CompuServe Thread

#Rendering lockup 3ds v4

4 messages in this thread
#151933From: CADMUS InteractiveFeb 9, 1995 8:54 AM
My systems, both host and slave, keep locking up at the same point during a rendering. Here are the surrounding circumstances. I am on my sixth iteration of a project (3a.prj, 3b.prj, etc.). Up until my last iteration, everything has been rendering fine, be it a .tga file or a .flc file. Now, out of the blue, rendering with all my new changes (moving spots with changing colors, an overhead spot with cloud7.tga as a projector, etc.) my project locks up in the middle of 'creating reflections.' When reflection rendering is turned off, the frame renders fine. My first thought was that I was rendering a frame outside of my active segment, but when I corrected that, my problem was still there. My host system is a Pentium 90 (AMI motherboard) 64 mb RAM. What I've tried to do in order to isolate the problem is this. 1. Remain rendering frame 100 (when I first encountered the problem.) 2. Open a new project then merge everything into it. 3. Render without logging onto our Novell network. 4. Slave to two other systems (both 486's with 32 mb RAM, one with Rel. 4, the other with Rel. 3 still.) 5. Loading the project onto a whole other system and rendering locally there. 6. Running Norton 'speed disk' on my drive. Needless to say, none of these work. My project has 63,000 faces with actual geometry rippling like water (the material being transparent, 2-sided and a flat reflective mirror). This is the only reflective material being used in the scene. Furthermore, this is by no means my most face intensive project with reflection maps. In close, do I (a) have an unlucky glitch that I have to deal with, (b) a problem with Rel. 4, (c) a bad file (even though it does render w/o reflections), (d) a Pentium 90 ninth digit problem, or whatever it was (even though my 486 slave systems crash too), (e) or something I've overlooked. I'm distraught and need a solution. My reflections may not be imperative in the end, however, I would appreciate a solution or some type of an idea as to what is wrong. Thank you in advance to whoever may answer this dilemma. Next Day: Well, it's the next day and I decided to render last night with auto reflection off. All of 240 frames rendered except frame 232. I've now tried everything again, but now I can't render this one frame it keeps locking up!! What the heck is going on??? I'm beginning to lose faith in computers. Help me please.
#151941From: Yost GroupFeb 9, 1995 9:49 AM
Sounds like it's time to contact Jonas and get him a simple reproducible case. If he can't reproduce it on his machine, it would point to a problem in your system environment. If he can reproduce it, he'll take it from there. – G
#152275From: David RhotenFeb 10, 1995 3:16 PM
Have you tried JUST merging the reflective object into a new project and rendering that to see if it locks up? If you have, and it does, I'd sent THAT to Jonas! If the reflecting object by itself DOES work, try merging 1 or 2 objects at a time to see if you can narrow the problem bit down to a particular mesh object. Dave
#152795From: Brian Rudolph [Adesk]Feb 13, 1995 12:19 PM
<<In close, do I (a) have an unlucky glitch that I have to deal with>> It is possible that the project file might be slightly corrupted. Try saving the project file as a 3DS file and then reloading. Does that make a difference? <<(b) a problem with Rel. 4,>> Don't think so, but if you can reduce the project to a _simple_ example that demonstrates the problem, you can upload it here and we can take a look at the file. <<a bad file (even though it does render w/o reflections),>> Also, are you using TGA's as reflection maps? If so, maybe it is one of the bitmaps that has the file glitch, and not the project file. <<(d) a Pentium 90 ninth digit problem, or whatever it was (even though my 486 slave systems crash too>> Absolutely NOT. 3DS is not affected by this. and the fact that your 486 fails also proves this is not that. <<(e) or something I've overlooked>> Possibly, but as I said, if you continue to play with it and can not figure it out, skim down your project file to only the relevant parts and send it to us, we can take a look at it. -Brian