Render gets stuck - volumetrics excessive ray weight

[CiroC]

Hi,

So basically, my renders are getting stuck.

Elaborating.

Press render, it starts rendering. Hours late I check the render and let's say is at 70 passes and 8.0% noise level.

6 hours later

70 passes and 8.0%.

Another one.

Set the render to last 24 hours.
24 hours later - it says, 17 hours elapsed. Estimated remaining: 20 hours What???

And this is happening in a lot of machines. Which is great news when you have a deadline for Tuesday.

Any solution? We are using Corona 1.5 hotfix 2

[Nik]

Only time limit is set? No passes or noise level limit?

[CiroC]

Both. With noise level, time and passes limit.

Giving an example.
Last night I left a render at 9% noise level and 47 passes. This morning was at 9% noise level and 50 passes. The CPU was at 8%.

My machine the same.

It starts well and but then after a couple of hours it seems that Corona just stops caring. I don't know if it helps, but when using time limit, the Estimated remaining time is stuck it doesn't go down.

[CiroC]

Basically I have been saving the VFB and restart the render. Which is quite fun when you have 12 machines to check.

[Nik]

This happens only in one scene?

[CiroC]

This happens only in one scene?

So far yes. But this scene is divided into different Xrefs and they are not the same for each camera.

And if you click stop the render, it refuses to stop and apply the denoising.

[Nik]

Well, the problem maybe related to Xrefs somehow.
If you want to find a reson then try to disable half of Xrefs, then check if problem is still there. If not - problem was in disabled Xrefs, so you can enable them and disable half of that half :) and so on, until you will find a problem.

And Stop in VFB should apply denoise when it's pressed. After denoise it should stop. It doesn't?

[CiroC]

That is why I don't think the problem are the Xref.

First, the render starts really well. Like after 2 hours I am already around 12%. Then when I press stop the render, the render doesn't stop and apply the denoising. Also, if I am using the time limit it starts well, so why after a couple of hours it stops working?

I think that if the problem were the Xrefs the render wouldn't even start.

[CiroC]

And it keeps doing it. Just now this render is stuck at 30% noise level.

[CiroC]

Nothing?

[Nik]

It seems for now you are the only one who had this bug.
You can share scene with all xrefs or you can try to find a reason yourself.

Did you use DR or backburner? If yes, then does bug persist if you render locally?

[CiroC]

I know, but would be nice to hear something like: "Yeah probably is an XREF that is stopping the render." or "have you try XYZ?"

 I still don't believe that the render starts with no problems and then it stops because of a XREF.

And isn't only me, is 12 other guys using Corona on our team and hear some of them saying they want VRAY back.

Not using DR or Backburner. I will be working on another project and see if the problem persists.

[Nik]

And isn't only me, is 12 other guys using Corona on our team and hear some of them saying they want VRAY back.

In one scene?

P.S. I'm using xrefs rarely but there were no problems when I did.

[CiroC]

Yes, so as you can imagine is quite a pain. Having to save VFB, close 3ds Max, open again all those Xref and resume render.

And that is what to me doesn't make sense. How is possible that only after a couple of hours the Corona stops working? And if you look at it, everything is normal. The smiley face keeps moving, the numbers keeps going up and down, is only you see the same Pass number and noise level, that you realize something is wrong. And then you press stop the render, and it simply ignores you. It doesn't stop, it doesn't apply the denoising.

[CiroC]

P.S. I'm using xrefs rarely but there were no problems when I did.

We always use Xref without any problems. The plugins we use are:

ComplexFresnel
FloorGenerator
ThinFilm
Clone