Body Objects Changing mesh resolution...

[Donald2B]

Hey guys,

I have LOTS of engineering exported files that I have imported into Max as Body objects. It works great and mesh detail is fantastic. With 2014, I noticed that these body objects are changing mesh resolution per frame. So about every 10th frame the mesh is different and flickers in mesh resolution. I've not had this problem in Max 2012 or 2013. When sent through the renderfarm, every machine at some point will exhibit this problem.

To test things out, I opened up an older project that had rendered fine, and it exhibits the same problem in 2014.

Does anyone here work with engineering data inside of Max and keep the geometry as body objects? If so, have you run into this rendering problem on your renderfarm?

I don't really want to have to go through and collapse these HUGE assemblies into mesh data for rendering. That would take AGES!

Thanks for any insight!

[ior=0]

The Body Object is a port/clone of nPowers Powertranslator (v10 is out for Max2014), unfortunately I haven't installed 2014 yet to test, as the projects I'm working on are all 2013 so cannot comment, but I haven't noticed this in 2013.

You might want to check and or ask a question in their forums: http://npowersoftware.com/forums/

The other thing to check is your "Rendering Approximation" tab in the body object. You can have View Dependent or Size Dependent, not sure which you want or how they work, I always use View.
There are other misc options that might solve the problem also.

David Gill is a really nice guy at IntegrityWare that makes nPower but I not sure if they support the native BodyObject, they might help if you bought a copy of the translator though!!

Hope that helps.

[ior=0]

This Sounds like your problem:
http://npowersoftware.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1211


Porblem with quality of objects flickering in net render.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ... View Post
I have had an issue lately with max2011 and the newer power translators where my Pwr_EditNRB objects flicker between low and high quality on random frames when net rendering my projects. Has anyone else experienced this?
This is a known issue, and we have a patch for it. It happens with animations using view dependent mesh, and where an object is off screen and then appears on the screen. I will send you a download link for the patch fix.
__________________
David Gill
President
nPower Software

So they might at least have a fix.

[Donald2B]

Thanks Simon!

I do know David, I used to have the entire nPower software suite. Man I wish I could talk the powers that be into letting me get that software here at the office. It would greatly help with what I am doing.

I didn't know that this was still an nPower Software development problem.

Thanks a TON!

[Donald2B]

UPDATE: So I'm still having this problem, and apparently the only way to fix it is to set all my body objects to Fine Quality and Render viewport mesh option.

So I had a script that would take all body objects and set them to coarse. This works great.

I take that script and then modified it to do the opposite, switch the body objects to fine quality, then check render viewport mesh. The check viewport mesh and the fine button highlight, but the mesh doesn't actually change. I have to click again on the fine button on a body object for the updates to actually take place.

Can someone more versed in maxscript take a look at the two scripts for me? Please.

Coarse Quality:

macroScript CoarseQuality
category:"DragAndDrop"
toolTip:""
(
(
(
for o in geometry where (classof o.baseobject == Pwr_EditNRB) OR (classof o.baseobject == Body_Object) do (
o.baseobject.LowQualityVDS = on
o.baseobject.MediumQualityVDS = off
o.baseobject.HighQualityVDS = off
o.baseobject.IsoAngleDS = 3
o.baseobject.IsoChordHeightVDS = 0
o.baseobject.FaceApproxAngleVDS = 30.0
o.baseobject.EdgeApproxAngleVDS = 0
o.baseobject.FaceChordHeightVDS = 1.0
o.baseobject.EdgeChordHeightVDS = 0
o.baseobject.MaxEdgeLengthPctVDS = 0
o.baseobject.RenderViewportMeshRA = off
o.baseobject.ULinesVDS = 0
o.baseobject.VLinesVDS = 0
)
)
)
)

High Quality:

macroScript FineQuality
category:"DragAndDrop"
toolTip:""
(
(
(
for o in geometry where (classof o.baseobject == Pwr_EditNRB) OR (classof o.baseobject == Body_Object) do (
o.baseobject.LowQualityVDS = off
o.baseobject.MediumQualityVDS = off
o.baseobject.HighQualityVDS = on
o.baseobject.IsoAngleDS = 3
o.baseobject.IsoChordHeightVDS = 0
o.baseobject.FaceApproxAngleVDS = 10
o.baseobject.EdgeApproxAngleVDS = 0
o.baseobject.FaceChordHeightVDS = 0.02
o.baseobject.EdgeChordHeightVDS = 0
o.baseobject.MaxEdgeLengthPctVDS = 0
o.baseobject.RenderViewportMeshRA = on
)
)
)
)