Chaos Corona Forum

Chaos Corona for 3ds Max => [Max] Bug Reporting => [Max] Resolved Bugs => Topic started by: CASA_MT on 2016-11-29, 10:22:28

Title: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: CASA_MT on 2016-11-29, 10:22:28
Hi @ all,

I have encountered a strange behaviour in Corona 1.5 (1.5.1 and 1.5.2) with 3ds max 2017 SP 2.
I rendered a Hi-res image (4900 x 3500 px) and when starting the render process everything is fine. After 30 passes or so, some of the render elements (including beauty, lightmix and reflect/refract) turn black. When scrolling through the elements, they will be visible again, but will disappear after a second or so. When I try to save the .exr files, they will turn out completely black. I hoped that it would be just a display issue, but the image itself does not contain any information except black.

I already made a completely new file, tried it only locally, with DR and via backburner, it is always the same. There are only Corona-compatible cameras and materials inside the scene and the camera is not occluded by any other geometry.

Any ideas how to fix this? I did not encounter anything similar so far
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: CASA_MT on 2016-11-30, 13:04:37
Ok, seems like no one ran into this before.
Just if anybody experiences this problem:
So far the only way to at least get the files out of the framebuffer is to keep an eye on the FB and save the VFB every ~ 10 passes or so. When the VFB turns black again, close the file, restart MAX and resume the renderjob from file.
It is not very fun to do this, but at least it works.
I am still interested if there is anything to prevent this, we do not have this issue with any other file.
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: maru on 2016-11-30, 14:42:00
Sorry for the delay!
What file format are you using to save the render elements?
How is your RAM? Are you sure you are not running out of it?
Other than that, any Corona error messages visible?
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: CASA_MT on 2016-11-30, 15:15:15
Hi,

I wanted to save them as .exr but also tested .tiffs, does not make a difference.
I have 48 GB of RAM and the scene is relatively simple, It took around 7 GB of RAM.
As I said, I already tried it via backburner or DR, picture still turns black.
There are no Corona-errors whatsoever which is the strangest thing.
As I had to try several things, I noticed that Corona will not render more than a certain amount of passes (e.g. 27) within one session before the VFB turns black. This is why I had to restart MAX and give it another try. In a new MAX-instance it will render past the level of passes which caused the black VFB.
Veeeery strange.
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: sevecek on 2016-11-30, 15:19:54
Are you using Bloom & Glare? If so, could you please check if the problem appears also with B&G turned off?
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: CASA_MT on 2016-11-30, 15:36:58
I was using a lot the VFB-features.
I will try turning off all of them and see what happens. I will post an update as soon as I see anything strange.
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ondra on 2016-11-30, 17:51:18
I would be interested in the scene and also info about what coroan version are you using
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: CASA_MT on 2016-12-01, 08:34:12
hi,

I rendered the frame over night without the VFB Post-FX and it managed to get to nearly 200 passes without a black VFB.
I stopped it and could save the image. As soon as I turned on Bloom and Glare the VFB became black again, all other FX seem to work fine.
At least you gave me the right direction if this occurs again, thanks a lot.
I still find it strange and of course we want to use Bloom and Glare from time to time.

Is there any advice how to avoid this behavior? I just want to make sure that we can use VFB FX without being worried that the picture will turn into black.

@ Ondra: Corona is 1.5.2 (but it also happens in 1.5.1). The scene is around 200 Mb large, no scattering, no proxies or any other fancy stuff.
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ondra on 2016-12-01, 14:26:06
Can you upload the scene (see my sig)? Or wait for next daily build (hopefully today) - there is another NAN fix in it
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: råformat on 2016-12-20, 10:23:07
Hi
I have exact the same problem as CASA_MT. I have try to render big and small, with or without sun/hdri. My RAM is 64GB on one computer and128GB on another and they never peak.
I´m using Max2017 with Corona 1.5 hotfix 1
Tried to save as jpeg or tiff. Printscreen does work though... Lucky to have a 30" screen, so I can give something to my customer... ;)

Any soulution?

all the best/Ola
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: råformat on 2016-12-20, 13:56:21
Hello again
Tried to render without bloom&glare - works perfect!
Strange is that I have another camera in the same scene that render and save with bloom&Glare...

But it would be great if there was any solution to this problem.


regards
Ola
Title: Re: Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ondra on 2017-04-02, 13:06:22
I am still waiting for a scene that produces black pixels so I can fix the problem ;)
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ondra on 2017-04-24, 18:23:28
no info, presumed fixed in 1.6
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Michał Morzy on 2017-10-16, 18:33:06
Hi guys,

I know that this topic is quite old but I seems like it hasn't been fixed in Cr1.6. It occurred for the first time in one of our scenes. Exactly the same problem. After few passes the VFB turns black. Anyone has any more recent solutions?

Cheers,
Michal
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: maru on 2017-10-17, 11:15:43
I experienced exactly the same thing once, and I have it reproducible in a scene. It is already reported in our internal tracker, along with a link to this forum thread. Any updates will be shared here as well.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ryuu on 2017-10-23, 14:54:24
Hi guys,

I know that this topic is quite old but I seems like it hasn't been fixed in Cr1.6. It occurred for the first time in one of our scenes. Exactly the same problem. After few passes the VFB turns black. Anyone has any more recent solutions?

Cheers,
Michal

Hi, does it still occur with 1.7 RC10? If it does, could you please share a scene where this problem occurs? You can use the private uploader from my signature. The scene will be used only for the internal testing and deleted once the bug is fixed.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Imperfct on 2017-10-29, 19:42:07
Hi guys,

I'm rendering a project with Corona 1.7 and I had the same problem of VFB. The problem started at pass 110, before everything was fine. I was using the bloom and glare panel inside the VFB and the interactive LightMix. Suddenly LightMix (and beauty also) turned completely black.
When I turned off bloom and glare everything was fine again... This is the first time though, never had a similar problem before but it's really annoying. Is this a known bug or something weird that is happinening just to me?
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ryuu on 2017-10-30, 12:58:00
Is it something that happened just once or is it reproducible. If it's reproducible, could you please share the scene with us for internal testing/debugging?
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Imperfct on 2017-10-31, 14:49:57
Hi Riyuu,

Sorry but in this moment I cannot share the scene. I forgot to mention before that I was using the new Light Solver. Now I'm rendering another scene (same project, different camera) and the bloom and glare panel seems working. I also found out that with the new light solver I had some problems of black dots in the scene. After unchecking it everything worked fine (but much much slower!)
Did you have the same problems with this new feature during the tests?
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: maru on 2017-10-31, 14:52:14
There were some similar reports (new solver + black dots), so a scene would be a huge help to get this fixed. Maybe you could remove most of the scene, and keep only some part of it (e.g. just the walls), while still maintaining the bug?
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Imperfct on 2017-10-31, 15:21:35
Ok, no problem, as soon as I'll finish rendering I'll upload it and I'll send it to you.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: mylesmontgomery on 2017-11-21, 21:28:44
Hi Maru, Ondra,

We are have this issue with a scene as CASA_MT did. The scene when rendered to one our nodes or workstation turns black after a while of rendering.
I've noticed the bloom/glare isn't really showing when it should. We're having this issue sporadically with scenes and cameras from the master scene this 'dining' setup originated from.

When I turn bloom and glare off while rendering it doesn't turn to black....

I have uploaded the scene for you to inspect.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: mylesmontgomery on 2017-11-22, 00:45:03
Through a bit of testing, this issues seems to be caused by a bug bloom/glare at high resolution.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: Ryuu on 2017-11-22, 08:41:22
Did you try latest daily build? There were some fixes for this issue, so with any luck it will also fix your problems.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: mylesmontgomery on 2017-11-22, 10:30:23
Thanks Ryuu,

I'll give it a shot now.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: mylesmontgomery on 2017-11-22, 19:06:30
The Daily Build has fixed the issue thanks.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: RonHH on 2018-04-05, 16:30:42
Hi guys,
is this problem already fixed? I got the same issue with the lastest official release of corona. On my Workstation everything behaves fine but on some servers the beauty and lightmix pass turns black after a while and saves out an black image as well.
As soon as i disable bloom and glare it renders fine.
I just tried to disable the frame buffer during the rendering, but its not working. It still render in corona native frame buffer.

Someone knows a solution?

Specs:
Win7
3dsmax 2015
Corona 1.7 HF 4

Cheers,
Ron
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: RonHH on 2018-04-06, 06:38:04
I just forgot to mention, my image size insn't that big.
Just a small HD (1280 by 720 px)

All Corona Settings are default values, except flickerfree is turn on.
Title: Re: [feedback] Corona VFB switches to black
Post by: maru on 2018-04-06, 12:07:17
This thread is pretty old, so it is not very convenient to track the issue here.
Could you send us a message to support@corona-renderer.com with a link to this thread and all the information you can provide?
If anything else is needed, we will request it.

Thanks a lot.