Messages

1

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona 1.3 Benchmark

« on: 2023-04-23, 21:40:34 »

Hi! I can see some people got 30 sec on this benchmark but i'm having 50sec.
Can anyone tell me what's the problem.
I'm using i9 13900k win 11 corona 7.

Hi Perodj,
There may be a number of reasons behind the different rendering times among PCs with the same specs. Some of them might have already been mentioned in the thread.

- Some PCs might be overclocked.

I use a Xeon 2697 V2 on an Asus P9 X79 Pro motherboard. This CPU completes the benchmark in 2.17 in its stock settings. I have overclocked the BClk value to 114, which currently renders at around 1.51. The highest 1.49 rendering time in the mentioned processor's list is at the highest value that I could achieve - I don't want to push that high anyways. 1.51 is also quite a gain. I see some PCs on that list showing frequencies other than stock values which means they are overclocked however in my tests, processor speeds are reported as its non turbo value -2.7gHz, so don't rely on the reported frequencies.

Thermal Throttling (TT) might be causing a reduction in speed.

I was using an I7 3930K with this exact same motherboard when I first bought it. The stock fan provided by Intel was not adequately cooling this processor. So funny. I realized the problem when I have tested one of my scenes on another PC -which should be slower than mine, but the results were the opposite. Just then I've installed a software called HWMonitor and saw the temperature readings above the TT threshold for this particular CPU when rendering. (85 or 95 something)  This software also reports the frequency of the processor, and reports all values for three states: Maximum frequency reached, minimum frequency and current frequency. My max frequency was 3400mHz but throttled down to 2600mHz while rendering -even less while rendering. I bought a tower fan and teperatures do not exceed 50C (celcius) even while rendering and my frequency was 3400 in full performance.

Power Configurations affect speed drastically. You might be using Power Saving algorithm.

This is the Windows Power Schemes that I mention. Balanced is ok in terms of performance, as far as I've tested, but if you have enabled Power Saving Preset then expect a seriously slow machine. I recommend you to switch to Performance and see what happens. Download and install HWMonitor, which is freeware. By that, you'll be able to tell whether the PC is operating slower than it should.

There might be other things to consider. These are some of the probable culprits I could come up with with a quick thinking. There are also BIOS settings that can slow you down. Just turn off Turbo Boost and your computer becomes a 10 year old model equivalent. There are also preset speed settings in some mobo bioses. I remember my PC being slow when Quiet Preset was chosen. There was also an Energy Saving Preset and Hi Performance one. Try it with a preset with fires, thunderbolts in its logo :D

2

[Max] I need help! / Crash with STP Imported Objects with Layered Material + Triplanar Map

« on: 2023-03-05, 09:44:15 »

Hi,
I had a crash on a scene which was imported into 3ds Max as an STP file. Just wanted to report. Can't open the scene directly anymore but merge some of the objects.

The scene consists of a seven piece robot arm, which I have linked each piece, top to bottom. Did not collapse the objects. Assigned separate materials to faces in Body Object form.

Then copied each piece one by one, applied a push modifier to slightly push the copied object outward slightly. This would serve as a "glowing" net surrounding the object by a material assigned to it. This net was supposed to somehow ripple upon touch, during animation.

Net material is a layered material -not yet finished- which had a base material and a second material with opacity and self illum. maps, containing Mask map to mask a red Corona Color map with a png file assigned through a Triplanar map. Same without the mask exists in Opacity. I guess I was working on a noise map at the time as a mask to the layered material's layer.

After not being able to assign Face IDs to one piece, (matl. was not showing correctly) saved the file and exited. File doesn't open anymore.

Could merge the robot pieces, but not the net copies. They are copies of the same objects only exception is their materials. They all have the net material.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoFN063z_3UOgdNhZ7xB5Zg9FGNtOw?e=kV4xY7

Here is a link to the file. 90 mb max plus two maps. I thought you might want to check.

3

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: Internal Error: no RTTI data!

« on: 2023-02-06, 16:50:51 »

Reporting:
It seems its all about the hardware change. Reinstallation of the VC++ Redist did not help, but reverting back to the original ram frequency helped.
It works now. In my case, Xeon 2697 V2 at a memory frequency of 1866mHz did not work. 3DS Max also had a license issue, probably due to the resemblance with a hardware change.

4

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Re: Internal Error: no RTTI data!

« on: 2023-02-06, 15:16:56 »

Hi,
 Ive had this error, Access Violation - no RTTI data, on a message dialog with a title WTF :D  with the Corona Benchmark exe.

Render VFB was blank and just after a few seconds Corona 1.3 BEnchmark Error dialog states:

Couldn't run Corona 1.3 Benchmark: Application exited eith errors. Visual C++2015 update 1 redistributable (x64) Failed
(ErrorCode = 1638)
(Press Ctrl+C to copy the message....

sh** Why have you not put this last sentence at the top :D lol!

Anyway, rewoke the thread just in case it might help some other user solve their problem.

I'm running the benchmark because I've just tried to increase my ram speed to 1866Mhz on an X79 motherboard + Xeon E52697.
After loading default bios values, and manually selecting 1866mHz, I've had crashes two times.
The third time I managed to boot Windows in 1866mHz Dram speed, but this error appeared. Might have corrupt some distributable files - who knows.

I'll try to ireinstall VC++Redist - to see if it works.

5

[Max] Feature Requests / Selection Render Improvement

« on: 2022-09-15, 14:21:34 »

Hi,
I'm really disappointed to see the Render Selected option not helping reduce the rendering times as much as it can. Let me clarify what I mean and discuss what can be done:

I needed to change the texture of a small box object in one of my scenes, and I've had the chance to use selection render for the first time.
Whole frame rendering of 500 frames animation would last about 5.5 hours.
Selection mode with single object selection reported  3 hours 25 minutes, which according to my experience with other renderers, I found unnecessarily long.

I've set a region along with Selected option and now the predicted time is 1 hour 25 minutes.

The predictions are solid.

It seems a feature to set a border region around selected object's extents and render only that region would help reduce rendering times drastically.

This reduced the rendering time to almost a half.

In my case, as the camera was moving, I've set the region extents to cover the object's extents throughout the entire animation so this is even less efficient than what you can implement as a feature.

Feature Name : Auto Region Selected :D - or just go on with the Selected but set a region. ı guess it will work.

6

[Max] I need help! / Controlling Glossiness of Several Materials From One Place

« on: 2022-08-13, 13:24:58 »

I have about 60 materials with 60 different maps of different pieces of an oil painting. The glossiness of each piece is the same. Textures will not change during the animation but I may need to change glossiness and reflection amounts from time to time.

These 60 materials may be sub materials of a Multi-Sub Object Material. I wonder if there is a method to change the glossiness of all 60 materials from one place. Wire parameters is not an option. A separate reflective layer like the clearcoat -as we often use it- is not what I want either, however I'd like to know if it would work like the primary glossiness channel to achieve the look of oil paint, and what numbers should I set for the reflection, roughness... values of the base materials?

7

[Max] I need help! / Corona MultiMap Usage

« on: 2022-08-13, 13:09:03 »

It seems Corona Multi Map randomizes textures. I wonder if it can be used to assign Maps by Material ID's but without randomizing. Map1 to ID1, Map2 to ID2 etc.

PS. I couldn't understand why there are several "Randomize by" choices, when eventually all are randomized?

8

[Max] I need help! / Clipping Issues with VR Camera Roll

« on: 2022-08-07, 09:18:31 »

I'm working on a flythrough animation between mountain like structures (Actually the details of an oil painting) and this is a stereoscopic VR scene.

This painting was initially in its original size (13x13 cms) and in order to achive the effect of moving inside some huge structure,  I've managed to reduce the eye distance to 1/100 th of its default and the painting became something like 13 meters, but there appeared a well known clipping issue in the viewport. As I come close to surfaces I see the interior of the painting.

I've reduced the camera Near Clip to 0 but the problem was still there. (Tried Viewport Clipping too) Made some search and found in Autodesk forums the exact same question but without a definite answer. Some clues made me think I'm close to the smallest size limit of my System Units Setup, so I decided to Scale up the objects. It helped. There were no clipping issues as I rotate the camera to any 360 degrees. Yet, I tried to be extremely careful because if there is a spherical near region and this is a 360 degree animation, any part getting closer than any near clipping value would be visible. I didn't move very close to faces.

This is a radial motion with a large radius - the paint tracks are like ripples-  so just to keep things natural I used some banking (By using the cameras Roll command), while taking this large rotational motion.

It seems the clipping issues are present again when the Roll amount reaches certain values.

I seem to understand but I don't have a lot of time to test. (Clipping is not visible in the viewports) Any ideas about the exact reason of this? Should I not Roll the camera or is it only because I'm rendering in Stereoscopic mode (This makes sense)
Would it help if I scale up even more?

Thank you

Edit: Just reduced my eye separation to 2.0 and there is no more clipping for my animation. I presume the technique behind stereoscopic panorama creation requires more clearance no matter what the clipping value is and there is no way to preview it in the viewports yet. I'm eager to see the end result.

9

[Max] I need help! / Re: Question about Shadows on Background (Shadow Catcher)

« on: 2022-03-19, 20:19:22 »

I just wondered if there is any way to "blend" the shadow layer with some blending mode like in Photoshop, or like in Corona Mix map.

10

[Max] I need help! / Question about Shadows on Background (Shadow Catcher)

« on: 2022-03-19, 12:00:10 »

I wonder if there is a way to match the darkness of the shadows of the 3D objects and the background image? (In the 3D software- not in post)

11

[Max] I need help! / Motion Blur on Objects with Changing Topology

« on: 2021-10-10, 10:52:43 »

Hi,

There is a warning about motion blur on objects with changing topology which is pretty much acceptable. The message also says   those objects will be excluded from motion blur calculations, which is what I want but it doesn't seem to work this way. Objects with changing topology are not excluded and create artifacts. I've had these artifacts on an object with animated Slice modifier and an animated Symmetry modifier. I need to turn off motion blur for these objects. Standard Max motion blur switches on the Object Properties dialog don't help. Should I completely disable moblur on geometry from Camera settings?

12

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Separate Displacements on Separate Layers of Layered Material

« on: 2021-09-30, 18:33:17 »

Oops!! :) I'm so sorry I opened a 3ds Max question in C4D thread, got my answer anyways.

13

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Very slow movement during interactive render with RTX 3090

« on: 2021-09-30, 18:30:15 »

I'm not a C4d user and I have no experience on this software, however many people in 3ds Max side do suffer from the same frustrating experiences. What I often tell them is, 25Million polygons is nothing for a graphics card to actually "shade" the scene, but it is the topology modifiers or sorts of calculations "which depend on the CPU", causing these lags.

You can benefit from your GPU on applications like Lumion or during the rendering of GPU renderers like Iray, Vray GPU, Octane etc.


Most parts of these software don't even benefit the patented technologies of the CPU's, with glamorously shining names and still rely on the raw CPU power.

14

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Separate Displacements on Separate Layers of Layered Material

« on: 2021-09-30, 18:03:08 »

Hello,

you can try "stacking" the material - applying both of them on the same object (2 texture tags rather than a layered material) with an opacity map and some UV offset tweaking, the resulting displacement is an addition of the two materials.

Thanks and let me know if you need further information,
Jan

I couldn't get a  clear picture of "stacking" and "texture tags", can you detail this a little more?

15

[C4D] General Discussion / Separate Displacements on Separate Layers of Layered Material

« on: 2021-09-30, 13:28:05 »

I need two displacement maps on two separate materials of a Corona layered material.

In the image I have a base material of a human body and two different layers of scar tissue applied by radial gradient masks. Diffuse maps seem to combine well with masks but I can't manage to assign a displacement map along with other maps.

Is there a limitation or an I missing something?