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Author Topic: Tree Scale Render Error  (Read 2468 times)

Mike Truly

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Tree Scale Render Error
« on: May 17, 2013, 02:12:39 AM »
FP 3.41, MAX2010_64, XP x64

Hi Carlos,

I am having a strange problem that I can't recall seeing before.  I have a scene where there are about 500 trees and they are mostly spaced apart such that when you look in an area, you can see the whole single tree standing alone.  The next tree is standing alone further away from the first tree, etc.  So you can see each tree individually.

The animation is a camera following an aircraft and down on the ground below are the trees.

The problem is... as the finished animation is played back, the scale of the trees changes on different frames.  So for example, the tree might be fine on frame 1, 2, 3, 4 but on frame 5... the tree gets wider.   Then on frame 6 the tree goes back to the original size again.  Then maybe on frame 17, 18, 19 the tree gets wider again but on frame 20 the tree returns to normal size.  The result is the trees don't stay a constant size.

As I step through the animation in MAX, I don't see the trees changing at all.

The trees were placed by using the Tree Editor to place trees at the locations of point helpers (not sure if this makes any difference).

Have you ever seen this type of problem before?
Sincerely,

Mike Truly
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Mike Truly

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Re: Tree Scale Render Error
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2013, 02:19:52 AM »
OK, one other thing I just discovered.

I render using Deadline and the net rendering is setup so that each slave gets a task of rendering 10 frames each.  So...

Slave1 - renders frames 0-09
Slave2 - frames 10-19
Slave3 - frames 20-29
etc.

It turns out that the trees are getting larger like this:

frames 0-09 - normal size
frames 10-19 - larger size
frames 20-29 - normal size again
etc.

So it seems to be related to the trees being rendered larger by certain slaves.

I suppose I could try to change the task to be 1 frame per task and see if that makes a difference.

I'll have to investigate further.

Thanks!
Sincerely,

Mike Truly
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iToo

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Re: Tree Scale Render Error
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2013, 08:45:42 AM »

It seems as if some slaves have different configuration:

a) Not using the same plugin version.
b) You are mixing 32 bit and 64 bit nodes (this configuration is not supported).

What render engine do you use ?

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Mike Truly

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Re: Tree Scale Render Error
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2013, 04:12:28 PM »
Hi Carlos,

This is the Scanline renderer.  All slaves are using MAX2010_64... no 32bit.

All slaves should be using the same ForestPro plugin version (I always upgrade the plugin across the whole render farm).  Is there an easy way to check the versions on the slaves?

Thanks!
Sincerely,

Mike Truly
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Mike Truly

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Re: Tree Scale Render Error
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2013, 04:18:17 PM »
Nevermind.  I started looking at the version info of the DLO file and it is not matching across the farm.  I will re-install FP across the farm and try again.

Thanks!
Sincerely,

Mike Truly
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http://www.trulymedia.com