Mental ray problems, flashing glass?

[Maven]

I can't help you but I like your skull.

Did you try playing with the 2 sided settings...just a guess.

[ksgfx]

Hey thanks, I've spent forever on getting it just right

Yep, already been down the 2-sided road, but thanks for the suggestion. I can't believe no one else has had this issue.

I also found out that I can't network render because each machine renders the image slightly different. Same settings, same 3ds.ini, but 2 images shaded completely differently. Makes me wonder if I shouldn't try v-ray?

Kev

[ksgfx]

Update:

So I've learned two things by trial and error.

First, by increasing the Final Gather filter higher I have managed to get rid of all of the black spotting shadow anamolies. I've noticed many others with this same problem in a few other threads.

Second, by increasing the Final Gather samples to 1000 I've lessoned the amount of flashing, but they haven't dissapeared. Unfortunately I don't have the time to go much higher than that with a deadline quickly approaching. I'm wondering if a even higher number will fix it or just make it take longer to render.

Lastly I still can't figure out why two machines with exactly the same settings won't render the same. Isn't it simple mathmatics, how can two machines given the exact same problem come up with two different answers? Anybody?

kev

[JeffPatton]

You might want to try enabling jittering?

Also why did you disable scanline mode and switch to segment shadows? Are you doing some form of volume rendering?

As far as why it looks different on other PC's, I have no idea as long as all the settings are identical (and you already mentioned they were)

[Terkonn]

In my modeling, if I make a jumbled mesh, I sometimes get a hidden object inside my model from loose verts that didn't affect how it looked until I made it glass. You may have a tiny poly or entire patches of mesh inside your object which is reflecting off light giving you that strobing effect. This might only be the problem if you get lazy in your modelling like me.

About the different rendering on 2 comps. Your right, your scene is just a bunch of math problems, but each series of equations can have a different procedural path which is mainly determined by your computer hardware. If your second computer has older hardware, the computer may be trying to calculate the problems differently if it is unable to do figure out the requested way (as it was told to do on your other comp). That is why game testers try the game on many different types of systems, because artifacting and similar can appear on one computer while it may not on another. It may be benificial (but time consuming) to change the shading on your slower computer to how you like it, then when you render on both computers, you should get the same effect. I rarly hear of this happening, but when I network render I sometimes get this effect.

I hope this helps any, they are both based on my own experience.

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