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Author Topic: Render farm odd results with scanline  (Read 5087 times)

HL3497

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Render farm odd results with scanline
« on: April 01, 2011, 06:30:07 PM »
Hi there and congrats on Forest Pro, I've seen some great scenes rendered with it.

I am getting some odd behavior with my render farm when rendering a scene with a Forest Pro tree in it. Basically the position of this sole tree jumps around  depending on which render node processed the frame. This odd rendering was not isolated to a particular node. All nodes have the same backburner, max and forest pro installations, directories etc. Standard geometry created from within Max doesn't jump around like that.

The scene was rendered with the scanline renderer. When I rendered the same scene with mental ray the issue was resolved.  I have attached  short videos to illustrate my results.

So, is this known behavior, can it be fixed or do I have to render out with MR?

Thanks very much!

Brian

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2011, 06:49:17 PM »

No, this issue has not been reported before. Theorically, should not be differences between MR and Scanline regarding the position of items.

Please, send us your test scene. We will try to reproduce the problem here.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

HL3497

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2011, 12:38:14 AM »
Great thanks Carlos, here's the file.

iToo

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2011, 09:32:42 AM »
Thanks Brian. A couple of questions:

- What Max and Forest version are you using ?
- Are you mixing 32 bit and 64 bit nodes in the render farm ?

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

HL3497

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2011, 03:31:48 PM »
Hi Carlos, sorry for the delayed response.

To answer you questions:

- All nodes are running Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2008 release 10.0.0 commercial.
- Forest pro version 3.4.0.
- All render nodes are 32 bit.
- All nodes are running backburner 2007.1.1.235

Thanks Carlos.

iToo

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2011, 06:44:39 PM »
Hi Brian,

We had not luck reproducing the problem, i just tried a couple of machines using Max 2008 32 bit, but they render the same result.

If you render the test scene in each one of the slave nodes (all the frames)... is there some pattern, or all of them generate a jerky random animation ?
What is the result rendering a static Forest object (clearing the animation frames) ?
Is there some change changing Forest to Custom Edit mode ?

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

HL3497

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2011, 02:24:14 AM »
Hi Carlos,

So I have done more testing.

- Each node renders successfully if used in isolation
- When rendered in a group I can't detect any discernible pattern between which nodes act up.
- If the tree is kept still there is no problem.

Luckily, my scene doesn't involve moving trees, only the scene I set up to test Forest Pro does. I have yet to see a tree move like the one in my test scene, and never want to! Perhaps this is why this hasn't been an issue for anyone in the past. So, for now its not really an issue for me. Thanks for checking this out.

Brian

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Re: Render farm odd results with scanline
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2011, 12:42:20 PM »
Hi Brian,

This is a strange issue. Since Forest is linked with the area spline, it would be some problem when the object moves, but seems to fail only in specific conditions. Unfortunately we need to reproduce the problem to fix it. :(

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software