[monochrome]

I opened an old model and it kept failing to render. "Purge unused materials. StyleX". So I deleted all the surface styles and replaced them with a new one. I'm still getting the message and the render fails.

[tcamco]

Similar problem here. I have insalled Form Z 6.5 release and dragged the Maxwellz Plug-in folder to the new version. I open an old model from the last Form Z beta that rendered correctly and the render fails - ERROR: MXS file is invalid!

I start a new model and it will render correctly.

Both were modeled in Form Z and both were rendered using the Form Z plug-in.

I tried exporting the model to a new file, but it didn't work.

I tried opening in Studio and rendering from there - same result.

OS X 10.4.10
8 Core Mac

[dkessler]

I also have had this problem with an old model. I didn't get a chance to do this, but I was going to try copying a layer at a time into a new model file to try and isolate the problem.

[medmonds]

I gotta get my "me too" in this thread... Very frustrating.

I think it has to do with bad geometry. I had a terrain surface that came from AutoCAD that was causing the problem... It was big and ugly. Once I split it up into a number of smaller pieces I think the error message went away. You might try the same solution or maybe even the Object Doctor.

[monochrome]

I gotta get my "me too" in this thread... Very frustrating.

I think it has to do with bad geometry. I had a terrain surface that came from AutoCAD that was causing the problem... It was big and ugly. Once I split it up into a number of smaller pieces I think the error message went away. You might try the same solution or maybe even the Object Doctor.

I don't think it is bad geometery. I got the same problem with a fresh model in 6.1.2. After copying over all the geometery to a new file, it rendered.
I suspect it's something related to Maxwell trying to interpret FormZ surface styles.

[juan]

Hello,

We have tried to reproduce this issue without success.

- Are you all using osx? is there anyone using windows that has got this issue?
- Are you all using v6.5? At least monochrome you say you got the same problem with 6.1.x, can you confirm? It is very important to know what happens.
If any of you have a simple formZ and mxs scene that gives this "MXS invalid" error, could you please send it to techdesk@nextlimit.com? Please try to keep the file size as small as possible.

- Does it happen with the patch we released yesterday?

Thanks,

Juan

[tcamco]

Hi Juan,

Yesterday I tried tuning off all layers and then turning each layer on one at a time and trying to render. The first three layers rendered successfully, the fourth failed. I tried again after rebuilding the objects on the offending layer, but the rendering failed again. So I turned off the fourth but then the first three layers that worked previously failed to render. The same after turning off the second layer. It is a fairly large file(7.2 mb). Could it be a memory problem (currently 8 GB of ram)

Mac Pro Quad Core
OS X 10.4.10
FMZ 6.5

[medmonds]

I just installed the latest Maxwell update, and updated FZ 6.1.1 to 6.1.2 and opened a (very large) fz file sent to me from a consultant... I did nothing in the file except except tell it to output to MXCL. During the export procedure, I got that aweful "Purge unused styles" error.

I'm on OSX 10.4.10
MacBook Pro
2 gigs of ram

I'll let you know if I figure anything out... but my suspicion is again bad geometry.

[bertilh]

I have the same problem. I have to copy my model and paste it in a new fole, than it always works. OSX and 1.5, FormZ6.1

[juan]

Hi all,

This one has been hard . We were looking at the wrong place. Under the hood it has nothing to do with purging materials, but in some cases when the mxs file is not properly written, the plugin launches a message window, and the message displayed. This is a bug introduced when we added multilanguage support, the message displayed should not be "purge materials" but other one.

So when this message appears it means that the mxs file could not be generated. It uses to be due to:

- Invalid MXS output path: Please check that the folder where you are going to write the file exist, the path does not contain invalid characters and you have write permissions in that folder.
- Invalid render settings: Maybe one render parameter is corrupted ( a burn value of 0, a resolution of 0x0 or 100000000x1000000...), please check the render options dialog, maybe you see there is something wrong there
- Invalid mxm imported into the scene: Mxm files that does not exist or their location has changed.

If it usually is fixed when copying and pasting the scene to an empty one, I would say that this is due to one of the first to possible reasons. You can also remove all teh objects and materials of the scene and try to generate the mxs file, if you still get the issue it is sure due to paths or render settings.

The error handling/notifications has been improved for the next release.

Regards,

Juan

[monochrome]

Juan, it's good to know that this is being fixed, but currently the plug-in is broken. How do we get the previous version?

[juan]

Hi monochrome,

Juan, it's good to know that this is being fixed, but currently the plug-in is broken. How do we get the previous version?

Really the problem is that the error message is wrong but the scene exporting process only fails if there is something invalid. Did you check any of the causes that I wrote in the previous post? Does it fix the problem? It is probably that there is something wrong in your scene and a new plugin could not fix it (although it will give you more useful information about what's happening).

Regards,

Juan

[monochrome]

Juan,

I just built a fresh model and I'm getting the same error. I tried different paths for output and still the problem is there. I'm using the plug-in defaults for rendering...

windows32
formZ 6.1.2
maxwell 1.5

[juan]

Dear monochrome,

Could you send a simple scene that reproduces that behavior to techdesk@nextlimit.com?

Many thanks!

Juan

[juan]

Hi monocrome et all,

We are still trying to reproduce your problem, it is the only know issue that we have addressed and should be fixed before the next patch, we think that it is fixed but we need to be 100% sure. Sometimes there is something that becomes corrupted and the mxs file can be written only creating a new scene and copying there all the materials and geometries. It should be easy to detect what happens once we have a simple scene that reproduces it, so if any of you is getting the "purge materials" warning using a simple scene please send us the fzp file.

To keep you updated, this is the current list of changes/bug fixed. The release date depends on this latest issue. We could try to release it at the end of this week, otherwise next week many of us will be attending Siggraph and it won't be possible to release it until mid August.

//--------------------
// Version 1.5.1.1
//--------------------

- Fixed issue when renaming mxm files
- Fixed HDR offset always become 100.
- When "copy background to all the channels" is enabled, intensity, scale and offset are properly copied.
- Fixed issue with wrong labels in some fields in Sky/HDR.
- Fixed "purge materials message" was displayed when the mxs file was not properly written
- Extract Sun rotation of formz sky
- Better error message handling
- Ability to extract formZ lights: Right now point and spot (cone) lights are supported. The intensity can be set in mode simple or accurate with Watts + Efficiency or Lumens/Candelas. The color is extracted as well. By default FormZ lights are hide to camera so they don't appear in the scene. There is a new group of options in the Maxwell display options to set these new light options. We will try to add other light types in the future.

Regards,

Juan