Messages

31

[Max] I need help! / Re: Workflow guidance for large collection of images (batch rendering process)

« on: 2019-11-01, 15:20:26 »

Hi everyone, thank-you for your replies to this problem of mine, I'll certainly check out the Pulze piece of software. I am extremely ignorant to this side of production, I've done very little of mass product renders so its all a bit new to me!

I must have been doing the photoshop actions part incorrect as I just couldn't get the automatic selection of masks to automate and for it to work across files which are named differently, so Product 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

With the exporting with the correct naming, are any of you or maybe someone just lurking about reading my hapless reply be able to give me a weblink or direction of how to export with the same render file name?

Thanks again for all your help!

32

[Max] I need help! / Re: Workflow guidance for large collection of images (batch rendering process)

« on: 2019-10-31, 15:29:48 »

@Maru

Thanks for getting back to me. You're totally right I am sure there are some better places for asking this question, however I have rarely had to ever do this line of work of mass production of images and so I am pretty ignorant to even knowing what websites/forums to go and ask, I do know however you guys over here are very helpful! So I thought I would try my luck ;)

Again you would think that would work and for some instances I think it can work. The problems I am having is to try and get the action to run through importing the large amount of files, performing the selections of the masks needed for specific areas of colour correction and then saving them out.

This is where I believe I have got middle ground with after effects because the way it obviously runs through the frames is essentially exactly what I need it to do, as I say the big problem is having the exported file name with the correct name. However having to rename 1000+ by hand is far more appealing than having to open and save photoshop a few hundred times ^-^.

I'm sure there is some way of doing this properly but quite honestly I wouldn't really know where to even begin looking in the correct places.

Thanks again for replying! :)

33

[Max] I need help! / Re: Workflow guidance for large collection of images (batch rendering process)

« on: 2019-10-31, 12:11:57 »

Hi everyone again,

So I've had an idea on how to do this. Its a bit of a work around and no doubt it'll probably come off as obvious for a lot of you but just on the off chance it helps someone else then here is my plan!

Basically I'll run this like an animation, so instead of it being view 1, view 2, view 3, it'll be essentially an animated export so I can then use after effects to bring in the renders, and from there I can section off the colour correction for each of the finishes via frame count and because then the mask will be "animated" it'll follow where I need the corrections to be made and I can re-use these for the different products which may use the same finish but will be the same colour.

The only short coming I can see of this process is that on the export of the files being not named correctly.... but honestly that seems far less painful than the alternatives that I can think of.

I hope this is of some help to someone or it helps to generate a better idea from anyone else.

Cheers,
Leigh

34

[Max] I need help! / Workflow guidance for large collection of images (batch rendering process)

« on: 2019-10-31, 11:41:46 »

Hi everyone.

I am hoping to find some guidance (links to sources) of how I achieve the following (if it all possible?)

Basically I am having to produce a large quantity of renders of a product in 5 different angles which will need colour correction applying via photoshop/aftereffects in 30 different finishes (to ensure colour matching of finishes).

Essentially I want to know if it is possible to get photoshop or after effects to load up these individual renders and their respective elements and apply the colour corrections in the correct manner (I am thinking of selecting the correct outputted masks)

Or is this something that is not currently possible or would require some specialized script/program to do? I've spoken to one person about this and for something kind of similar a custom script had to be developed for it.

Finally I have tried looking online and so far all I can find are tutorials based on single elements which apply either a crop/resizing/pasting on top a simple graphic. There are none that show element selection, use of multiple selections of masks in a singular action which can be run across multiple renders ie View 1, view 2, view 3, view 4, view 5.

I appreciate there are quite a few batch rendering posts on here and I have tried scanning through to find the answers or atleast an idea and I have been unable to, so apologies in advance if this has already been covered, a simple copy and paste link to what could be the answer is all that I would need and be hugely grateful for.

Thanks everyone :)

35

[Max] I need help! / Re: Small square box of noise appearing towards end of render

« on: 2019-08-30, 10:34:49 »

Hi,

Just a quick update which throws a bit more confusion into the mix, I've just noticed a scene rendered (VRAY Next) and noticed the same sort of noise appearing around the same sort of area (being around the soft sun light edges/to shadows)

Only issue I've got is that obviously VRAY included the new Adaptive dome feature and its not actually turned on in my file; although I could have not saved... I'll attach a screenshot for you.

The only consistent feature I can point out is that it appears to be happening around the edges of the sunlight.... HOWEVER, same scene but a different camera angle and there is no weird bucket noise what so ever.

I know this isn't a VRAY forum however I appreciate you guys have shared some stuff together so maybe this may help to limit the search or hopefully be able to rule out some possibilities.

36

[Max] I need help! / Re: Small square box of noise appearing towards end of render

« on: 2019-08-29, 12:18:59 »

Hi,

I'll ask our support team if they can think of anything else.

Could you also confirm which versions of Max and Corona you are using?

Thanks,

Rowan

Oh yeah of course apologies, its the following:
3DS Max 2018 - 2018. 4 Update / 20.0 - 20.4.0.4254

Corona 4
Full-speed, Non-debug, MaxSDK2018
Build Timestamp: Jun 10 2019 - 16:01:03
Defines: Wide RGB

37

[Max] I need help! / Re: Small square box of noise appearing towards end of render

« on: 2019-08-29, 11:47:52 »

Hi,

We definately want to investigate the cause of this. The adaptive light solver should not cause these kind of issues.

Would you be able to send over your scene to us? Instructions on how to do this are in my signiture.

Could you also tell me which versions of Max and Corona you are using?

Thanks,

Rowan

Hi Rowan,

I'll ask to see if I am able to send this over to you, currently the scene is in production at the moment and so I don't really have the spare time to send it and looking at your link I think a video as well may be a good idea to show you the flickering in action.

It does look like it its primiliarly happening with the adaptive light solver and from a different angle and the sunlight position moved, the artifacts are no longer happening around the fireplace but around certain areas (a log basket...not that it makes any real difference I don't think?) but it does appear to be linked to the area where I have the sun shinning/focused (size 5 which I do have animated to change size slightly) intensity 0.1.

I appreciate what I have put does not help all that much, but until I can find out if I can 1 send the scene and 2 are able to send the scene I can only give my descriptions.

Is there anything else I could provide to help?

38

[Max] I need help! / Re: Small square box of noise appearing towards end of render

« on: 2019-08-29, 10:50:44 »

Quick Update - Turned off Adaptive Light Sampler, rendered the first 10 frames and no noise (previously I had some noise appearing in a random amount of frames). So I am going to send it to the farm and I should hopefully have better idea later on today, but it looks like the Adaptive Light Sampler is the thing giving me issues... or something within this specific scene is giving it issues.

Fingers crossed this works!

39

[Max] I need help! / Re: Small square box of noise appearing towards end of render

« on: 2019-08-29, 10:22:03 »

It appears both locally (rendering just on this machine) and when it is sent to be rendered across the farm, I don't distributed this in the sense of actually "distributed rendering".

No I have left that on as I thought it was production safe now? I'll give it a go and let you know. Just before anyone asks as I know its common place, I won't be able to share the scene, annoyingly this problem has only really surfaced on this scene and its only appeared around the fireplace and (a log basket) although that seemed to randomly fix itself..

I'll get back to you asap and let you know.

Thanks for the suggestion, I really appreciate the help! :)

If anyone else just wants to shout things at me to try please go ahead, I need to try and fix this lol.

40

[Max] I need help! / Small square box of noise appearing towards end of render

« on: 2019-08-29, 10:06:13 »

Hi everyone,

I am having major issues on an animation where by I am getting these weird boxes of high frequency noise. It's happening towards the end of the render, by that I mean when the noise level approaches/drops to the specified amount (first I had it at 2% and then I raised it to 4%)

Its super frustrating because it makes no sense for it to happen, I can understand poor materials or bad lighting to make excessively noisey renders but for the noise to actually emerge towards the lower noise limit is really strange. Also the box of noise jumps around the same area but its not consistent in its placement in that area, if that makes sense?!

I've obviously had a quick look already and I've tried the following.

1. Removed the bloom and Glare from the result (I saw a post about this possibly causing this issue)
2. Increased the noise limit from 2% to 4% I had thought it was caused by some odd over sampling bug.... it looked like it did work but this noise happens on random frames, its not consistent.
3. Tried turning denoising on and off.
4. Changed lighting strengths, removed any outside emissive backplates.
5. Simplified the material, no textures, no crazy high reflection amounts etc

Any suggestions would be welcome. The Scene is lit with a basic corona sun and sky. No overlapping geometry, no weird wholes in any of the meshes etc

41

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: Stochastic texturing to avoid texture tiling

« on: 2019-08-15, 16:38:17 »

Probably a little off with this but the random brick thing may sort of work like the using of Max's tiles to create a procedural brick texture. It looks like some of the bricks in that example are cut in half. Not sure if anyone knows this method (probably do) but you basically randomly place a brick texture which features 2 halves of a brick with mortar in the middle and then a full brick underneath.

Then using tiles to generate a random series of black and white alphas to show/hide the textures. So perhaps he has something similar to that? As its been said he may be using a grid to generate and then within that he is just randomly overlaying the texture.

Probably isn't how he is doing it..., but its a method anyone can use to create a totally procedural brick texture with just 6 different brick maps. Pretty basic, but it works fairly well. Plus since its Max tiles doing the distribution you can have really high res or low res maps in the slots so its pretty customizable.

42

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Automatic image saving on pressing Stop

« on: 2019-06-27, 13:57:09 »

Really?

Yes :)

Also the "use iterative rendering" how about if you just want to stop the render you're currently doing because you forgot to do something such as maybe not changing the file output to a different one and then because you're tired as.... you forget to hit cancel (which I know works correctly lol) instead of stop.

Well, you can also format your hd accidentally when being exhausted :) If you use iterative rendering, pressing stop or cancel, both will not save anything at all. The only difference ist that in case of "stop", corona would do prostprocessing stuff like denoising. If you render regular and press stop then -yes- files get saved. It's the fourth stop condition besides noise level, time limit and number of passes if you like to say so. And in case of animation or multiple frames, rendering continues with the next frame after pressing stop.

But usually when you start a render and the main output file exists, you get a warning box anyway. So the only dangerous situation is that one you obviously had: to use production with output unticked and having render elements active. You do not get overwrite warnings in this case, that was happening to you (and me two or three times btw. when not using embedded REs in EXRs/CXRs as output).

Just in my opinion it seems a little strange when telling it to stop rendering and you don't have "save file" checked that it saves the file.

Main output and render elements are considered to be two different things in Max, "Elements Active" in render elements would be the equivalent of "Save File" in Common tab.



Good Luck

I do use iterative rendering when actually working on the job, it was purely because I needed to render something at the final resolution and from there I just thought "ah I need to adjust the material by element because I've just spotted a randomisation issue, *hit stop* oh f...." then it was just a race to find the folder of the original renders and move them into a new one, luckily saving most of them lol.

I accept hitting stop will still apply denoising etc, just as you've said the elements and output of the base RGB being different things then it will save them and thus giving us the annoying issue of overwriting stuff by accicent.

Thanks for taking your time to reply btw, I do appreciate it :) Cheers!

43

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Automatic image saving on pressing Stop

« on: 2019-06-27, 12:18:18 »

The 'stop' button has a dropdown mode - 'cancel' - when you press and hold it. Cancelling will not save anything.

Thanks, I'll try and remember that for the next time! Cheers.

44

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Automatic image saving on pressing Stop

« on: 2019-06-27, 11:33:39 »

Really? Never had this issue with any other renderer, infact I don't think I had this issue with Corona way back when, atleast not that I can remember.

Also the "use iterative rendering" how about if you just want to stop the render you're currently doing because you forgot to do something such as maybe not changing the file output to a different one and then because you're tired as.... you forget to hit cancel (which I know works correctly lol) instead of stop.

Just in my opinion it seems a little strange when telling it to stop rendering and you don't have "save file" checked that it saves the file.

45

[Max] Bug Reporting / Automatic image saving on pressing Stop

« on: 2019-06-27, 10:58:28 »

Hi,

I've run into a really frustrating issue where even if I have unchecked the save output (should not save an image) if I press stop on the VFB corona will still save and override existing images that it was previously set to. Is there something I could be doing wrong? I've had a quick look but I couldn't spot anything straight away.


Any help on this would be great :D