Messages

1

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Cast shadow from invisible object BUG!

« on: 2024-02-14, 13:14:09 »

Sorry for the late reply, but it's been a really busy week. I understand the issue and was certain it was related to Corona physical world calculation model.
This seems like the black highlights problem, and I am using corona light materials for the backplates that don't emit any light. I'm pretty sure I've tried to render the scene without the backplate as it was the first thing that came to my mind as the source of the issue. Still, I haven't noticed this behavior until now, and I've been using Corona for the past 7 years.

In my particular case it's quite inconvenient to set the trees as visible in reflections since I'm delivering 60+ images of hotel rooms that have mirrors reflecting the outside and the actual real backplate. I would need to create a separate pass for that, and the lighting changes as well. When I'll have some spare time I'll recheck the offending scenes and get back to you. As I was using Vray from the early 2000' it was a common thing to be able to tweak various material/object properties to get the desired result.

So, for example how is one supposed to be using animated vegetation shades applied to a simple plane? https://henrikbc.gumroad.com/l/figment_treeshade_vol_1?layout=profile

2

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Cast shadow from invisible object BUG!

« on: 2024-02-09, 18:14:33 »

Yes, and I can replicate the exact thing you did in the video. Thing is, it works when there're are no materials applied, but with some corona materials (not all) the invisible object doesn't cast any shadows if the reflect/refract object properties is switched off. See attached images. The correct one where the trees are casting shadows has the trees reflect/refract turned on! Otherwise the engine doesn't see the trees at all. It happens in multiple scenes on different max versions as I tried in 2021 and 2023. For the sake of this test I've created a simple box without any material applied to it and the same thing happens. I'm using a HDR to light the scene.

3

[Max] Bug Reporting / Cast shadow from invisible object BUG!

« on: 2024-02-09, 13:42:49 »

Don't know if it's a bug or it's intentional, but having an object cast shadows in the scene by unticking "visible to camera" doesn't work if the same object has "visible to reflection/refraction" unticked as well. It doesn't make any sense, and it's been working fine until Corona 11!
I have a project I've been working on by the end of 2023, and now I need to rerender 20 images, and the whole setup is broken since it consist of multiple trees that were supposed to cast shadows in the room without being visible to reflections, as there's a backplate behind.

4

[Max] I need help! / DR internal functions dissected/explained

« on: 2021-08-28, 12:38:47 »

Hi.

Recently working on a heavy scene, I've noticed that my render nodes are taking quite some time to pick up the job and actually starting to render. Talking about 5-10 minutes on a 2.1 GB scene and 2.24 GB assets across 444 files.

So, everything is pulled out from a pure SSD NAS running over 10Gbe. The render nodes uses "standard" SSD local disks (app. 500/500 R/W performance)

All the assets in Max have the appropriate UNC path set, and all the nodes uses the same account name and can see/read those files.

What I've noticed is that in the VFB the nodes spend quite some time on "downloading assets"?

Can anyone shed some light on how exactly does DR internally work?

1. Prior being sent to the nodes, the working .max file gets saved locally or in the original opened location? I'm asking this because even if the 10Gbe link get's saturated between the workstation and the NAS in normal network traffic, it's still faster to save the scene on a local NVMe drive running on PCIe.  and copy that large file to the NAS.

2. What does "PARSING SCENE" mean? I'm guessing that's the time required to actually open the file and load all the assets on the slave machines?

3. "DOWNLOADING ASSETS" - does this refer to actually copying the assets on the target machine, or it's the action where the node reads the assets from a shared network location?

Here's an extract from tone of the render nodes logs:

2021-08-28 11:35:04   Ready for new connection
2021-08-28 11:42:39   Accepted remote connection from 192.168.2.30
2021-08-28 11:42:39   Started connection #3
2021-08-28 11:42:39   Handshake: <root><DataType>0</DataType><Handshake>init</Handshake><FrameName>0</FrameName><HostVersion>Max2021</HostVersion><CameraName>CoronaCamera001</CameraName><Region>0 0 0 0</Region><ImageSize>1800 1350</ImageSize><MD5>47b6082ca67f9a723bd7e7dd7d2bd227</MD5><CoreVersion>7 (Hotfix 1)</CoreVersion><IpAddress>192.168.2.30</IpAddress></root>
2021-08-28 11:42:39   Saving incoming scene to C:/Users/backburner/AppData/Local/CoronaRenderer/DrData/received_scene_1841907443.max
2021-08-28 11:42:49   Downloaded scene: 2.161 M bytes in 4 s
2021-08-28 11:42:56   Received sampling focus mask (region 0 0 1800 1350)
2021-08-28 11:42:56   Render for connection #3 started
2021-08-28 11:45:37   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:45:37   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:45:38   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:45:38   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:45:39   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:45:39   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:45:40   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:45:40   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:45:40   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:45:41   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:45:41   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:45:42   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:45:42   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:45:42   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:45:43   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:46:21   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:46:22   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:46:22   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:47:09   Received a list of missing assets
2021-08-28 11:47:09   Got a message from remote: all_assets_sent
2021-08-28 11:47:10   Sending command to slave: <root><Command>all_assets_sent</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:50:11   Started EXR dump (402.082 bytes, filename: C:/Users/backburner/AppData/Local/CoronaRenderer/DrData/dump4306.exr)
2021-08-28 11:50:11   Finished EXR dump after 0 s
2021-08-28 11:50:12   Received sampling focus mask (region 0 0 1800 1350)
2021-08-28 11:51:13   Started EXR dump (202 M bytes, filename: C:/Users/backburner/AppData/Local/CoronaRenderer/DrData/dump4307.exr)
2021-08-28 11:51:14   Finished EXR dump after 1 s
2021-08-28 11:51:14   Received sampling focus mask (region 0 0 1800 1350)
2021-08-28 11:52:16   Started EXR dump (204 M bytes, filename: C:/Users/backburner/AppData/Local/CoronaRenderer/DrData/dump4308.exr)
2021-08-28 11:52:16   Finished EXR dump after 0 s
2021-08-28 11:52:16   Received sampling focus mask (region 0 0 1800 1350)
2021-08-28 11:52:39   Got a message from remote: terminate_hard
2021-08-28 11:52:40   Sending command to slave: <root><DataType>0</DataType><Command>terminate_hard</Command></root>
2021-08-28 11:52:41   Slave 3ds Max ended render
2021-08-28 11:52:41   DR is finished
2021-08-28 11:52:42   Ready for new connection

I can see the the scene was copied in 4 seconds which is as expected, but can't understand why it took almost 5 minutes to actually start working on the job?
And why are there 7 entries for "Received a list of missing assets"?

Upon further examination of the DrData folder on one of the remote machines, the only files there corresponding to that job are the .max file , 2 config files, and a couple of small files from Forest Pack dist maps and custom CUBE files from the frame buffer.

Since I've switched from Vray a couple of years ago, I can't do a comparison test, but I recall scenes would load much faster on the render nodes using Vray DR back at the time.

5

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: The most wanted feature?

« on: 2020-09-11, 09:43:11 »

No vote for improved VFB? Stacking LUTs, ICC etc?

6

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: Multiple LUTS

« on: 2020-09-11, 09:27:51 »

This would be a must have for all of us working on wide gamut screens. 
If it's complicated to implement, maybe just an option to setup the VFB with a particular ICC profile or LUT.

7

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-29, 11:55:27 »

Logged in our internal tracker and will investigate. Once I have some findings, I will share them here.
(Internal ID=512734803)

Thanky. I've tried running the Licensing server as service as well, but the issue is still there.

8

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 21:57:17 »

Yeah. My next try was that with the delayed start, but I doubt it will change anything.

9

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 16:38:29 »

No, it does not. Using the local system account results in a connection error, and the DR is not working. It's kind of expected. Using a dedicated system account is a habit from Backburner and V-ray, but it applies here as well. Funny thing is that if I remotely connect to any of the DR and manually restart the service, then it is showing all the data in the master machine, but after a system reboot (DR) , the behavior is back.

10

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 15:41:36 »

Firewall is off on all machines. UAC is completely disabled. That user account is the only user account present on each system and it's in fact the local system account.

11

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 13:37:39 »

I'm using Corona 5 hf 2, 3ds Max 2021, Windows 10 pro (Build 18363). I've installed the service on all machines through the helpdesk provided .bat files, and additionally the service is set to run with a dedicated administrator user that is same on all machines. The are no errors in the DE logs, and the service registers fine with the FairSaas credentials. As I mentioned, everything works fine except I'm not getting any status report in the master CFB. Will attach screenshots to better describe the issue. 

12

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 11:57:13 »

I'm running 1 max session on a workstation, and DR server service on 10 render nodes.

13

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 11:36:10 »

I didn't quite understand your answer? I'd like to have the additional slave info as when running the DR slave manually, so I can see what the slave is doing at any given time plus the RAM usage on that particular slave.

14

[Max] Resolved Bugs / DR server as service

« on: 2020-05-28, 10:39:34 »

Hi. I'm running DR server as service on a dozen machines. The nodes connects fine and everything seems to work as expected render wise. My problem is that I can only see the nodes name in the frame buffer, but no info of RAM usage or specific task the node is doing. It just says "rendering" and "-- / --".
Is there a solution/workaround to this problem apart running the DR server manually?

15

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Material library on network

« on: 2020-04-28, 12:26:30 »

Hi. I know there's a future plan to enable the installation of the material library on a shared network path (server/nas). I'm wondering if there's a way with the current build to modify the default paths of the installed mat. lib and point it to a network location? Through the registry or environment variables perhaps?