[timberresheim]

Hello,

i am going crazyyyyyyy....
i updatet to the newest version of the standalone and the plugin version of maxwell....
i worked for one year now on several files with a shitton of objects in them.
most of the files have more than 700.000 objects.
i used clonobjects with renderinstances, which got exported beautifully UNTIL the update.

before, when exporting the mxs from cinema , i could see the counter on the left bottom couting up to 700.000 for example...
Now, nothing.
the plugin doesn´t even start counting, it just freezes.

i deleted 2.6.1 with all prefs i could find and i downgraded to 2.6.0 again. no change.
i deleted cinema and all prefs and reinstalled. no change.

please,please,please any advice is highliest appreciated; i am going crazy here.

thanks in advance

tim

[JDHill]

I don't see this behavior here, so I'll need you to provide a file that demonstrates the issue.

[timberresheim]

i can upload my file somewhere and pm you the link?
they are huge though....

[JDHill]

Okay, that's what I thought. Where you write "the plugin doesn´t even start counting, it just freezes" that is not accurate; actually it is working, and will eventually export the file, provided you have enough memory to do so (Task Manager or Activity Monitor will confirm that the application has not actually frozen). The problem is that some motion blur-related work done in the more recent plugins has caused this particular scenario to be very slow to export. I will use your scene to see if there is any specific optimization I can make in a future version.

[timberresheim]

thanks for looking into!
i have 32gb ram, whereas maxwell consumes 12gb for this scene ...
i let the wheel of death spin for 1,5 hours, but nothing.
before the update, the plugin started "counting" immediately.

what i don´t get is, that i reversed to the old plugin and maxwell render 2.6.0, which worked beautifully, but still i have the wheel of death...

do you have a clue what this could be?
i even reinstalled cinema and deleted all pref files...

thanks in advance

tim

[JDHill]

Well, to be clear, this is nothing about prefs or anything like that; the code is different in more recent versions of the plugin. It is also not about freezing -- I've rendered your scene here. It took about 1h 20m to export. Looking through my logs, it appears that you'd need to have been using a 2.5-series plugin to have the older behavior, which could export incorrectly in some cases. I can send you links to an older plugin if you no longer have a copy of the one you were previously using.

As an aside, I don't know how you are creating these models; I have a pretty nice machine here, and Cinema is totally unusable with your model loaded. This would export, and probably render, a lot faster, if it wasn't built using a half-million instances. All of that geometry merged into a single polygon would probably export in half a second.

[timberresheim]

hey JDHill, thanks a ton for looking into!
yes, i could need a link to the 2.5 plugin...
AND i could need the info on how to merge the whole geometry into one poligon.

could you elaborate on that, because i really have no clue.

i am using cinema 4d with mograph, to do the instances...

THANKS

[JDHill]

I'll p.m. you with links to a few earlier versions of the plugin. On the question of geometry, I really couldn't say; how are you generating all of these instances (and their locations)? Not by hand, I assume -- you must be using some script or plugin? I was not implying that there is necessarily any way to do it another way, but more just that I would not build that sculpture with all those instances, if I had the choice.

[jespi]

Hi Jeremy,

I'm also experiencing issues with instances. I'm working on exterior scene with trees and grass (you know many many instances) and can't manage to export the scene to maxwell. My computer has enough RAM, I think the problem is related with the number of instances. I can generate a few thousand but I need way more in this scene. I've tried with Advanced Render and Vray and the export is quite fast, just a few seconds.

Could you take a look at this?, I'm anchored with this problem.

Thanks,
josé

[JDHill]

First, I am not clear on what you mean by saying you "can't manage" to do it. Do you mean that exporting the MXS is slower than before, as Tim was reporting above, or do you mean that you actually cannot export the MXS? If the latter, is there a crash, or some error reported?

Second, I have written it elsewhere before, but it is not a good plan to instance individual blades of grass, if that is what you are doing. An instance of a single blade of grass is probably larger, data-wise, than the geometry for that blade. Optimizing this would mean that rather than exporting 10K instances of a single blade, you would export 10 instances of a thousand blade patch of grass. I can't tell, just from your post, though, whether this is a factor for you here or not.

[jespi]

First, I am not clear on what you mean by saying you "can't manage" to do it. Do you mean that exporting the MXS is slower than before, as Tim was reporting above, or do you mean that you actually cannot export the MXS? If the latter, is there a crash, or some error reported?

When I press the render button Cinema start to export the scene (with no errors or crashes) and after waiting for 30 minutes I force quit C4D. I don't know if I wait for two hours maxwell will start, but I can not afford so much time for the export. So yes, exporting the MXS is definitively slower than before, and makes impossible working with many instances with deadlines, at least in my case.

Second, I have written it elsewhere before, but it is not a good plan to instance individual blades of grass, if that is what you are doing. An instance of a single blade of grass is probably larger, data-wise, than the geometry for that blade. Optimizing this would mean that rather than exporting 10K instances of a single blade, you would export 10 instances of a thousand blade patch of grass. I can't tell, just from your post, though, whether this is a factor for you here or not.

I'm not instancing individual blades of grass, I'm instancing an area of 20 cm^2 but I could try to instance 1m^2. I will let you know if this give me a better result.

Thanks for your time,

josé

[JDHill]

Thanks for clarifying that, it sounds like the same problem. In case you would also like to try using an older build, here are some links:

2.5.1.7

• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.7-R9.6-R11.zip
• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.7-R11.5.zip
• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.7-R12.zip

2.5.1.8

• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.8-R9.6-R11.zip
• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.8-R11.5.zip
• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.8-R12.zip

2.5.1.9

• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.9-R9.6-R11.zip
• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.9-R11.5.zip
• Maxwell_for_Cinema_4D-2.5.1.9-R12.zip

[jespi]

Thanks Jeremy. Can I use these plugins with maxwell 2.6.1?

josé

[JDHill]

Sure, though you will have expected issues with file compatibility, meaning, MXS and MXM files written with newer Studio/MXED/plugins will not be able to be used by these older builds.

[jespi]

OK thanks.