Topics

1

General CG Discussion / Multiple Monitors, Win10, Nvidia - Windows/Apps moving to wrong monitor

« on: 2016-01-28, 16:35:05 »

Hi everyone,

Anyone else using the setup in title? I have 3 x monitors and whenever I turn them all off each evening, when I come in to work the next morning and switch them back on all my windows/apps are rearranged on the wrong windows, as are my desktop icons. I am using a program to sort out the icons, which works fine, but I can't find a solution for the windows. It's happening with max, photoshop, the whole lot. And what's worse is that it moves all the docked and floating windows within these apps, and they are all rearranged each time. Nightmare!

Anyone know a fix?

Win 10, gtx 970, 3 x dell monitors (different resolutions).

Cheers,

2

Gallery / Seaford Court - Timelapse Animation & Stills

« on: 2015-11-20, 18:14:34 »

Hi all,

This was our first ever Corona project - an apartment in London. This was a commercial project but the animation is an extra we've been working on behind the scenes. A few noisy areas and some moire issues to address but it was a very good experiment and we're pretty impressed with how Corona handles this sort of work.

We will also publish a full 360-degree Panorama Tour of this apartment soon, once completed.

Hope you enjoy. Timelapse animation and all stills are at the link below:

http://atelieryork.co.uk/seaford-court

Cheers,

3

[Max] I need help! / ZDepth Filtering for Frischluft Lenscare, and Post DOF General Advice?

« on: 2015-11-19, 11:25:45 »

Hi all,

Quick one - should we be using filtering (on by default) for the zdepth pass when being used with lenscare/DOF plugins for AE?

I'm getting artifacts when I filter and artifacts when I don't, so neither approach looks great so far. I think this is becase I have a very strong contrast between extreme foreground and background, so I'm getting fringing and moire-like effects around objects as they go in and out of focus.

I also discovered that 32-bit exr for zdepth pass is unusable with lenscare for AE. You get all sorts of weirdness with the area of sharpness. If you render to 16-bit TIFF it's absolutely fine. Just an observation.

Any tips?

Cheers,

4

[Max] Resolved Bugs / HDCache not being picked up by max Archiver = render farm failures

« on: 2015-11-11, 11:00:10 »

We have a fairly big issue here.

The max archive command doesn't pick up the HDCache which is saved and set to Load From File. So when we archive a job this file isn't carried through.

This also means that renderfarm uploaders are not picking up the hdcache, causing shots to render the cache for every frame, which is obviously causing a lot of problems, not least rendertime and huge extra cost.

The hdcache is not listed at all in the Asset Tracker, which is why I presume this is happening.

I have a bad feeling that this is a max issue, but in case it can be fixed by you guys is there any solution to this?

Cheers,

5

Hardware / 4k/UHD Monitor Recommendations

« on: 2015-11-09, 11:33:27 »

Is anyone using a 4k/UHD monitor? I'm looking for some recommendations. Obviously the usual things are important. Must be 10-bit True Wide-Gamut, accurate colour (SRGB), reliable etc.

It seems that the top end Samsung has quality/build/reliability issues. The top end Dell looks to be a good option. The top end Eizos are crazy expensive, so probably not a feasible option.

Anyone running a Del UP3216Q? This seems to be a good option so far.

I'm aware that windows scaling is not yet working with 3ds max but I've had an informal confirmation that it will be supported for max 2017. I'm also aware that scaling isn't really needed at all when the monitor is large enough, and 30+" should be fine.

Anyone running one for daily use, any issues/thoughts?

Cheers,

6

[Max] I need help! / Should DR/BB nodes reload the max file for every frame?

« on: 2015-11-06, 17:35:17 »

Hi folks,

When rendering an animation sequence, is it correct/expected that the other machines on the network have to close and reopen max for every frame? I get this when rendering a sequence either with DR or just plain old backburner frames. For every frame the server seems to dump max and reload the scene from scratch. This isn't the case with my main workstation where the job is running from, where it only loads the scene once.

This is the case even when the HDcache is saved out and being read, so just pure frame rendering happening.

My network nodes are super slow as a result of this. They need maybe 1 min or so to load the file and get going each frame.

Any ideas?

7

[Max] Feature Requests / CoronaCameraMod - Pass control, Displacement etc.

« on: 2015-11-06, 11:07:49 »

Not sure if this is possible, but I hope so...

Could we please get CoronaCameraMod controls for specifying max render passes/max time and perhaps other features like displacement override, MB override etc.?

Edit: forgot to mention - the other super important one would be the GI v AA balance value, per cameramod. Could be very useful!

This would be enormously useful when you have multiple cameras per max file and need different passes for some, some shots might not need displacement while some do etc. This would do away with needing to split out into loads of max files as separate shots. Scene States are horrible and unreliable to use.

8

[Max] Resolved Bugs / IR causes Forest objects to disappear in viewports

« on: 2015-11-05, 12:47:12 »

Not sure if this is known, and it might be a problem for iToosoft to solve, but whenever I activate IR, either as floating or viewport, the forest renders fine but the entire forest disappears from my viewports. Not just invisible but the object itself isn't in the scene explorer. Somehow it's being hidden.

Cheers,

On 1.3. max 2016 sp1.

9

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Saving in RC5 opening in 1.2.1 Multiplies Bump Map value by 4x!

« on: 2015-10-30, 12:43:57 »

Quite a nasty bug:

Open any corona scene, set a bump map value to 1.0 in a corona material, save it in RC5, then open it again in 1.2.1 and it will have changed to 4.0.

Do the same but at 2, it will come back as 8. 4, back at 16 and so on.

10

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Tiny request - DRServer to be installed by default

« on: 2015-10-29, 09:45:40 »

Very, very tiny request for you - I would suggest enabling the DRServer to install by default in your installers. Even if someone never uses it, it's one less thing to miss by mistake when installing if you do need to use it, especially when rolling out across lots of nodes, and doesn't do you any harm if you don't need it.

11

[Max] Resolved Bugs / 1.3RC1 IR Restarting Bugs

« on: 2015-10-26, 11:56:28 »

Hi folks,

Max 2016 SP1, Nitrous, windows 8.1 pro, 1.3RC1.

I'm just adding here as I come across them but they're all basically related to one thing - IR restarting:

Selecting the camera being rendered causes IR to restart

Clicking on the phys camera underneath a coronacameramod causes IR restart (and visa versa)

Move mouse over any coronamaterial in material editor = popup tooltip = IR restarts
Also seems to apply to some other tooltips elsewhere in UI

Simply click on any other material in the editor and the IR restarts (not every time, only some times)

Close material editor and re-open it - IR restarts.

IR seems to get jammed a lot, with no visual update, but it's rendering away in the background, then dumps an update in one go to the viewport/floating window.

Select a light, IR restarts. Deselect light, IR restarts. No changes happened to the scene.

Keep cursor off 3ds max UI, IR rendering is fine. Move cursor back over the UI anywhere and IR restarts.

Maybe related to the one above - launch IR window, keep cursor over max UI. No update happening to IR. Move cursor off Max UI and bam - IR updates and image appears.

These last two, plus the one about tooltips, are probably the most obvious and problematic issues.

12

[Max] Resolved Bugs / DR maps not transferring (this old problem again...)

« on: 2015-10-23, 17:28:28 »

Hi folks,

This one has us stumped, still.

We have 4 machines here all running on the same switch. I control 3 of them and my colleague controls 1 of them. All 3 of my machines render perfectly with both BB and DR rendering together. Maps are read fine and rendering works 100%.

We're trying to get DR renders to launch from his machine and use one of mine as a DR node.

I can use my colleague's machine as a DR slave when the render is launched from mine and everything renders perfectly. Maps are transferred properly.

However my colleague's machine refuses to send any maps across the network for DR rendering when the render is launched from his own machine. For BB rendering they transfer just fine. In fact, it's not only maps from his machine but mine too. If he renders a scene on his machine with maps from my machine (UNC all the way, of course) it still doesn't work. So map location is irrelevant, it seems. His machine simply won't transfer any maps of any sort from any location to or from his machine when he is the one to launch the render.

His machine works with maps perfectly over BB. It's literally only DR that doesn't work.

Here's the error from my the DRServer log when his machine has sent the render:

<CoronaDrMessage>&lt;Error&gt;Required asset file(s) could not be located:
\\COLLEAGUESPC\corona test\12_1_2__guest_room_d.jpg
&lt;/Error&gt;</CoronaDrMessage>

We have tried with different files. If we use a map that's actually on my own machine (via UNC path) it still doesn't work. My machine cannot get access to a map on my own machine, when the render is launched from his machine. It's very bizarre.

That exact UNC path resolves perfectly on my own machine. I have full read and write permissions on that shared folder. I can view the map just fine. If I load the same max file myself and use HIS machine as a DR node, it works. The map is transferred.

Same max version, same corona version (inc. DR server) - we're on the dailies from 20th with DR from 17th, UNC paths that properly resolve on both machines. The only obvious thing that's different is that he's on windows 7 pro and I'm on 8.1 pro. Maybe there's an issue there somewhere?

Totally stumped! We think it must be some kind of network/permissions/ports issue but can't think why...

13

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Ctrl+Shift+Esc kills renders when VFB is focused

« on: 2015-09-28, 12:11:57 »

Hi,

Another small but potentially dangerous one - If you hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc (to bring up the task manager) while the CoronaVFB window is focused it will kill your render as if you just hit Esc on its own.

This does not happen if any other window in 3ds max is currently in focus, including render setup dialog, mat editor, the main render progress dialog or any other part of the UI, as far as I can tell. Only the CoronaVFB.

We very frequently bring up the task manager to quickly check/change affinities etc. during renders so this one could be nasty... obvious short-term work-around is to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and bring it up that way, or via task bar.

Forgot to mention: max 2016 sp1, corona latest daily build 24th sept.

Cheers,

14

[Max] Resolved Bugs / EXR - Store Image as Tiles = No Colour Depth

« on: 2015-09-25, 14:58:48 »

Not sure if this is a bug with max, EXR or Corona, but when you save your render from the VFB out as an EXR, if you save it with Storage Type set to Tiles you will lose all your colour information and it will essentially be 8-bit. You must save it out as Scanlines Storage Type, then you'll have full 16/32-bit.

This might be an issue with default max 2016 exr output settings.

Perhaps this is a known issue?

15

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Corona Lights - Gizmo size doesn't respect scene units

« on: 2015-09-24, 14:49:26 »

Hi, just a very small one but quite annoying: when working in metres, Corona Lights with default gizmo size = 1 are huge in the scene and cause a lot of issues with scene clutter and when trying to orbit around them.