[eilsoe]

Hey all

I've been having issues with Max crashing when I close a Maxwell window.

It's usually like this:

1) I fiddle with a scene in Max

2) Export to MXS, and open Maxwell to make sure things look ok

3) Stop the render process (and allowing it to stop fully)

4) Close the Maxwell render window

5) Max crashes instantly


It happens roughly every 10th time I do this. I kinda hoped it'd be over and done with after I installed the Max2012 SP2 update last week, but no.

Max is up to date, Maxwell is up to date, the Max plugin is also up to date. So what does this?


One more thing: Is there a way to export a mxs scene without launching maxwell itself?

[Mihnea Balta]

This sounds like a problem with the code which reads back the rendered image. Which format and bit depth do you use for the render output?

To export an MXS without launching Maxwell, use the File -> Export menu option.

[eilsoe]

8 bit depth with embedded alpha channel checked as PNG.

I don't use the MXI path. I just use the render panel to export MXS files a bit quicker.

As I said, it happens about once every 10th time I stop a rendering. I can also re-render the exact same setup several times, and get it to crash eventually.

[Mihnea Balta]

Are you rendering to a very high resolution? Are you running several renders in parallel started from the same Max instance? Could you send me one of the rendered images after Max crashes at mihnea.balta@gmail.com? When Max crashes, it writes a file called 3dsmaxminidump.dmp in your temporary directory (which is usually c:\Users\NAME\AppData\Local\Temp\, you can open it quickly by typing %temp% in the start menu run or search box). Could you also send me this file, please?

[eilsoe]

The res is exactly 2000x1500, so not that big really.

It crashes regardless of me having one or several renders at once. Though I very rarely have more than one rendering active at once. That's what the farm is for

Sidenote: I also have Fryrender installed (went to Maxwell from Fryrender 4 months ago), SOME of my scenes still nag me about some form of FryClass reference when I open them. I'm not sure if those scenes are more prone to crashes, I'll keep an eye on it.

First order of business might be to just get rid of Fry alltogether, and then see if the crashes continue... I'll also make sure I catch the dmp file next time it throws a fit.

[eilsoe]

Allright, sorry for leaving this for so long.

Recently I've had to build scenes using Maxwell from scratch (instead of using old Fry scenes, and updating them). The crash issue decided to rear it's ugly face once again, so I've been digging a little more into it. I really thought the issue was because I updated old Fry scenes.

Apparantly, the issue is the "Alpha" parameter under Render Channels, used in conjunction with Multilight.

I can use whatever combination of multilight settings I want, and check "Embed Channels", without problems. When I choose to embed the Alpha channel too, Max crashes the second I close the Maxwell window.

[Mihnea Balta]

Thanks for the additional info, I can confirm there's a bug with reading back the rendered image when using PNG with embedded alpha and multilight at the same time. It will be fixed in the next plug-in update.

[eilsoe]

Great!

Good to know the issue was unearthed, it's been bugging me like crazy for some time now.

I actually didn't try using anything else than PNG... I THOUGHT about it, but didn't test it. I'll give it a whirl with JPG or something.

[Mihnea Balta]

The JPG format does not support alpha channels, but you can try TIFF or EXR and they will work. TGA also supports alpha, but the bug is triggered for that format too, so the same crash will occur.

[eilsoe]

Bug also present with Tiff setting.