error whilst rendering

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error whilst rendering // Archive: Tech Forum

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Post by Matski007 // Jun 4, 2008, 5:20am

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Ive searched the forums and have found nothing to solve this problem.


I am using the newest versions of TS and Vray and am attempting to render a 200 frame animation containing over 200 poker chips falling to the ground (See Pic)

http://www.mat-ski.com/render1.jpg


I can render single frames fine (using vray) however when it comes to rendering all the frames (as single tif's) it crashes usually at frame 9. The frames dont take particularly long to render (roughly 40 seconds) for a 640 x 480 size image, and im on a system with 2gb of high end expensive RAM and a Dual core AMD processor. The scene has one area light and the textures are only 133kb and 425 x 425. No extra settings are on in VRay such as caustics etc. This is becoming a great hindrence on my work.

Also does there exist any software which will batch render my animation without having to open Truespace?


I would appreciate any help anyone can offer me

Post by TomG // Jun 4, 2008, 6:24am

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What happens if you render 0 to 4 only, then another render for frames 5 to 9, then another render for 10 to 14? Not suggesting this as a solution, this is more a diagnostic. Sounds like V-Ray is running out of memory, and if it will render when split up like this, then that would suggest that even more strongly.


If however it still fails on frame 9, then there is something else happening :)


Let us know how that test works out.


Thanks!

Tom



PS - also, is this using physics? If so, is the physics running in real time or was it captured to clips? Finally, there is currently no way to batch render from tS on the workspace side.


HTH!

Tom

Post by Matski007 // Jun 4, 2008, 1:11pm

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I forgot to mention, yes i did try this and yes it did seem to work, although it doesnt always fail at frame nine it can also fail at frame 4. It is clearly a memory issue however I fale to see why VRay should be having such a problem, surely it doesnt need expenentially more memory

Post by TomG // Jun 4, 2008, 7:31pm

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How about the physics, are they in real-time, or captured to clip? Or was physics not used at all, but the animation generated by another means? Could be the physics requiring memory too.


Another thought, can you render Model side using Lightworks? Just to see if it can do more frames than V-Ray etc.


Thanks!

Tom

Post by Matski007 // Jun 5, 2008, 3:00am

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Hmm, the physics has been simulated and is now part of the timeline, it is however simulated in the modeler side and not the workspace, the workspace has not been used at all in this project and I fear it may be getting in the way even with Bridge turned off. When I receive the error it does appear that TS7 is infact using nearly all the available memory there is. This is the issue, is this a memory leak of some kind and is there a way to specify the memory allocation for vray.

I am about to try using lightworks however its taking a very long time because of the arealight, the results from this render are however unusable because of its size and brightness resulting in a nearly completely white render, but for diagnostic purposes it is necessary.

Post by Matski007 // Jun 5, 2008, 3:26am

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hmmm, lightworks didnt like it either, infact a quarter of the way through rendering frame one (which took 30 mins) it switched off my computer lol

Post by Changa // Jun 5, 2008, 4:28am

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It is known Vray or Ts + Vray behaviour. Every render capture some additional memory and Ts does not release it. It does not matter is it an animation or just a sequence of single renders during Ts session. The result is only one - not enough memory. I suffered it making architectural walk through with only camera movement. This bug is reported many times. Unfortunately it makes Vray animation almost impossible of course if you are not patient to restart Ts every 9 or so frames. Tom, I hoped you solved this problem and just wait for a new Ts release. Isn't it?

Post by TomG // Jun 5, 2008, 6:51am

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I wonder if better results are obtained rendering workspace side, since you are using V-Ray anyway?


If you can send along the scene, we can try it out on the latest version. Mail it to me if not too large, or let me know by email of a download location if it is too large to go into the mail itself.


Thanks!

Tom

Post by Changa // Jun 5, 2008, 8:37am

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I wonder if better results are obtained rendering workspace side, since you are using V-Ray anyway?




Tom, I'm trying simple static scene (SMC window) right now, and yes, model side render add 3.6 mb every frame whilst workspace render add ~0.16 mb to page file usage.

Post by Matski007 // Jun 5, 2008, 1:44pm

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Total Posts: 539
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Thank you for your help Tom, I have emailed you the scene file. I have yet to try rendering from the workspace side, the difficulty with that is it seems my animated camera does not cross over to it (but this might be me doing something wrong), though it isnt exactly a particularly complicated animation.


It seems a shame that Vray is useless at rendering animations, I really lack the patience in having to restart TS every few frames to render out a 200frame animation, and I dont really want to use another renderer as I find it hard to achieve the same look I have in this, even 3D delight doesnt render area lights particularly well, though once again this could be because of my stupidity.

Its annoying because I have just gotten back into TS again, after a hectic semester of Maya animating, its nice to come back to my most loved 3D app, only to find that many simple functions are incredibly buggy but im sure Caligari doesnt have anywhere near the same amount of funding and resources as Autodesk (though I think they are catching up heh) GO TS CLOTH SIM!!!!!!!!

Post by Matski007 // Jun 6, 2008, 11:38am

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I just tried rendering this time with all bump mapping off, and it did work much better, though I think this time it used like 99% of the processing power and by the 13th frame although the memory usage was low, there was a hell of a lot of lag on my system before it just swtiched off completely.

This is very annoying lol, I cant seem to render it in dribble for a variety of reasons, the first being that it just renders black except for a small spot plus the area light itself appears pure white, the other problem is that even if it could render it would take a century to render because as in my tests I notice that the more objects in the scene there is, the slower it is in rendering (possibly because of the amount of shadows).

Dead end! please help!

Post by Changa // Jun 6, 2008, 10:05pm

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Matski, I could help you with rendering - have some free PC time untill monday, if no need to restart it every half hour. We can split your animation. The only thing I'm not sure about - how to send files back to you?

Post by Matski007 // Jun 7, 2008, 1:59am

Matski007
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hmmm, I dont think that this ideal, but thank you very much


It would require you to send quite a few large image files


Im in not fantasically desperate need to get this finished as it is not client work or anything but I would like to see this project through

Post by TomG // Jun 9, 2008, 6:10am

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Total Posts: 3397
EDIT all the tests below were done in the latest beta, so the lack of rising memory use could also be due not to these changes I mention here, but to changes in code. These changes here may still help with the rendering in the meantime though! END EDIT


Had a look and have some ideas


1. Scene scale is very large, would scale it down. The ground plane is some 5 times larger than the tS grid. This can make a difference.


2. Swap the area light for HDRI. Area lights are slow, and intensive.


3. Avoid mapped shadows - didnt look to see if these were being used, but they require tS to generate an image in memory for the surfaces with shadows on them. With large surfaces like here, lots of objects, and an area light, they could require significantly huge amounts of memory. Use raytracing instead, if soft shadows are needed, V-Ray's soft shadows option is best; failing that, a group of lights (omni, or spots) slightly offset can give soft shadows without the memory or processor overhead of area lights / mapped shadows.


4. Remove physical attributes from the chips, now that their animation is generated. This reduced the data tS has to handle for those objects.



All in all I reduced the saved scene size from 9Mb to 3Mb, which translates to less data for tS to be remembering, adjusting and handling during the animation. I also rendered from my own perspective to an 800x600 JPG and tS remained stable for the first 25 frames, using only 228Mb of memory and staying there (not rising per frame, note it fluctuated from 207 to 235, generally the larger memory amount being at the end of a frame and resetting to 228Mb at the start of the next frame).


I didn't try rendering the original scene. Note also that I don't have the textures for the chips (textures or bump maps) so not sure what impact that would make. All the same, the above tips may well help make this scene render faster as well as avoid the limit on the number of frames that can be done in one sitting.


HTH!

Tom

Post by Matski007 // Jun 9, 2008, 1:25pm

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Total Posts: 539
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Thanks for the help, I am extremely grateful, but I have come to sumise that it may be the textures, assuming therefor that its finding it hard to deal with such a quantity, no matter how small. I am now rendering using HDRI and a much much smaller ground plane and have also deleted the physics attatched to each chip but it has failed at frame 8.


Rendering without textures seems to render perfectly, this is why the same ground plane and area light but physics removed. Somewhat annoying however I think the key may be to recreate the simulation this time adding the detail to the chips without textures, although it may increase simulation time, Im sure it will be worth it.


Meanwhile I hope this bug is sorted out somehow, not sure how common it is for people to render a scene with over 200 textured objects in it though lol


Ill post my results if anyone is interested

Post by TomG // Jun 9, 2008, 1:51pm

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Total Posts: 3397
If you can send along the texture files, I can render the scene with them here, and see if that introduces a crash for me. Could be it is resolved in the current beta, even with textures. If it works for you without textures though, then my current test doesn't really reveal anything since I didnt have the textures to use :)


Thanks!

Tom

Post by Matski007 // Jun 9, 2008, 2:20pm

Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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thanks again mate!

Ive emailed you the textures (as crappy as they are). Perhaps its something to do with the fact they are jpg's, maybe a filetype requiring less decompression would be easier for it
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