 32GB RAM, Windows 7, latest Corona 1.7 (hotfix 4, although the problem was there on hotfix 3 too)
-I have chacked the machine itself to make sure it's not a hardware issue and it's definitely not. High load tests using OCCT are all fine

-exactly same scene, same settings will render without problems on other (slightly stronger) machine, i9 7900x 3.3GHz, 32GB RAM, Windows 10,  latest Corona 1.7 (hotfix 4)
-if I render the scene using DR, with i9 as a Master PC and Xenon machine as a slave, it will again get stuck on 1st pass. So adding faulty machine as a slave is spreading the problem onto the Master PC
-I work mostly on heavy scenes (file size usually exceeds 1GB), but I didn't have the problem in the past, optimising the scene rarely helps
-both, dusk and dalight scenes suffer from this issue

In general I must say that Corona's performance on Xenon machine seems to drop with every next release. I feel like 1.6 was faster and less problematic, especially regarding IR.
I would be grateful for any advice, right now Xenon machine is not reliable at all, I never know if it's going to render the file or not.
I haven't used to have this kind of troubles with earlier Corona releases, nor have I experienced it with other rendering engines, so I believe it must be some sort of Corona related problem.

Thanks!