[fuso]

Hi all,

I have a problem rendering an animation using 3DS Max 2011 with the latest plugin. I know I should probably post this in
the 3DS Max section but I got the feeling this problem is not related to the export from Max. It is a simple camera path of
160 frames, no big deal I'd say.

The export works fine, all 160 mxs files saved where I wanted them. All paths set properly, all settings checked. Then I
open my manager, all nodes and a monitor adding the job using the 'animation' option. I select the first file bla_0000.mxs
and it loads it fine with all settings correct. After clicking 'next' it takes a moment (I guess it's loading the remaining 159
frames) and then I use 'all available' nodes and hit 'finish'. So far so good.

The render job starts and lists all frames in the job tree starting 0-160. When checking my output directories I can see
the first .mxi's and .png's popping up, file numbering and naming correctly as expected. The surprise kicks in when I have
a look at any of the images, they're all the same!!

So I check any individual .mxi file and realise that they're all using the same first bla_0000.mxs file to render. I know that
there is another option to batch render which might do the trick but please don't tell me I'm doing something wrong here.

Any quick help and advise would be much appreciated, I want to go HOME and get those renders going!!

Cheers,

J

[Half Life]

I wish I could help -- I hate to see you with nobody to help but I can't do animations with Sketchup so I have no experience on that issue. Hopefully somebody with experience shows up to help out.

Best,
Jason.

[JorisMX]

Fuso,

I've been exporting 0-600 Frame Animations from Max 2010 not 2011 and I must say I have had some problems but your issue hasnt turned up.

During the export there is a button on the Maxwell Render Tab about outputting subsequent Frames.
I would suggest you try playing with these options and see if you can't get rid of this issue.

Perhaps just animate a cube with physical sky for a couple 100 frames and try working with that
Then see if you cant just use the same setting on the scene you're trying to export.

The animation export in max is somewhat tricky and in a previous build export would also fail if the activeshade window was still running FIRE.
So keep that in mind.

Only troubles I've experienced so far were:

-exporting all the mxs files w/o 3dsmax starting the renders e.g. sendind the files directly to the network monitor
-trying to get osx and win nodes to send and receive the dependencies correctly

hope this helps.

[fuso]

Thanks for the info so far,

I have managed to render my short animation using the batch render option in single node render mode and it worked just
fine. Hopefully, this will be fixed in the next patch as I believe it should be done using the animation option. Again, I don't
think the export from MAX is the problem here. Well, at least there is a work-around.

Cheers,

J

[Bubbaloo]

I just did a 875 frame network animation render from Max 2011 overnight. It ran just fine.

In the first post, you don't mention that you set the frames to render in the network wizard. Did you enter 0-160?

Also, if the mxs file is named bla_0000.mxs, make sure the mxi is named bla_0000.mxi and same with the image path (bla_0000.jpg).

[JorisMX]

Bubba could you share resolution size and details to the farm you render on?

[Bubbaloo]

Resolution was 1280x720 on two Win7 64 bit computers.

[JorisMX]

you must have pretty good benchmarks on those scenes!
I'm at around 30-90 minutes a frame with 600 frames @ HDReady res

You do the math.

[Bubbaloo]

It was just a test animation at S.L. 5. About 30 seconds per frame.

[JorisMX]

noisey

[fuso]

I just did a 875 frame network animation render from Max 2011 overnight. It ran just fine.
In the first post, you don't mention that you set the frames to render in the network wizard. Did you enter 0-160?
Also, if the mxs file is named bla_0000.mxs, make sure the mxi is named bla_0000.mxi and same with the image path (bla_0000.jpg).

Hi Brian,
I did mention that all paths and file names were correct. In fact, I double checked a few individual mxs files by opening
them in the render core as well as in Studio. All paths and output were correct and I also checked if the camera is
actually following the animation path. When opening the first mxs I was pleased to see that rendering frame 0-160 popped
up by itself without me entering it manually. I was convinced it would all be fine. But as I said before, I think the bug is
where the wizard (using 'animation job) reads the mxs files. And again, it worked fine using the 'batch render job' option.

Cheers,

J

[gotoxy av-media]

maybe it is about the padding?!
try bla_.0000.mxs instead of bla_0000.mxs


munch

[polynurb]

i am getting exactly the same issue now trying to render animations over the net. (coop jobs are ok)

if i turn off send dependencies for the animation job, all frames rendered are actually frame 1!!

if i leave dependencies on, the whole network stalls after rendering about 300 frames ok.

i have bee testing many different configurations.. it just fails.

any idea whats going on here?