Topics

1

[Max] I need help! / Corona and Anima AXYZ crashes

« on: 2023-06-01, 11:32:13 »

Hi guys,

Have a situation with a pretty big  project, which encompasses  quite big area.
Project initially done during the past year.  Corona Renderer version (v9) and  3ds max (2022) - have not been changed since then.
New comments landed,  one of which referred to presenting more 3d people in the scene. The tool used for this is Anima AXYZ (5.0.1  last year) and currently 5.1.1(Anima guys suggested)

The scene started behaving really  slow, loading (>15 minutes), navigating and constant crashes when try to render the Anima people inside.
Trying to cope with the issue applying different solutions - from switching to " Path tracer" as secondary solver in Corona to baking the Anima people, to reducing the people, reloading the Anima file, etc. Initially scene rendered fine with UHD used as secondary light solver, but ever since crashes started and experiments with settings, had lucky shot with switching to " Path tracer", but only  once. Strangely  Interactive works fine.
Currently, the only way to render the scene is to hide the layer with the people. If isolate the people in another file - they render fine, but in this particular scene - nada.
The  scene is rather complicated - there is "camera map per pixel" used for  some simple geometry  volumes, custom override settings and majority of settings are controlled via  Pulze Scene manager.

AMD 5950x, 128 GB ram(during rendering scene pages to disk  ~ 150-160 GB), windows 10Pro, OS 19045.3031, Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19041.1000.0

2

[Max] I need help! / No License

« on: 2022-04-02, 13:59:20 »

As of today, Corona Renderer says that I do not have any license.

How do I fix this?

3

Gallery / 890 Park

« on: 2021-01-04, 20:04:43 »

Hi everyone,

Hope all of us have had a warm celebration of the holidays and are well.

Would like to present a  project which had the chance to work on over the past 14 months. To be honest, maybe the most exhausting so far, despite the relatively small scale.
The project is an interior one, and comprises of 6 storey floor renovation a historical house in NYC.
Initially built in 1884 and designed by James Ware, the building currently undergoes an interior renovation, and addition of two penthouse floor levels.

Many external and custom assets used. Despite the heavy RAM consumption at some of the scenes, I am pretty impressed by the solid performance of Corona Renderer!

Higher Res Views :  https://www.behance.net/gallery/107089879/890-Park-New-York-The-USA

Hope You like it!

4

[Max] I need help! / Yet Another Parsing topic

« on: 2020-02-26, 01:30:45 »

Hi all,

I have recently updated all itoo plugins, alongside with latest service pack available for 3ds max 2018.
Interactive becomes slower with every single project, no matter the scale. I can narrow the culprits down to Railclone and Forest pack.
Parsing takes 10+ min and literally makes unusable. That of course applies when scene is prepared (modelling done).

I have recently discovered that using many RailClone objects with clipping splines slows down considerably the 3ds max scene - saving, opening and parsing.
The only workaround is to convert to poly  objects once they have  been generated with RC. It is not applicable to many of the projects due to never ending comments, hence I am looking desperately to solution or workflow that limits these excessive parsing times.

By the time writing this post, I have the 3ds max file open with a project. Parsing- 15 min. Swtiching from corona camera to perspective takes 20 min to re-parse/re-load despite the use of PT.

Has anyone else experienced problems with RC alongside 3ds max and  what workarounds can suggest.

PS. Railclone used with clipping splines with "intance mode ON" produces many artefacts as well.

5

[Max] I need help! / Corona 4 Image Editor Question

« on: 2019-06-19, 19:22:44 »

Hi,

Just updated Corona to version 4 and played with caustics.
Great and stable so far. Well done!

Having hard time figuring out how to save a single exr file with all passes  from a cxr file.
Just yesterday was able to do that with Corona 3.

6

Hardware / Advice Regarding RAM

« on: 2019-06-06, 20:11:50 »

Hi all,

I have been facing insufficient memory messages over the past few months. Well in few cases, still, but have the impression it will become a norm in an year time.
Happily running a  dual Xeon v4 on an Asus Z10PE D16 -WS motherboard with 4 stick of ECC registered Kingston KVR24R17D4/16 memory.
I am looking  forward to upgrade RAM  for this machine over the past two years, and have been unable to  find the same vendor ones with availability of 4 sticks.
Due to the fact I am running the system on a 256 GB 850 Pro SSD, the storage space is close to insufficient to be used as virtualized memory.
I really do not want to go through a procedure of re-installing windows/programs on a new bigger PCI NVMe, so am thinking what are the possible solutions to extend RAM.


So far have decided to either:

1. Look out for the very same brand/chip sticks (chance of success 10 %) - have found few, they do not sell more than 2 pcs and do not deliver to Bulgaria...
2. Buy 4 sticks from another vendor,  and supported by mainboard, and use them in conjunction with the existing modules - have been told by people who are much more into hardware that there is a great chance for the system to become unstable and not run properly, give occasional issues.
3. Buy 8 new sticks, supported by mainboard - on theory this should be the safest bet.  In this case I will have the existing one as backup or eventually try to sell it.
4. Buy PCI Express NVMe Solid State Drive - 512 GB and use the Win  function to page file to it -  know that RAM is like 50-100 times faster than these, but theoretically should do the trick.

I am prone to invest into a new system, rather than upgrade the memory of this one- in case of buying 128 GB  RAM  sticks.
New system most likely would be TR 2990, with the abovementioned volume of RAM. The local guys, whom I spoke to, told me that TR  is not really good handling that much RAM and in almost all configurations they have assembled there have been issues running that much RAM on 8 slots. Tempted to wait for new AMD processors or eventually the latest Xeon showcased ( not the Gold, Platinum  line).

What would You advice be - upgrade this one? Bet on SSD?

or  Look into building new workstation?

Much appreciated!

7

General CG Discussion / Blank Task Manager Win 10

« on: 2019-05-31, 11:14:32 »

Hi  everyone,

Just bumped into this issue - machine updated like 2 days ago and since then the task manger is completely blank.
I can see the tabs, the CPU, RAM  consumption but no trace of listed programs. Restart helps but just for several minutes.
Have not had any problems with task manager so far, so it  should be again Microsoft doing something wrong.

Has anyone else encountered similar issues? Any solution?

Windows 10 Pro
1803
OSBuild 17134.765

8

[Max] I need help! / Good practices

« on: 2018-04-30, 16:24:31 »

Hi all,

I have recently updated to Win 10 and 3ds Max 2018. Ever since updated run through many issues, all of them software related.
To be honest I am bit disappointed the  direction software development is going - so many bugs, so many incompatibilities, so many new versions, so much RAM consumption.... and we optimize even more than used to do it.

With latest updates to versions it is harder than ever to track problems, which and why are caused. Being in the industry for already almost 10 years, have developed some habits which have helped me throughout time. Sadly have reached a moment when none of them  help me anymore, and I star to feel so stupid for not managing to tackle an issue that literally want to give up 3d...

With latest Corona updates, 1.7+ , Forest pack and Railclone have become a nightmare to work with, especially when one hits render button - parsing times skyrockets. Opening a scene takes forever. Interactive rendering - slow. 3ds max 2018 is so unstabble- viruses, flashing screens, lag in UI, and so on. Windows Defender on its end, decides to join the "party" and brings some additional problems.
All these forced me to think  of the so-called good practices, or how to handle a project, bigger than 4 walls, with many parametric  and scatter objects.

And to be honest - for the last year I have personally not experienced a boost in the workflow, due to  speed in render engines. Even the contrary - the compatibility issues brought have  hindered process.( speaking of archviz realted projects)

It is so cool and tempting to try the most recent versions of renderers, or scatters, aiming to squeeze few minutes here and there, and dedicate more time on other much more important life activities. Sadly once one updates, mislead by the "slogans" of saving time,  he/she becomes part of the vicious circle. 
For this specific reason a special forum thread should  be dedicated to real known bugs and limitations between software plugins, so that not only it becomes apparent when people to update, but also to developers from different plugins where to look for issues. Some forums are still alive, and way busier the others.

Currently my workflow towards software solutions, across forums ---> 
1.Investigate scene myself - 2-4 hrs. Merge into new scene - 1 hr, Scripts, layers, deleting objects, converting to proxies, etc.
2. If does not work ---> forums---> Corona, Vray. Lookup for solution there 2-4 hrs. Then move on to Itoo--> 5 min, since their forum does not seem to be much  updated when issues arise
3. If this does not work ---> Autodesk forum - 1-2 hrs
4. Win 10 related forums

In this confined forum lookup an archviz artist can easily lose  up to 10 hrs, until find a proper solution, or the right solution. Investigating of the scenes does not work properly- it takes time, especially with big and complex scenes and does not help when deadlines knock on the door.

As an "poweruser" strongly encourage both Chaos group and Corona forums to make a dedicated threads with list of known bugs/limitations between render engines and other third party autodesk/maxon plugins.

9

[Max] I need help! / Flashing 3ds max window when rendering

« on: 2018-03-26, 19:38:06 »

Hello,
Recently updated 3ds max to 2018 version. With particular scene, consisting of several Forest Scatters and quite big area for scattering, we tend to get quite slow loading/saving times.
The most disturbing issue is that  at certain moment when Corona is rendering this scene, whole 3ds max starts flashing, leading 3ds max to become non responsible.
Same also happened to a Vray scene, but less often so far. For the record- so far have used win 7 and 3ds max 2016, and never experienced any similar problems.
Has anyone experienced such issue?
It might be due to  old GPU/drivers/ win10/3ds max combo, but  we expected this to happen quite often, whereas it does happens, only when rendering at high res, and one can not save  file or render, due to the "flashing" 3ds max.

For the record - system specs:
Xeon 2680v4 x 2
Asus mainboard with built in video controler
Nvidia GTX 760
1050W PSU
850 W UPS
Win 10, Latest Forest pack, 3ds max 2018, Corona 1.7 (fix 3)
Dual Monitor combo with different Resolutions

10

Gallery / Clear Lake House, Canada

« on: 2016-12-07, 20:48:13 »

Update before the end of the year,

New winter shots added. Hope you like it! :)


This is our first post and literally first project where we had chance to deal more in depth with Corona, after deciding to give a try last year. It is a personal, non-commercial projected, started as intention to stay  away for a while from this "great contemporary white Scandinavian look", which we are all bombarded every day.
Inspiration came from  an architectural book, called "Hide and Seek"  where our attention was grabbed by this hidden in the woods gem.
It is intended to be ongoing project, and each season an image will be created.

Level of realism, might not be at the desired level, but there is immense amount of effort put into recreating it from photos, and trying to mimic site, vegetation. Will leave to your judgement as artist to give us hints about materials, and look! Will be much appreciated!

Until then - enjoy!

Corona 1.5+3ds Max2015+ForestPack+Railclone