Tyre burnout sim- urgent help needed

[Bertjenkins]

I'm afraid this is why i don't want to purchase an online license. I downloaded the trial version and already it has stopped working. It tells me: -200 The chaos group license server could not be reached. no gui license found.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, are you sure you are not getting the upgrade option on the site? From my account I can see this here: https://www.chaosgroup.com/phoenix-fd/maya#pricing



But if you're already bought from a reseller, could be best to get in touch with them. I just want to make sure there isn't some issue on the Chaos site.

Indeed this might be the reason for the deleting caches issues, yes - if the sim is running, it might take a while for the hard disk to delete the caches and meanwhile the sim could write one more (off the top of my head it should not be possible to write more than one, but gotta see if I can break it here now that I know the steps...). Deleting the caches while the sim is not selected has already been brought up and it's so easy to implement that it's a shame if I delay this any longer. Will ping you when it's in the nightlies...

These lines! We've seen them in some rare random occasions, but only while you are moving the camera around. If the key is to have heavier caches with no Detail Reduction, will try to break it here and catch the issue. Indeed it looks like z-fighting, but we've also come to the conclusion that this can't be the case because there aren't any other geometries around. Gonna need just one confirmation - are the images you posted screenshots from the viewport, or produced by maya's playblast, or images saved by the Save Frame/Animation Preview buttons at the bottom of the Preview -> GPU Shade Preview rollout? While we're trying to catch this, would you be able to work around it by using the e.g. Save Preview buttons if you were using playblast before?

[Bertjenkins]

The images i sent are grabs from the viewport. But I will try the other options, however whilst playing back they seem to appear consistently in the same place, so i had assumed they would be on the playblasts too.
If you explode some smoke outwards horizontally, then try to view the explosion moving from above, like a drone shot for example, this is when it is most exaggerated.
Basically i'm trying to get the nicest looking sim in the viewport possible. The issue definitely seems related to the camera clipping planes to me.
As for the upgrade that's strange, i didn't have that option, will look again.
Thanks again for your help.

[Bertjenkins]

I've just tried the GPU preview option...Hadn't realised it uses a different method to the playblast. It solves my problem! No lines anymore. (However it does seem to have a slightly different look to the viewport).
Anyway - it's an extremely useful feature, especially as you can render while you sim. So thanks a million for the suggestion.
My playblasts definitely can't travel too close to the sims though. The artifacts begin and ultimately the sim disappears when you get to a certain distance away. I've tried all the viewport transparency algorithms and its the same on all.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Agh, so I implemented deleting of caches without a selected simulator for 3ds Max, only to start doing that for Maya and find out that we already had it!

You just gotta right-click the Delete shelf button. I will still make some changes and make it work with left button click as well.

Cheers!

[Bertjenkins]

Great thanks, worth knowing. surprisingly slows things down quite a bit when you are searching the scene for the sim to delete it.

[Bertjenkins]

I'm finding often the render settings dialogue preference gets corrupted quite a lot with the combo of phoenix and maya, resulting in inaccessible render settings. I'm sure this is a problem with maya rather than phoenix, etc... however the only reason i need the settings is to select the camera from which to preview using the gpu preview. I'm guessing it uses the default vray camera rather than the currently selected camera in the viewport. Is there a way to set the frame size and camera without using the render settings? I can set the frame size in the vray settings node, but sometimes the camera seems to default to the wrong one. Is there another way, rather than resetting my preferences a gazillion times?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Huh, how does ot get corrupted, can you show a screenshot? Does not sound familiar..

[Bertjenkins]

Everything is greyed out (see below). Happening almost every time now. I am not using vray shaders (shader fx for previz) I wonder if that is the issue (vray not opening properly but i dont need it, i just want gpu preview). Phoenix is selecting the wrong camera every time and the only way i can select the correct one is to reset the prefs. Is there any other way to ensure the camera i want is used?

[Bertjenkins]

It's happened 4 times now. Desperately need this gpu preview. All i want is to do the gpu preview from the camera in the viewport. But it keeps rendering the perspective camera. Surely there is a way to manually select the correct camera for the preview? I cant get to the render settings - but not even sure if that is the reason why it's not working. Is there a workaround?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Something is wrong with your maya setup, I'd suggest a reinstall of V-Ray and then Phoenix, and if this does not fix it - Maya, then V-Ray, then Phoenix.

Do you get any errors in your Maya log window? The controls are not greyed out, they are completely missing, so something's broken in Maya's user interface.

As for the GPU preview - have you tried setting any other renderer? It has nothing to do with V-Ray - it's a Phoenix way of visualizing the data, so the viewport size and the camera for the GPU Preview should be taken from Maya, not from the V-Ray settings...

[Bertjenkins]

Still having the problem with the sim deleting issue. I play through my sim, select the sim,hit delete, return to frame 0 and it just continues the old sim again from wherever it was.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Oh, you mean without hitting Stop?

[Bertjenkins]

No, i stop, then return to zero, and it seems the sim is continuing in the background even when i've stopped it....