Topics

1

[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.

2

[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.

3

[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?

4

[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?

5

[Max] I need help! / Corona 5 DR Server Status_Closed

« on: 2019-11-19, 15:55:52 »

Hi. I've just upgraded all the office machines to Corona 5, but some of the render nodes won't start at all.
After launching the DR application I can see that it opens/hangs on the " -postRenderScript:"C:\Users\backburner\AppData\Local\CoronaRenderer\DrData\post.ms"" and then the status changes to "CLOSED" . It states that Corona is not found on the machine. I've double checked the installation and all the files are ok. The licensing is ok as well. There's only one difference in the offending nodes, that they are Windows 7 based.

Please, I need urgent help with this.

This is the LOG file:

2019-11-19 15:47:43   DR server started
2019-11-19 15:47:43   Binded to localhost
2019-11-19 15:47:43   Binding UDP socket to local address 192.168.2.22
2019-11-19 15:47:43   Running Corona DrServer build Nov  5 2019 on TCP/UDP ports 19666, loopback TCP/UDP19667
2019-11-19 15:47:43   Available 3dsmax versions:
2019-11-19 15:47:43   2016: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/3ds Max 2016/
2019-11-19 15:47:43   Running command:
"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2016\3dsmaxcmd.exe" "C:\Users\backburner\AppData\Local\CoronaRenderer\DrData\corona_dr.max"  -continueOnError -gammaCorrection:1 -rfw:1 -sf -v:5  -postRenderScript:"C:\Users\backburner\AppData\Local\CoronaRenderer\DrData\post.ms"
2019-11-19 15:48:18   Corona not found in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2016\plugins, make sure Corona is properly installed.
2019-11-19 15:48:18   DR Server closed

6

Hardware / Dual vs Quad vs Six channel RAM real performance advantage?

« on: 2018-10-23, 14:48:13 »

Hi. I'm building some new Corona oriented render nodes.

Does anyone know what performance impact would a dual vs quad channel RAM setup bring? Talking about a dual xeon system.
Anyone tried six channels?
I can't even find real-life benchmarks regarding 2133 vs 2400Mhz DDR4.