PFD Liquid rendering with color on backburner. Problems with PhoenixFDGridTex

[brian_knapp]

Hi there,
Currently having issues rendering out the RGB color with PFD liquid simulator on backburner with 3dsMax 2014. To clarify, we have several licenses of PFD that we use on the farm to render liquid and smoke out and have never had issues until I tried using "PhoenixFDGridTex." What I'm trying to do is just mix different colored liquids, that's it. I have checked the "Output Grid Channels: RGB" to output on simulation and rendering it locally works fine. Though when I launch it to our farm I get the issue "3dsmax adapter error: Autodesk 3dsMax 16.6 reported error: [V-Ray] UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: Updating material (Material)."

Now what's weird about everything is that usually one of the computers on our farm starts rendering out frames, and those frames are completely fine. The problem is that the others with the same license starts spitting out the error above.

I have the "PhoenixFDGridTex" set to GRID RGB on the diffuse slot of the material but didn't touch the other options. Is there an issue with that material rendering on backburner? I couldn't seem to find anything about this problem online.

Also to note, when I remove PhoenixFDGridTex from the material everything works fine except no color. Is there another way to color multiple liquids without using PhoenixFDGridTex? Or is there a way to fix this issue?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, I didn't catch your Phoenix version?

Another way to do the same thing would be via a particle texture. You gotta watch out for the area radius option - if it's too low, you will get black spots, if it's too high, the render will slow down. Also, if you get a circular reference error, you might have to duplicate the simulator, load the same cache in its input rollout, and pick that simulator into the particle texture.

Hope this helps!

[brian_knapp]

Hey, I didn't catch your Phoenix version?

Another way to do the same thing would be via a particle texture. You gotta watch out for the area radius option - if it's too low, you will get black spots, if it's too high, the render will slow down. Also, if you get a circular reference error, you might have to duplicate the simulator, load the same cache in its input rollout, and pick that simulator into the particle texture.

Hope this helps!

Currently we are running 3.12 on all the servers. I see that the latest version is 3.14, should I try updating our farm and try rendering again?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Oh wow, please do, this is 2+ years of bugfixes ago...

If you are not upgrading to Phoenix 4, then make sure to use a latest 3.14 nightly from here: https://nightlies.chaosgroup.com/#/phoenix3max

[brian_knapp]

Hi, Sorry for the delayed response. We had to wait until our farm was cleared out of jobs before updating them to the new 3.14 version of PFD. Though, after updating some of the servers we came upon another error which has me stumped. Instillation works fine and I made sure we had 3.14 version for V-Ray 3 as we do not have NEXT. When we attempt to run out a job to the farm we get a "Phoenixfd.dlr failed to initialize." I looked through the forum and saw that some other people have had the same issue but usually people who weren't downloading the correct version for Vray so I hopefully I didn't make that mistake.

I did also use the same installation .exe for my workstation and it worked fine so im not sure why the render nodes are having issues.

Currently we are running 3dsMax 2014, V-Ray 3.70.01 (Though I tried it on 3.6.05ADV before hand then updated to see if it fixed the problem), and PFD 3.14.

No matter how many time I uninstall or reinstall as admin "Phoenixfd.dlr failed to initialize" keeps appearing on all the computers.

If you have any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Does it help if you use the Workstation option in the installer? You can find more about it here - https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...heinstallation

Cheers!

[brian_knapp]

Hey,

Does it help if you use the Workstation option in the installer? You can find more about it here - https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...heinstallation

Cheers!

Unfortunately, It did not seem to help, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling as the workstation option and the other options and still the same error.

Looking at that link that Svetlin.Nikolov Posted I tried finding a nightly build that I could try, but it looks like there are no 3ds Max 2014 options in there like they are on the main site.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, yes, there are no filters per max version on the nightly site, but you can still browse the Phoenix 3 nighties folder, back to the max 2014 builds.

One thing I vaguely remember is that for some older maxes and phx version, you might need to install this https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=14632 Can you see if this helps?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

... or this one? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=30679

[brian_knapp]

So, it looks as though we did already have Visual 2012 installed but ran repair on it just to make sure. I then re-installed the PFD 3.14 version and restarted the comp. No change, still getting the same error of the DLR not initializing.

Also, I looked through the nightly build folders for the PFD 3 for 3ds max and it looks as though the earliest version it goes to is 3ds max 2015 in every folder, I hope I'm not looking in the wrong spot. I clicked through multiple folders and couldn't seem to find anything that looked right.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ohhh, sorry, my bad, was typing from the phone and now double checked - indeed we dropped 3ds Max 2014 nightlies long ago as they were causing build issues, and only did release builds for a few versions in 2019.

Hmmmm, so if it works on some machines and does not on others, what could be the difference... Usually it is the VC redistributable, but if you have even newer one, then it's okay...

If you start 3ds Max in GUI mode on a problematic machine, does Phoenix manage to create a log in C:\PhoenixFD?

[brian_knapp]

haha all good, thought I might have missed something. So the logs in that folder were created yesterday when I was installing PFD 3.14 but I'm not sure about the timing if they were created before or after the install. On one of the computers I tried moving the log out and making it generate a new one but opening 3ds max doesn't seem to make it generate one.

So an odd thing is, when I open 3ds max the failed to initialize phoenixfd.dlr shows up . Clicking OK opens up 3ds max after. The PFD quickbar is there but the buttons do nothing and there is no PFD modifier tabs.

Looking at the log files that you were talking about. The one comp that did end up working looked like this while the comps log file that didn't work looked like this So the log that was started on the bad comps all say 3.12 version but I have installed the 3.14 update on them. Also it was the same installer running as admin every time. I even ran the installer a few more times just trying to get it to generate a new log file.....I'm guessing theres a specific time or its generated when successfully launched. Also, I looked at the plugins and installer and both are coming up with no errors on install and the DLR is being replaced each time.

[brian_knapp]

Svetlin.Nikolov! Thank you for your help in all this. This thread can be marked as fixed or closed whatever works.

you were right about the VC redistributable, I just had to crank up the years a few. I installed the VC 2015 instead of the 2012 one and everything installed like a charm.

Going back to the original matter in which I posted on the forum, the PFD grid texture, Launching it off to the farm seems to go flawlessly as well now on PFD 3.14.

Thank you again for your help, much appreciated.
Cheers

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Yaaay, great news!