Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: Peter Guthrie on April 16, 2015, 06:04:11 PM

Title: XREF issues?
Post by: Peter Guthrie on April 16, 2015, 06:04:11 PM
Hello!

Are there any issues with forest within xrefs with the latest FP?

We have an issue where the max file that is referencing the xrefs freezes and memory usage goes crazy for about 5-10 mins and then it calms down. Moving cameras seems to instigate it, so i wondered if it is better NOT to check the limit to camera visibility option in the xref? (I tried that though and doesnt seem to affect it)

Any help would be much appreciated.

Peter
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: iToo on April 16, 2015, 06:45:37 PM
Hi,
No, there are known issues with XRef. As far as i remember the latest FP had not changes that would affect XRef either.

We'll investigate that. What Max and V-Ray version do you use ?
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: theedge on June 08, 2015, 02:04:50 PM
Hi,

I seem to be having the same issue here.
Using max design 2015 SP3 and FP 4.3.7

Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: iToo on June 08, 2015, 02:23:21 PM
Hi, please try cleaning the retimers using one of these scripts:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/cleaner
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/clean-retimers

There is a known issue of Max when using retimers and XRef objects. Perhaps it's the same problem.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: theedge on June 08, 2015, 03:15:11 PM
Yeah, that's what I thought too when I first started googling for this problem. But according to the scripts I ran the scene doesn't contain any retimers.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: iToo on June 09, 2015, 09:21:03 AM
We're doing several tests, but we're unable to reproduce the problem here. Probably we are not testing it on the same conditions.

Please, would you send us a minimal scene with this problem to support@itoosoft.com ? Thanks.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: theedge on June 09, 2015, 11:38:57 AM
For the moment, it seems that disabling point cloud display does improve things.

As soon as I finish this job I'll try to send the scene.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: Peter Guthrie on August 10, 2015, 03:31:25 PM
still having this issue.

to reproduce perhaps just try a scene with lots of Forest Packs and then xref it into another scene - I'm afraid I cant share our scene

switching from point cloud display seems like it might be a temporary solution, thanks theedge
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: Michal Karmazín on August 12, 2015, 11:39:34 AM
Hi,

Would you mind to test several attached scenes (TESTSCENE_A - H), if you'll be able to reproduce these performance issues on some of those? Thanks in advance for your collaboration and any feedback.

One additional question: Are you using a 3Dconnexion mouse (or any similar device)?

Best regards,
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: TK1355 on August 26, 2015, 03:14:00 PM
Well, i found something interesting :
- I have put all forest objects on separates layers,
- I have turn off all of them and the problem disappeared,
- I have turned them on one by one to isolate the forest object wich make 3ds max bug, freeze the time line and increase the time to save the file,
- I have four différent Forest objects that make it slow and all of them are Lawns or Meadows presets (Cut grass field 02 large / Daisy01 large)
The variation of global density doesn't work for those object but affect all the others (global).  It's ok with proxy and decrease Max items in viewport instead.

Perhaps it is normal but i suggest to make lighter previews of lawns and meadows for large scenes?
Time lapse freeze when moving, select caméra bug, extremly slow saving scene are fixed.

Hope all will be fine now.

Yves
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: MarcoG on September 14, 2015, 10:44:33 AM
Seems i have similar problem here. Max 2015 sp 3 - Forest 4.4.1 - Vray 2.50.01

I'm managing an exterior scene with XREFS (now just a big one) and lots of daisy01 (large) objects placed.
Got similar freezing problems, more after rendering process. Max uses something like 12-15GB during rendering .. but it never happened with previous versions (upgraded from 2013 directly to 2015).

Another very annoiyng problem is that sometimes i lost forest associations. I can see the [F] icon with the right surface linked but nothing visible on scene. Not all surfaces are doing this, just some of them... that's why i think is strange. It happened opening the same file many times.

I don't know, of course, if two things are related... hope this helps.
M.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: MarcoG on September 14, 2015, 12:43:53 PM
upgrade (disappearing objects)
Opening the Xref itself i can see all forest objects. Seems the problem occurs only when i open the "master" .max file.

Still have freezing... and some crash.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: MarcoG on September 14, 2015, 09:08:17 PM
I decided to merge all xrefs into one. Seemes better.
Then... In this scene i have together lot of vraymeshes, forest and 2 big raiclone objects.

As far as i understand there's somewhere a big problem with xrefs in 3dsmax 2015 , or maybe 3dmax 2015 itself has.
About disappearing objects I'm reading somewhere about issues related to the video driver. I got some crashes today and driver restarts... but all seemes more stable after i merged all files.

M.

Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: MarcoG on September 15, 2015, 10:59:26 AM
I feel alone here :)
M.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: Michal Karmazín on September 15, 2015, 11:44:09 AM
Hi Marco,

Thanks for all info provided. Actually, we are trying to trace down this issue since quite time ago, but unfortunately we can't reproduce conditions that are leading to these troubles ...

Would you mind to do some testing with attached scenes (TESTSCENE_A - H)? Hopefully, it'll give us a hint of possible problem source.

Thanks in advance for your collaboration, your feedback is very important to us.

Best regards,
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: MarcoG on September 15, 2015, 12:35:25 PM
Thanks (i was joking of course).

I will do some test after this deadline, but seems a problem showed in kind of scenes that are using massive amount of memory. I still have the xref'ed scene and i can send to you.
Good thing... as i told, is that all changed in a good way since i merged all external files in a single one... (video card driver crash as well).

Just to let you know i switched from DX11 to DX9...


Best regards,
M.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: Richard Birket on September 22, 2015, 10:29:22 AM
We are also having this problem with XREF'd scenes containing large FP objects. Max2014, VRay 3.20.03 and FP 4.4.1

Its a real pain. Any solutions?
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: Richard Birket on September 22, 2015, 12:18:08 PM
It does appear from initial tests that merging the XREFs that contain the FP objects clears this up. Its a pain though as scenes get very messy with lots of FP objects in them.
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: iToo on September 22, 2015, 12:57:12 PM
We continue working on this, but until now it was not possible to reproduce the problem here. I guess or it's completely random or happens only under certain conditions.

Well, i found something interesting :
- I have put all forest objects on separates layers,
- I have turn off all of them and the problem disappeared,
- I have turned them on one by one to isolate the forest object wich make 3ds max bug, freeze the time line and increase the time to save the file,
- I have four différent Forest objects that make it slow and all of them are Lawns or Meadows presets (Cut grass field 02 large / Daisy01 large)
The variation of global density doesn't work for those object but affect all the others (global).  It's ok with proxy and decrease Max items in viewport instead.

Please, would you double check that Global density doesn't affect to those objects ?
To check it use a Top view, not a Perspective. Far objects would see more dense than they are, because there are more items together (although with few dots by item).

Also it would be interesting to test turning off Camera->Auto assign to active View and unlinking the camera if any (click Camera->Clear). That would give a us clue if the problem is caused by a continous updating issue when camera moves. This can be applied easily to all Forest objects using Camera->Copy Parameters.

Thanks,
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: 3DG on September 22, 2015, 03:16:39 PM
As I already wrote at this topic ( http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=3139.0 ) , the problem is still present everytime I add more than 8-10-12 different xref models.
The .max scene loading takes about 10 minutes and it's a real pain.
Nothing seems to be related to the speed in viewport moves or in too much overload for the gpu: it seems to me only a reference loading problem related to xref under FP.

I hope you'll find a quick solution to this because it's affecting a lot the production times.

I'm on Max 2015 and vray 3.00.07

Thanks a lot!
Title: Re: XREF issues?
Post by: iToo on September 22, 2015, 04:51:09 PM
As I already wrote at this topic ( http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=3139.0 ) , the problem is still present everytime I add more than 8-10-12 different xref models.
The .max scene loading takes about 10 minutes and it's a real pain.
Nothing seems to be related to the speed in viewport moves or in too much overload for the gpu: it seems to me only a reference loading problem related to xref under FP.

I'm not sure if this is the same problem, because issues mentioned on this post seem a bit different (unexpected high memory spikes and so), and seem to occur at any time, not only loading the scene.

I just posted in the other post a test scene. Please, tell me your results. I hope we can get a clue to solve this problem soon.

Thanks,