Topics

46

General CG Discussion / HELP - file size problem

« on: 2017-08-02, 19:50:22 »

Hi

Have a problem with file sizes. Working with my projects noticed that if I merge some objects from another scene file size grows even if that objects have just few polygons. Made some tests and find out this issue:
Start new empty scene and save it - file size is 375Kb
Merge objects with just 5000 polys of Max's geometry, save file - file size 47.5Mb (which is too much for 5000 polys)!
Delete everything from the scene, clean material editor's views, save file - file size 47.5Mb!!!!

I tried to inspect this file, but didn't find anything... I'm wondering how many extra megabytes I have in my files if deleting unnecessary geometry doesn't make them lighter.

I attached described above scene here. This is the empty scene with file size 47.5Mb

I would be very grateful if someone could help to inspect this file and find out what is wrong with it.

Thanks in advance!

47

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Lightmix Rest (unassigned) pass not denoised

« on: 2017-07-04, 19:41:48 »

Hi
Have a problem with lightmix Rest (unassigned) pass and denosing. This pass comes automatically and doesn't have option to be or not to be denoised. From Max I can't even see this element, it's visible in CIE. The problem is that this pass not included to denoising and makes the whole picture from Lightmix noisy.
Is it a bug or I do something wrong?

48

[Max] Bug Reporting / Picture without denoising replaced by denoised picture in VFB when render starts

« on: 2017-06-07, 18:27:42 »

Hello

Some problem with rendered picture in VFB and denoising. If I have unticked option "Clear VFB inbetween renders", I'd like to see last rendered picture when render starts  and see changes there. There no problem with that if denoising is switched off, but if it's on, VFB shows last denpised picture each time render starts even if I rendered some pictures and canceled denoising.

Maybe it will be more clear if you reproduce this workflow:
Render picture and let Corona to denoise it. Change something and render region or full picture again, this time cancel render without denoising. Start render again -not denoised picture will be replaced by denoised picture which we rendered first. If you stop denoising in the middle of the process, picture which will replace rendered picture in VFB will be kind a bled of denoised and not denoised pictures

It is not convenient when I want to render some region of a big size picture and tweak for example color of some object there, denoising in that case could take pretty much time especially if lightmixer's layers should be denoised too, but it's important to see the progress of changes.

49

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Corona 1.6, FP 5.3.1/2/3b grass is changing during the production rendering

« on: 2017-05-12, 23:26:20 »

Hello. I'm not sure is it the bug of Corona or FP, so I decide to publish this post here and on FP's support forum too.

I use Corona 1.6 and since the Forest Pack 5.3.1 I'm getting pretty weird grass renders. I use Edge option from Boundary checking section and DistanceToEdge effect, and I suppose this problem connected somehow with that. Please, check attached pictures. Three of them saved from the same rendering saved on different render times (you can check the stamp and the names of the pictures contain render time also). As you can see the whole grass is changing during the rendering – material color and the boundary.

I haven't see anything like this ever – object is changing during the production rendering!

I had to install Forest Pack 5.3.0 which works well in my case and I get render result which I supposed to get (picture attached too). Picture saved in the beginning of rendering with FP 5.3.3b is showing the grass as it should be, but longer render is going - worse grass looks...

Any ideas what is this?

Max 2014, Corona 1.6, tested with FP 5.3.1/2/3b

50

[Max] I need help! / Render selected object as a button/keyboard shortcut

« on: 2017-03-29, 10:59:16 »

Hello

Is there any way to make Render selected -> viewport selection enable/disable as a separated button or as a keyboard shortcut? It would be useful to have this switcher wile working with IR on some objects without the need to have Render dialog opened

51

General CG Discussion / Control over move/rotate/scale from the one common dialog

« on: 2017-03-08, 10:17:44 »

Hello!

Do you know the way how to get control over all transform parameters in one dialog window in 3DS Max at the same time? I suppose that it will be useful for my upcoming project, but I don't know how to do get that.
My idea is to have something like on the attached picture and have possibility to move/rotate/scale selected objects just entering the necessary numbers directly in to the fields of this dialog.
Do you know, is there something like this inside of Max? Or if you've seen this kind of script somewhere would be very grateful to get the link.

Thanks in advance!

52

[Max] I need help! / How to avoid long parsing time?

« on: 2017-01-26, 12:59:15 »

Hi

Mostly working with exterior scenes I have situations when files with about the same amount of objects, tree models, cars, etc., have quite different parsing time. And this difference not about few percent, for example one scene has Scene parsing time 9 sec, another one has 1min 20sec of parsing time. As I said they are about the same - trees, grass, cars... Was thinking, that problem is some object in scene, but excluding groups of objects from rendering (trees, then grass, then cars and so on) I made parsing time go down proportionally in both scenes, so I didn't find any particular object/s which can affect to parsing time so much.

So I'd like to know:
What the Scene parsing process is?
What determines the time for parsing?
How to avoid long parsing time?
And would be interesting to hear your ideas what can be wrong with the scene described above? You can find attached screenshot with this scene, parsing time here 1min 10sec - 1min 30sec

Thanks in advance!

53

[Max] Bug Reporting / Corona 1.5 light mixer and reflection of light object

« on: 2016-10-11, 11:41:41 »

Hi

Simple scene with Corona sun and one Corona light. Testing light mixer found some strange reflection behavior. Please, check attached pictures. Here Corona light has unchecked Visible directly and Occlude other lights. You can get more different results playing with those checkboxes

3DS Max 2014

54

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Corona 1.5 distance map with deleted object

« on: 2016-10-11, 11:17:45 »

Hi

Tried distance map and found this bug(?).
If "Distance from" object has been deleted, distance map ignores bitmap in color slots and use simple color.

55

Hardware / Is GTX 980 Ti good?

« on: 2016-10-10, 16:26:26 »

Hi guys!

Could you tell me, is GTX 980 Ti with 6GB video memory good for work in 3DS Max? I'm not talking about GPU rendering now, I'm thinking about viewport performance at the moment.
Now I  have GTX 660 Ti with 3GB, and I'd like to get better performance. It would be also interesting to know if you have better price/quality balanced video card for this case.

Thanks in advanced!

56

General CG Discussion / Lot of cars placement on curvy surface

« on: 2016-09-01, 19:30:52 »

Hi guys,

Almost in every project which needs exterior views I have to place a lot of cars on streets and parking lots. Problem is that here, where I live and work, is not any flat pieces of ground. Always roads are laying on curved ground surface. It is really long time annoying job to place tens of cars on a roads rotating each of them by all axis in order to put all 4 wheels to the road surface. Normally I use proxies for car's bodies and leave only front wheels as a real geometry to have possibility to turn them if it is needed.
Can you suggest some fast way how to make cars aligned to the ground surface? Please, share your way how to place lot of cars on curved surface fast, if you succeed with this.

Thanks in advanced!

57

Off-Topic / Windows 10 - how to avoid an upgrade

« on: 2016-07-27, 22:27:12 »

Hello!

I have Windows 7 now and I don't want to switch to Windows 10 atleast now. But I know that some people already have problem - win 7 automaticaly upgraded to win 10. I don't want get suprised like that. I don't like this agressive pressure from Microsoft at all. This is why I switched off windows automaticaly updates and uninstalled update which was offering upgrade to win 10. But now I have some problems with Corona, because it needs latest windows updates for it's work. For example I have problem with Building acc. structure (reported here https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12556.0.html). I've checked threads on this forum and found this https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12563.0.html and of course this one https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12409.0.html. And it seems to me that my problem can be solved by windows updating.

Do you guys know the way how to get windows updates and do not get Windows 10 as a surprise one day? Or maybe you know the names of updates which contain those windows upgraders/installers, so I could install all updates exept those ones?

Also would be interesting to know opinion about Windows 10 from those who already have it.

Thanks in advanced!

58

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Building acc. structure takes long time

« on: 2016-07-12, 22:52:11 »

Hello!
Have an issue with Building acc. structure process. In scenes, where this process takes normally few seconds from time to time it starts to take 1.5 - 2 minutes instead. Even if I do not change anything, just click render and stop buttons I can get so different times for Building acc. structure in about 50% of cases. It doesn't depend of amount of geometry, HDRi or anything else what I tried to change...
I've noticed it working with Corona 1.4, but with newest builds (2016-07-12 currently) I have the same picture.
Max 2014, win 7

59

General CG Discussion / Material Editor sample object preview

« on: 2016-07-05, 21:46:11 »

Hi guys!

Almost all the time while I work on archvis projects I'm not satisfied with default material preview objects (sphere, cube, cylinder). They do not give enough visual information about the material. This is why I prefer to use my own sample object with rectangular light source (which is more important for work with vray) for material preview in MatEditor (you can see it on attachement) - it gives better visualisation of material I'm working on, about reflections on spherical and flat surfaces at the same time, and even about AO maps if they used in this shader. But in 3DS Max 2014 which I use now switching to custom sample object is possible only from Compact Material Editor mode - not good for me because I get used to work in Slate ME.
Does somebody knows the way how to make Max to use my own sample object as default object for preview (would be perfect)?
Or maybe how to change sample object to my own from Slate Material Editor?

Thanks in advanced!

60

[Max] General Discussion / Corona 1.3 with 1.4 render speed comparison

« on: 2016-05-24, 09:06:46 »

Hello,
Don't remember from wich daily I start to fill that Corona 1.4 builds clean picture slower, but I was too attracted with denoising, so I didn't concentrate on this. But now I decided to make some tests and compare render speed of Corona 1.3 and 1.4. Results made me a bit sad... Here are comparison pictures rendered with no denoising:

pictures 1, 2 - project made with Corona 1.3 and rendered 13 min with 1.3 and 1.4 (sorry for blured area - names....)
picture 3 - crops zoomed 200%
plus statistics and render setup  UIs
picture 4 - crop of the project I just start to work on, made with 1.4 and rendered with  both 1.4 and 1.3, zoomed 200%

As you can see Corona 1.4 gives much noisier result with the same render time. Also parsing time is longer. Beside that CoronaMultiMap gives different color combination in 1.3 and 1.4 version (look cars colors).
I'd like to ask - is it the price for posibility to denoise picture or something wrong with my render settings or what ever from my side? Did somebody make the same kind of tests?

Win 7, dual Xeon E5-2660, 32Gb of RAM, Max 2014