3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during render

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fip
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 7:37 pm

3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during render

Post by fip » Sat Dec 12, 2015 2:35 am

hello,

I'm hoping someone might give me some insight into what the real issue might be here.

3dsmax disappears while translating bin mesh object during a mental ray render. I am running RFRK3 in 3ds max 2014 and working with files that were created in RF 2015. the sequence is a 100 frame animation that also includes a realwave sd files. the size of the bin mesh object appears to cross a threshold over which I cannot render a frame w/o max blowing up. the size of the mesh peaks about 2/3 of the way through the sequence at 630,000mb and begins to grow smaller as it reaches the end of the animation. all frames that include a mesh that is under 475,000mb will render fine. all frames where the mesh grows above 475,00mb causes the crash. in this case all frames up to frame 45 and after frame 88 will render ok.

during a render, mental ray 1st reports it is translating the scene and the 2nd operation it reports is "translating object rfmeshloader001." during a botched render, when this process reaches the 90% mark 3ds max simple disappears. poof. no error message. I suspected that I was hitting a wall on available RAM and I doubled the system memory from 32gb to 64gb. I also upped the virtual memory size significantly. no change in behavior.

thanks for any feedback on this. I have some large scenes to wrestle down and put together a decent xeon workstation to do it. but it seems like I'm hitting a wall.

cheers,

-fip

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LuisMiguel
Posts: 528
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:37 pm

Re: 3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during ren

Post by LuisMiguel » Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:50 am

Hi flip,

It sounds like a bug. You're telling that you are using RFRK3. Have you tried with RFRK2015?. This bug should have been already fixed in that version. Keep in mind that RFConnect includes the RealFlow and the renderkit in the same installer.

luisM.

fip
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 7:37 pm

Re: 3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during ren

Post by fip » Tue Dec 15, 2015 5:55 pm

thanks for the reply luis. I believe that I have the latest RFRK installed but the graphic buttons in MAX say RFRK3 on the four Create buttons. is there an info page that can be called up to tell me what RF versions are running? I have installed RF2015 - is RFConnect a different way to install the program(s)? I'll dig deeper when I return to the studio - today is a long teaching day. thanks again.

cheers,

-frank

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LuisMiguel
Posts: 528
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:37 pm

Re: 3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during ren

Post by LuisMiguel » Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:26 pm

Hi,

Usually you will need to uninstall the previous renderkit plugin you had in your machine. It is probably you have a conflict between both versions. Try to find rfrk3.dll file in your 3dsmax folder. If it is in the 3dsmax folder, go to uninstall software and remove the renderkit 3. If it is not uninstalable anymore, remove the files manually. In any case, you will need to restart 3dsmax.

luisM.

fip
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 7:37 pm

Re: 3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during ren

Post by fip » Fri Dec 18, 2015 7:23 pm

hi luis,

you were quite right - that I was running an old version of RFRK. (it was not originally apparent at the download page what exactly RFconnect was.) I uninstalled the previous version 1st and then ran the new RFconnect exe.

sadly however, updated the plug hasn't changed the problem. after the install, I opened the scene and deleted the old RFmeshloader. I then created a new RFmeshloader via the RFRK2015 interface. the render still blows MAX up at the frames I mentioned.

seeing the new buttons on RFRK2015 raises a couple questions as to whether I am going about this the best way. the mesh in question was built around a single dyverso particle emitter, with the mesh built within RF. I point to the BIN sequence within the RFmeshloader. does this new RFRK offer a more stable mesh option within MAX itself? maybe I'd be better off working with a new workflow rather than doing it the way I'd been working with previous versions of RF.

-frank

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LuisMiguel
Posts: 528
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:37 pm

Re: 3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during ren

Post by LuisMiguel » Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:27 pm

Hi flip,

Try one thing. Open your particles sequence with a particle VDB mesher. The first icon in the toolbar. Next, in the material editor drag and drop the map from the control to panel to the material editor and set it as instance. In the material editor, try to set the polygon size and polygon radius to 0.4 and render the scene with mental ray. Usually, when 3dsmax disappear in that way is due to a memory issue. So, it is possible that the default values are wasting a lot of RAM and for that reason 3dsmax is disappearing.

luisM.

fip
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 7:37 pm

Re: 3dsmax disappears translating bin mesh object during ren

Post by fip » Fri Jan 15, 2016 2:04 am

hi luis,

thanks for working with me on this. I was in the middle of holiday prep and didn't see your last reply. I tried your suggestion. originally I had been working with a mesh sequence that was built in RF. I tried importing that BIN via the VDB messher button but no mesh arrived into the scene. then I noticed you mentioned importing the particle sequence itself. I have RPC particles so I imported them as you describe. they show up in the scene as a point cloud but do not render. I've begun exploring meshing options via Frost. but I feel there is something I am missing here in RF.

-frank

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