Hello all,
This thread seems very useful. I have a new problem which I have never even seen it before. On rendering frames 530 to 800, max crashes exactly at the 540th frame, it happens just on that frame. On the progress bar when it reaches 2.4% on the final gather max crashes. Please help me get around this error.
Did uninstall, reinstall everything I could think of.
Badly in need of some help
Max 2013
Intel Core i7
24 gb ram
maybe some thing wrong at 540frame try to render it as single image and see if MR can finish it
Even the single frame render crashes max.
Actually I found the probem. I got some fume explosions happening in the scene. It’s when the Fume with multiple scattering turned on crashes max. Dont have any idea how to fix this? But glad I got the source of the problem.
Any ideas?
Thanks Aboubakr
what version of ffx are u using ?
is the fumefx simulation start at this frame? what i mean is that from 0-539 frames there is no data in FFX
Probably final gathering takes a lot of memory due to several scattered particles.
Try the BSP algorithm as raytrace acceleration with values size-depth 18 -35 respectively. Default values 10-40 may be tried as well. In these modes rendering time may be longer but it sometimes help finish the frames or may give you a clear image where there are artifacts otherwise.
Funny but also consider rendering the scene in 32 bit 3dsmax. I’ve seen times when a scene crashed with 64 bit 3dsmax but rendered well with the 32 bit version. May be some memory usage is intentionally narrowed down as default, due to the smaller amount of bandwidth.
I often hide the rest of the scene in order to find the source of the problem. Just keep the fume fx objects to see if it renders that way. It will be a positive feedback cause that means either some other object is the problem or it is just because the memory is just at its limits. With little adjustments the frames may progress.
If not a problem to you can send the scene to see if it renders on a 32 gb workstation here. I have fume fx installed here.
Best regards.
Thanks Aboubakr
what version of ffx are u using ?
is the fumefx simulation start at this frame? what i mean is that from 0-539 frames there is no data in FFX
FumeFX V 3.0.1
The fume explosion starts at 540th frame and before that there is no fume data.
Thanks Nezih
Try the BSP algorithm as raytrace acceleration with values size-depth 18 -35 respectively. Default values 10-40 may be tried as well. In these modes rendering time may be longer but it sometimes help finish the frames or may give you a clear image where there are artifacts otherwise.
Where can I find all these settings?
If not a problem to you can send the scene to see if it renders on a 32 gb workstation here. I have fume fx installed here.
I don’t mind posting the scene file here, Here is the link to the max file.
Link to the max file:
FumeFX Explosion
Please help me cross this hurdle. I really want renders with multiple scattering turned on.
Thanks Aboubakr & Nezih.
BSP settings are in the Renderer tab of the Render Setup window. Inside the Rendering Algorithms rollout. Normally if the scene is light enough for your memory amount I find 7-70 with the fastest rendering times but with complex scenes, it might turn the opposite and BSP2 mode may become faster.
I rendered your scene without any problems but several maps are missing and plus -I’m not much familiar with fume fx- I ve seen no explosions or even no smoke. Is it disabled some way or is it because of missing maps?
Thanks Nezih,
You rendered the scene with no problems because you don’t have any fume data on your drive.
When the whole max file is ported over to another machine with fumefx explosions, you will have to re run the fumeFX simulation which in turn creates the fume temp files from where the renderer reads the fume data.
To run the fumefx simulation you have to open the fume UI and press the run simulation button on top.
You can adjust the animation range on the Gen tab of fumeUI that is under the output rollout & the playback rollout, so that the whole scene is not simulated. Just try creating temp files for a short range lets say for 5 frames and then render frame 540 and check whether max crashes or not.
540 is the start of the explosion where you will just see the fire building up, to see the smoke you might have to run fume simulation for at least a 100 frames and then render 630th frame.
Thanks for the help on BSP settings, I will have to try it out.
Hi.
I’ve been searching the web for some time now and still haven’t figured out my problem. So I have 2 “light cycles” from tron, which have Raytrace reflection. I am using MentalRay renderer and here comes the problem. Everything was working fine but then it just died. Since then, when I click render, all I get is a black render screen. I can see that square that shows which area is being rendered but it’s black. I tried exporting object to a new file but it’s still not working. I tried adding :wip: :wip:
I am having some trouble with 3DS Max, all of my effects and materials are in mental ray as well as my lighting, when I try to render in mental ray it goes to about the 40th frame and then errors out. NO error code or anything, just says that it cannot render my video, I have also tried rendering from different frames but to no avail. If anyone has any idea how to fix this please let me know thank you.
It will render in scanline, but all of my effects, such as glow and mental ray materials and lighting disappear.
If it’s not a problem to you just send the file and we may check if it causes any troubles here and why.
Otherwise, if the error occurs everytime on a specific frame, you may try to hide objects in a rational order and try to render that frame everytime to find out what may be causing the error. Of course be aware that most of the time it is a combination of errors so you have to be ready for surprises. You have to check with an open mind.
I am having some trouble with 3DS Max, all of my effects and materials are in mental ray as well as my lighting, when I try to render in mental ray it goes to about the 40th frame and then errors out. NO error code or anything, just says that it cannot render my video, I have also tried rendering from different frames but to no avail. If anyone has any idea how to fix this please let me know thank you.
It will render in scanline, but all of my effects, such as glow and mental ray materials and lighting disappear.
Hi Crosstian,
Do you have any Fume objects on the scene? For me it was the fume object that was creating problems. Unfortunately I never got an answer for this so I was forced to render it out in scanline. The multiple scattering setting in FumeFX was the culprit for me. I turned it off and then I was able to render it out on mental ray.
If it’s not a problem to you just send the file and we may check if it causes any troubles here and why.
Otherwise, if the error occurs everytime on a specific frame, you may try to hide objects in a rational order and try to render that frame everytime to find out what may be causing the error. Of course be aware that most of the time it is a combination of errors so you have to be ready for surprises. You have to check with an open mind.
Where would I send the file, I do not see an attachment option here? The file is a little over 5mb.
There may be some file space here but it is probably limited. You may just send it over any file transfer site like wetransfer an put the link here.
Here is the link to the file, if you can be any help I would greatly appreciate it and thank you.
Ok, have anyone noticed that the reflections from a bitmap controlled haze value in mr Physical Sky disappears when the reflecting object moves away from the center of the scene? (0,0,0)
In the first picture, the reflective blob is close to (0,0,0), in the second, it has moved quite a long way off. This is very strange to me.
This thread is amazing. I found the answer to my problem within the first page!
Definitely putting this in the bookmarks.
Thanks so much everyone 
Hello everybody!
Working on an university project I have run into trouble with mental ray. While I am fairly experienced in it, I have very little experience with GI and Caustics, especially in exterior scenes. So lets get to the problems.
This is my render as it is rendered by mental ray:
Scene is lit by a daylight system with mr Sun and mr Sky. Around 5M caustic photons and 2M GI photons. I am using a photon target for the sun with a diameter of 1500 cm.
As you can see there are a number of stray photons ending up on some surfaces makes small bright blue dots or cirkels. Also in the underwater area not lit by the sun, the photon solution is very very crude to say the least. I have already noticed these problems relate to the MR sky, or Mr physical sky environment as turning these off solves the problem (But obviously creates other problems).
So my first question is if anybody knows the reason why these stray photons appear? They seem quite random and appear in unexpected locations.
My second problem is the number of photons. I have been trying to see if the problems are the result of to few photons, but mental ray refuses to render if I increase photon numbers, both when calculating the photons at render time as with precalculating the photons to a photonmap. Mental ray will start calculating photons but simply stops around 4% in, caustics are completely absent in the following renders.
My second question is therefor if there is some sort of photon limit, or some known problem or reason why I cannot increase photon nummbers.
Are you using final gather along with it? That can help smooth out problem areas. You might also try using FG only with some bounces instead of GI photons.
i everyone
I’m new here, in fact this is my first post. I really hope this is the appropriate side to post my issue, if not, my excuses. English is not my firts language, but spanish; so, I will try to explain my problem.
My specs:
Windows 8.1 64bits
Lenovo laptop.
Intel HD card.
4 gb ram
3ds Max 2015 sp3
Issue:
After using mental ray to rendering sci-fi car scene, when reopen Max I notice all the GUI have changed.
Toolbar icons dissapears, the interface looks like windows 95 or earlier.
Please refer to the pic bellow to get my point.
What I’ve done so far:
I had tried to repair it via Control panel>add Remove programs…, this does not fixed it.
I had downloaded and installed SP3 pack, I thinks perhaps update can solve it, but does not.
I had changed Mental Ray by Default Scaline Render to my meshes, but nothing change here.
What can I do?
Thanks in advance for all the tips.
com3