Messages

31

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Select Denoiser for IR

« on: 2023-06-12, 22:04:12 »

+1 for this. It would be great if there were some settings we could change from within the VFB such as overrides, global volume mtl, denoiser etc

32

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona Renderer and the emergence of AI?

« on: 2023-06-12, 19:07:02 »

"Turn off translucency for all materials that start with veg in front" - done
"Select all objects with more then 500K polygons and generate proxies for them"

ChatGPT is ok at maxscript.  It could probably produce snippets for you. This isnt really a corona thing its a Max thing.

33

General CG Discussion / Re: AI what are peoples thoughts ? I think we are in for big change.

« on: 2023-06-07, 19:02:47 »

I had wondered about the way AI could change rendering specifically and i wondered if we could end up with specialised models (the ai kind) that are hyper specialised packages that know how to render a specific object or surface style very very well. It could understand placement data from the 3d scene by using very basic placeholder objects for layout. Understands where the camera is, and lights are. And then uses lots and lots of specific stable diffusion models to generate the final image knitting it together mask by mask like an ID map.

34

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Chaos Corona 10 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2023-05-26, 13:28:54 »

I agree the new DOF highlight Solver looks great!

35

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Decal Channels playground!

« on: 2023-05-22, 20:29:43 »

This is very cool. Cant wait to see what people create!

36

[Max] I need help! / Re: Tracking down the cause of a slowdown

« on: 2023-05-15, 22:15:32 »

Is there any way to set up any of the corona passes to highlight complex materials?
Would be super useful to be able to do like a false-colour pass to identify shaders causing slowdowns.

There is!

You can use the CInfo_TimePerSample element for this - https://docs.chaos.com/display/CRMAX/Render+Elements#RenderElements-CInfo

Ah fantastic, for some reason i assumed that was a render stamp type pass.

37

[Max] I need help! / Re: Tracking down the cause of a slowdown

« on: 2023-05-05, 11:06:03 »

Just a tip:

If you can use one of the Sini tools called Sini Forensic, it can help you scan your scene and provide you with an overview of problematic issues present in your scene.

https://sinisoftware.com/Plugins/Forensic

Yeah thats my first step every time and the file isnt showing anything problematic.

Is there any way to set up any of the corona passes to highlight complex materials?
Would be super useful to be able to do like a false-colour pass to identify shaders causing slowdowns.

38

Hardware / Re: Computer spec 7950X with 192 of RAM?

« on: 2023-05-05, 01:13:02 »

Exactly! My current "mobile-PC" I built is based on Cerberus-X which houses ATX board since I needed 4-DIMMs. Technically I could have used m-ATX but almost none exist and 99perc. of SFFPC cases are Mini-ITX or few ATX/E-ATX ones.

With 2 DIMMs, those Mini-ITX SFFPC cases are finally doable even for professional mobile workstation. Ideally the flat&thin "console" style (like Fractal Ridge) since those are easier to put into backpack, rather than the "Sandwich" ones which are smaller but thick like a brick. But cooling is still a bit issue for CPU there.

The thing is, the laptops are very close in performance to these PCs now, just 5 times louder :- ). But still much more practical for travel. (though not for dollar value and upgradeability).

Ive been tempted a few times by a workstation laptop but i like the idea of upgradeability or at least being able to potentially take parts from my main workstation like GPU, RAM and storage, and put them into a portable PC.

39

[Max] I need help! / Re: Tracking down the cause of a slowdown

« on: 2023-05-05, 00:07:36 »

One thing i have noticed though is that even when i hide the imported objects, the slow rendertime stays there.
If i dont import it, the scene renders fine.

What if you delete those objects instead of hiding them, does it affect render time in any way?

As i track down the cause, i will test this out.
The railclone tip above helped with the parsing but my UHD Cache is still multiple minutes long so ive got some digging to do.

40

Hardware / Re: Computer spec 7950X with 192 of RAM?

« on: 2023-05-04, 17:42:50 »

even small 2-dimm ITX boards can now have 96GB ram. So let us know how it goes.

well damn i hadnt even considered this!
Small form factor travel-ready render PC can be a reality!

41

[Max] I need help! / Re: Tracking down the cause of a slowdown

« on: 2023-05-04, 17:27:47 »

In general, hide half the objects and render. Still slow? Hide half again and repeat. If faster on the first halving, switch which half is hidden and continue as before. This should identify objects or materials, and once you pin it down, you can investigate why.

You could use material overrides too, usually worth enabling that globally and see if magically everything gets faster as then you're most likely looking for a problem material. You can still likely track it down with the steps above (probably easier than using exclusions to the material override).

Material override isnt something ive considered before so thats a good one to try early on thanks Tom.

42

[Max] I need help! / Re: Tracking down the cause of a slowdown

« on: 2023-05-04, 17:25:23 »

Exactly what Tom said, or start a new empty scene, then start merging your objects one by one (or first half, then half of the remaining objects, and so on until the slowdown appears).

But since you mentioned the slowdown appears after merging a single object ("after merging an object from another file, rendering has slowed to a crawl") - then I guess that object is the culprit and the remaining part of the investigation is to figure out why it's slowing down.
Is that object related to some 3rd party plugin?
Is it using a complex material and/or a material using 3rd party plugins?

It could be a bit of column A and a bit of column B.
It has a railclone object in it thats gernerating lots of lights. However, the same number of lights when created manually doesnt cause the slowdown it would seem.
So i think it could be railclone, lights and material complexity coming together into a perfect storm.

I think ill put ijn some hours this evening and strip back the file.

One thing i have noticed though is that even when i hide the imported objects, the slow rendertime stays there.
If i dont import it, the scene renders fine.

43

[Max] I need help! / Tracking down the cause of a slowdown

« on: 2023-05-04, 16:34:51 »

Hi all,

I have a huge scene im working on and after merging an object from another file, rendering has slowed to a crawl with five minute parsing times 5 minute UHD cache times and rays/s under 200k.
I cant figure out what is causing the issue as the object im merging in, is fine when rendering in its original file and has no immediately obvious issues.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips and tricks they use for tracking down the causes of slow renders whether it be rogue objects or complex shaders.
If any of the devs have tips on what they do when assesing out scenes that would be really useful to know too!

44

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Taking a break

« on: 2023-04-19, 15:06:26 »

Good luck Ondra! See you around.

45

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Chaos Corona 10 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2023-04-18, 18:40:38 »

No news at present on what this initial implementation may look like, or even a guarantee it will happen (roadmaps are always tentative).

No worries,will keep my eyes peeled.