Topics

1

[Max] I need help! / Max 2019 issues with Corona interactive and Forest pack

« on: 2018-08-29, 18:34:22 »

Hi all,

We recently, and reluctantly, upgraded to Max 2019 (as we were having some Revit import issues with our workhorse 2016 version) and decided to use it for our latest project.

However we are already running into a multitude of issues, mainly surrounding Corona interactive and Forest pack. Anything regarding using Max while the interactive viewport is active seems like it could trigger a crash, adding modifiers, navigating the material editor and even a simple ctrl+z. I feel like I have to close the interactive preview between any iteration of change, to avoid the chance of a crash. Which is kind of defeating the point... I have seen the crash screen and/or task manager more times the last couple of days than ever before.

Forest pack seems particularly susceptible to causing issues, with simple lawns making the interactive viewport completely unresponsive. (on another note Forest edge doesn't seem to work with Corona in Max 2019). For comparison, I backwards saved the exact same scene to 2016 and it works absolutely fine. Viewports and interactive rendering are responsive to the point it is almost real-time and forest edge works just fine. Exact same scene, exact same plugin versions. I have worked with similar residential developments in 2016 that have significantly heavier landscapes, but 2019 is falling at the first hurdle.

I know this probably needs chasing up with iToo and Autodesk, but I was wondering if anybody here has had similar experiences or knows what the hell is going on?!

For the record, I believe I'm fully up to date with all relevant software packages and graphics drivers.

Thankfully I'm not too heavily invested in 2019 so will most likely fall back to our trusty 2016 version.

Cheers,

Jamie

2

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Phoenix FD textures missing

« on: 2018-03-28, 12:06:55 »

I may be missing something simple, but it's driving me mad!

I've been playing with Phoenix FD and I have noticed that when using Corona, I cannot select the Phoenix FD textures from the Material editor map browser. I used to be able to see the Vray maps on my last machine when using Corona, but I can no longer see them either, just 'standard' and 'Corona'.

If I switch the active renderer to Vray, I have access to all the maps including Phoenix and Corona. I can get access to (for example) the PhoenixFDOceanTex map this way and apply it to a material, which then works in Corona when I switch back. But this is such a long way of doing things.

I hope you guys can help!

Cheers,

Jamie

3

General CG Discussion / Render slave - RAM vs Core count

« on: 2018-01-08, 16:13:36 »

EDIT: I've just seen the Hardware Child board, please move if appropriate!

Hi All,

I apologise if this is the incorrect section...

I'm looking to add a small farm with 3 or 4 render slaves to our studio and have started the process of looking into machine specifications.

I was under the impression that the RAM required to render a scene correlates to the CPU core count, so in theory if the workstations are 12/16 core machines and have 32gb RAM, 6 core slaves would be ok with 32gb? Please correct me if I'm wrong!

I'm working to a budget, and using 32gb of RAM could mean a whole extra slave or two extra over 64gb machines.

I hope you can help!

4

[Max] I need help! / Understanding render times - Sampling Focus

« on: 2017-08-01, 12:09:54 »

Hi Everyone,

I'm in the process of creating a 4500 frame fly-through animation for a client and have the time to debug render times, so thought I would turn to here for some advice! With the amount of frames involved, I'm keen to shave off as much on the render times as possible.

A large portion of the frames are relatively stable at 15/20mins per frame at 1080p, at a 5.0 noise limit. However some of the foliage heavy spaces are climbing to almost 50 minutes, so I'm trying to understand what I can do. Especially considering I want to reduce the noise limit for the final production.

I'm pretty sure it's down to the forest pack and the trees, as most of the buildings have very basic reflections and render very quickly when isolated. The trees were specified by the landscape architect and have been sourced from xfrog and evermotion, all of which rely on opacity mapped leaves. I have gone through and reduced reflections but the Sampling focus pass (attached) still highlights the trees as a source of concern. So do you guys have any suggestions on this?

The indirect light pass also showed a lot more noise than the direct, yet increasing the GI vs AA balance resulted in increased render times.

So, if anyone has any tips to help, it would be greatly appreciated. The scene is lit with a single PG HDRI, so no overly complex lighting. I'm sure there's something I've missed so let me know if there's any other info I can provide.

TL;DR - Need help with long render times, see attached passes!

Many Thanks,

Jamie