3d max out of memory!

[erilaz]

Okay, you're going to need to give us a lot more information than that:


Max version?
System specs? RAM amount? Drive space?
Scene details?
;)

[dark_tranquiltiy]

yea sorry, max 5.1, 1.5 gig of ram, dreamscape 2. I poly count in scene is 150,000. Someone must of run in to this problem before? thanks for any help.

[erilaz]

Are you rendering, or just working?

[dark_tranquiltiy]

just rendering

[erilaz]

just rendering

How big is the image you're rendering? There are a few memory errors that can occur here.
Can you tell us exactly what the error message says?

[cgidude]

also you can get that if you running too many apps + 3d max together

[dark_tranquiltiy]

just runing max, what would setting the priorities do in task manager? i will try setting max to high.

[Kaostick]

just runing max, what would setting the priorities do in task manager? i will try setting max to high.

I wouldn't suggest that.. Manually setting processor priority can lead to some serious instability.. I'm sure you can imagine what your system would run like if Max had higher priority then windows..

[dark_tranquiltiy]

what else could i try then.

[-Vormav-]

Before rendering, open up the task manager, and select the "performance" tab. Keep this window open.
When you go to render your scene, watch your memory usage in the task manager. If it goes over your 1.5gb of RAM, then Max will probably crash, and you'd have your reason; scene complexity. 150k polys isn't a whole lot, but Dreamscape can be a very taxing plugin to run (especially if you're not careful with the settings you use). It wouldn't surprise me if that's what it came down to.
If it does come down to being a problem with you just taking on too much in the scene, you may have to break your scene down into multiple layers, and piece them together in post.

[erilaz]

Again, what is the SIZE of the image you are rendering? There is a common memory error with large render sizes that can be handled. Also, are you rendering in scanline or mental ray?

[dark_tranquiltiy]

I am using scanline render, my ram goes upto 1.23gb some times 1.55 but my virtual memory is right up (with 1 gig ram it also went to 1.55). Tiff files are 900kb each frame. The only difference is that when i create blizzard i have made a large one that covers whole scene, whereas before i had a small one linked to camera (before it use to crash). That is no doubt it but i need to use the blizzard that big in this particular scene (I have image blur on partiocles also). My dreamscape settings are on the most minimal. There is no setting in max that has a limit i am exceeding?

Is it hard to compsostie layers? will i have to do it with after effects? (would i just render scene with no blizzard for one layer, then render just blizzard for the other?). Thanks for the reply.

[slebed]

What is the pixel resolution of the file you are trying to render!?!?

[erilaz]

What is the pixel resolution of the file you are trying to render!?!?

Yes, this is what I meant. What does the error message actually say?

[-Vormav-]

I am using scanline render, my ram goes upto 1.23gb some times 1.55 but my virtual memory is right up (with 1 gig ram it also went to 1.55). Tiff files are 900kb each frame. The only difference is that when i create blizzard i have made a large one that covers whole scene, whereas before i had a small one linked to camera (before it use to crash). That is no doubt it but i need to use the blizzard that big in this particular scene (I have image blur on partiocles also). My dreamscape settings are on the most minimal. There is no setting in max that has a limit i am exceeding?

Is it hard to compsostie layers? will i have to do it with after effects? (would i just render scene with no blizzard for one layer, then render just blizzard for the other?). Thanks for the reply.
Sounds like you need even more ram to handle this scene for sure. A blizzard covering the entire scene most definitely will drain your resources very very quickly.
Compositing that really shouldn't be very hard though. I would definitely render the blizzard on a pass completely separate from all of the geometry (I hope you're not casting shadows from the blizzard or anything like that...). If you have part of the blizzard going behind some of your geometry, then you can further break the render apart by rendering your blizzard in layers (use separate blizzard systems, one for foreground, one for the background, maybe one or two in-between), and then use the alpha channels from your objects to composite them in correctly.
Compositing layers is not difficult, but it can take some time to setup if you've never done it before. But if you're going to be doing scenes like this, it's one of the things that you really need to learn.

[dark_tranquiltiy]

640x480, error sign: the application has run out of memory and will now close do you want to attempt to save a copy of the current scene. It might only do it at the end of the render (when it starts up the next render). it wont do it if i just render one frame at a time. only range.

[dark_tranquiltiy]

I would try to learn how to composite, but as i need to finish this showreel asap to get into a course i dont really have time! Um i thought it was the ram so i added 1 gig more but it still has this error. I dont have any shadows cast from blizzard so. If i HAVE to compostie could you point me in the direction of a simple tutorial for this case? if you would that would be great, cheers.

[erilaz]

Have you tried turning memory management on in the render settings?
You may want to also try turning on Bitmap Paging in your rendering preferences. Although this a more related to large images.

Perhaps also increase your pagefile. How much disk space do you have?

[dark_tranquiltiy]

20 gig disk space virtual memory maxed out.

only does it at the end of a frame, memory usage doesnt go over 1.48g, crashes at about 1.23g. Tried those settings you said,no change.

[slebed]

Can you post your scene file for us to look at? Do you have anything like a turbosmooth or a meshsmooth setting that might be cranked up too high?

[dark_tranquiltiy]

If someone would upload it 4 me. its a 114mb file which i could zip, can anyone upload, though i dont know how i would send it, would hot mail allow a file that size?

[erilaz]

If someone would upload it 4 me. its a 114mb file which i could zip, can anyone upload, though i dont know how i would send it, would hot mail allow a file that size?

If you zip that it should go quite small!:)

[dark_tranquiltiy]

ok i got it down to 4mb how do i upload it? (it was actually 19 mb not 119).cheers

[dark_tranquiltiy]

im also getting a visual c++ error.

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