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Author Topic: Problems with DR etc  (Read 5280 times)

QM3423

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Problems with DR etc
« on: March 26, 2012, 07:04:46 PM »
I have a scene that I am using ForestPro to populate various surfaces. Each forest pro instance uses a plant in Vray Proxy format (except for the lawn which is a forestpro object of grass blades itself).  I am using a 5 PC render farm, Max 2012, Vray 2, latest Forestpro install and Distributed Rendering.  I keep having missing bucket issues on only the forest objects (see image).  I am unsure of what settings to try.  For example what settings for the Camera, etc. in ForestPro to minimize this problem from happening?

I have 'check for missing files' checked in the render settings but that doesn't help. I think I am having a combination of problem (camera settings in ForestPro, and, the slaves maybe cannot keep up with the rendering?  Or maybe my Dyanamic Memory settings should be different (my workstation is 20gb RAM and all slaves are 4gb RAM).

Please help.  This problem has been around for as long as i have been using ForestPro.   It is my only problem with forestpro!  Sometimes, rebooting everything helps, but i really want to solve this if possible.


iToo

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Re: Problems with DR etc
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2012, 07:38:48 PM »

Unfortunately this problem may be difficult to diagnose. As far i remember, these are some causes of missing buckets that we have seen:

- Proxy files which are not visible from the render nodes, or take too much time for loading (usually because network issues).
- Mixing 32 bit and 64 bit network nodes. This configuration is not supported by Forest.
- A conflict of versions with PSD-Manager: http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=965.15

The camera clipping should not be a problem, anyway i suggest you try some renders disabling it. Same with Dynamic Memory settings; theorically it would have not effect here, but if the render nodes are running very low on memory, they would generate unexpected results.

I hope that helps.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

QM3423

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Re: Problems with DR etc
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2012, 08:10:20 PM »
Thanks for the reply. I am using all Win7 64 bit PCs on a gigabit network.  All with the latest Vray, Max, Itoo and PSD manager installs.

I was using Xref plants but just changed over to proxies to see if that would help.  You are correct it must be hard to diagnose as the problem seems to come and go.

It would not surprise me if it is a network issue or similar.

QM3423

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Re: Problems with DR etc
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2012, 12:43:49 AM »
I was incorrect about the version of ForestPro I was running 3.6.  I just updated to the latest 3.8.1on all my PCs and (for now at least) the problem seems to have disappeared.  Has there been some kind of a patch or bug fix since 3.8.1 that may be the fix for this? Or is it just lucky?  I am just curious.

iToo

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Re: Problems with DR etc
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2012, 09:24:40 AM »

Ok, then probably this fix solved the problem:

- Improved Distribution Map file search on network paths.

This change also would affect to XRefs/Proxies. The fix was introduced in Forest 3.7.1b.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

QM3423

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Re: Problems with DR etc
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2012, 04:41:18 PM »
Wonderful. Thanks again for such great products and timely support. Its a pleasure to use these tools in my workflow.

fabien3dfh

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Re: Problems with DR etc
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2018, 03:04:48 PM »
Hello, I having the same issue with my scene.
You said  : "- Proxy files which are not visible from the render nodes, or take too much time for loading (usually because network issues)."

I think my problem comes from my network.
What can i do?

Is the button "wait for max to load" on the advanced parameter on the network submission frame is for this case?