First frame bug

[luckett_jason@hotmail.com]

Hi all,

This small bug still appears to be happening, so let's say you have an animation of 2000 frames and want to render from 1500-2000 through livelink, Vantage still renders frame 1 then goes onto 1501 and onwards, small issue.

Also any reason in Vantage 2 why we still can't pause the link quickly?

Easy to use godrays and effects still seem a bit lacking which is a disappointment. Would also be great if you could update lighting the scene with HDRI's to be more user friendly so you can cycle through them quickly.

Also for large animations it still seems the best workflow is to send the scene as a standalone (for speed).

Easily worth the cost if you are using this for animations.

Otherwise love the update guys.

Cheers,

Jason

[luckett_jason@hotmail.com]

Adding to this, whilst using live link (way slower than sending the whole animation as a standalone, 2 mins per frame livelink vs 10 seconds standalone) I get a crash as soon as I tried to move the progress bar in Vantage. Also I think 3dsmax autobackup should get automatically disbaled when using livelink, this seems to be a potential problem as well.

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi Jason,

This small bug still appears to be happening, so let's say you have an animation of 2000 frames and want to render from 1500-2000 through livelink, Vantage still renders frame 1 then goes onto 1501 and onwards, small issue.

I believe this is happening when the scene is very heavy and the time to send the scene from max to Vantage is longer than to render and save the actual frame. So while the 1500 frame is being transferred the 0 frame is rendered in Vantage. We haven't still found a way to fix this but are looking into it.

Also any reason in Vantage 2 why we still can't pause the link quickly?

What do you mean by pause? To stop camera updates or to stop sending updates from max in general so it becomes more responsive?

Easy to use godrays and effects still seem a bit lacking which is a disappointment.

We have the volumetric fog implemented similar to V-Ray so god rays can be achieved now, though it will require a little trial and error.

Would also be great if you could update lighting the scene with HDRI's to be more user friendly so you can cycle through them quickly.

Can you give an example of the workflow you want? The speed of switching between HDRs is resolution dependent - the higher the resolution the longer it will take to set it and use it.

whilst using live link I get a crash as soon as I tried to move the progress bar in Vantage

Vantage crashes while moving the time slider in Max or you move the time slider in Vantage? There shouldn't be any animation slider in Vantage while in Live Link so I cannot think of why it should be happening. Can you send a video or screenshot or the scene to investigate?

Also I think 3dsmax autobackup should get automatically disbaled when using livelink, this seems to be a potential problem as well.

I will add it in our system as a request.

Best regards,
Alexander

[luckett_jason@hotmail.com]

Hi Alex,

Hi Jason,


I believe this is happening when the scene is very heavy and the time to send the scene from max to Vantage is longer than to render and save the actual frame. So while the 1500 frame is being transferred the 0 frame is rendered in Vantage. We haven't still found a way to fix this but are looking into it.

Yes this happens in that situation, I resolve this now by hitting render from say frame 1600 and then stopping the progress immediately, then I hit render from 1600 again and it's fine, it's a small bug so no big thing.

What do you mean by pause? To stop camera updates or to stop sending updates from max in general so it becomes more responsive?

Generally for me live link takes over 3dsmax once initiated, there appears to be no way to stop it once it's started other than killing it through task manager. I appreciate on smaller scenes this isn't a problem, but for me on very large scenes it is (10-20 minutes to transfer).

Perhaps livelink could work in the background somehow, maybe allow you to carry on working in your scene whilst translating part or the whole of the scene (if allowed)? Also maybe have an option to not send deformable meshes as well?

It would be a great workflow if Vantage was always alive with your scenes but livelink could be paused or put on low priority at any stage.

I would say most artists would love Vantage running all day long but with good interactivity, I appreciate on smaller scenes this does happen already.

Ideal workflow would be arrive at work in the morning load up 3dsmax and your scene and then hit livelink (turn off animated meshes transfer option or anything that causes it to recalculate), go make a coffee and get back ready to work, I mean once the scene is in the GPU shouldn't it be there instantly,? We have a 48gb GPU so could it be done? Maybe I don't understand the process well enough so forgive my ignorance!

It's been mentioned on other forum boards but Vray GPU should of morphed into Vantage, has Vray GPU been significantly updated in the last few years? I guess Vantage was never integrated inside 3dsmax so as to be able to sell it as an independent software.

We have the volumetric fog implemented similar to V-Ray so god rays can be achieved now, though it will require a little trial and error.

For me this is poor, it's suggested in the Vantage 2 promos that it's implemented, if it is then it's not simple, I've tested Unreal and it's fairly easy in there, twinmotion also looks easy.

Can you give an example of the workflow you want? The speed of switching between HDRs is resolution dependent - the higher the resolution the longer it will take to set it and use it.

Under the light tab why not have a HDRI override with a very simple switcher between HDRI's, so have the list of Cosmos HDRI's and be able to flick between them easily...

Vantage crashes while moving the time slider in Max or you move the time slider in Vantage? There shouldn't be any animation slider in Vantage while in Live Link so I cannot think of why it should be happening. Can you send a video or screenshot or the scene to investigate?

This is general sluggishness and sometimes unresponsiveness in Vantage once the file has been loaded, sometimes I will just get a straight 3dsmax crash, certainly on large scenes.


Aside from these small things Vantage is great and thanks for the continued development.

Jason