'cannot find a backup marker to restore the simulation'

[Neilg]

I was running a sim on a nightly from a week or so ago and max crashed around 500 frames in. I got the autoback, saved over the old file (it linked the .aur files straight away and brought them back to the viewport) but i cant find any way to resume the simulation from where it left off. My backup interval was set to 15 (and every 15 frames, there is an .aur file 2-3 times the size of the others) but when i click resore it pops up with the error that it cant find a backup marker.

It told me to make sure the .aur files exist, and they do. How do I get it to read them properly?

Thanks!

[Neilg]

Also, with motion blur switched on and any value other than 1 in the duration, the simulation grid separates from the ocean surface with a huge gap all around it. Is this just not working yet?

[Ivaylo Katev]

we are in holidays until tuesday, i even can't test the motion blur issue because there is no connection to the office and no IT staff to fix this.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hello! About the backup/restore issue - which frame do you try to restore from? Also, did you change your input or output paths? If so, when you click the browse button for the Output path, does it open the correct folder? Seeing the simulation in the viewport means that the Input path is correct, but for the restore to work, you need to make sure the Output path exists. For several days we added to the nightlies a path display below the browse control so one will be able to see what the path resolves to if he uses the magic macros. If that's okay, then please check if there are frames that show "* Can restore from here" in the Simulation rollout's channel list, so that we'll be sure Phoenix can read the backup marker, and then see what happens if you hit Restore right on such a frame (this should not be needed, Phoenix should go back from the current frame on the timeline and find the nearest suitable frame, but just in case...). If that doesn't help, we'll need an aur file with a backup and the scene to see what's going on.

[Morbid Angel]

im getting it a lot on my maya phx sims too

[Neilg]

Svetlin - input and output were set up correctly. Because I couldn't restore I deleted all those sim files and overwrote them so i'll have to get you those next time it happens. Maybe dmitry can help here if he's kept those?


Other things:
velocity pass doesnt work properly where the grid/sim area meets the ocean beyond it. does this just not work yet? I'm not which part is correct but i'd be inclined to think the issue is with the ocean (the camera is moving pretty fast tracking the boat)


edit: i have an issue with rendering my ocean surfaces - see post below this one.

I also rendered some frames with motion blur set to one whole frame to get around the issue i posted above, and now the grid matches the ocean surface but the ocean doesn't extend all the way to the edges of the frame. like this:

[Neilg]

I have a large number of frames which wont render in ocean mode at all, but render fine in mesh mode - it's only specific frames too. i just tested the same scene 3 times and it falls over on the same frames every time.

Here's a link to 2 frames on wetransfer. frame 461 works, frame 462 does not.
There's a max file in the link too.
http://we.tl/p1qc6KdPSc

Tried:
changing dynamic memory type between static and auto
embree on and off
displacement on, off, vector, surface driven
skyline subdivisions 2, 4, 6 & meshsmooth 1, 2, 4
and changing from ocean mode to mesh (this rendered the frames perfectly. cant use the render though)

How do I get these frames to render, and what's wrong with them?

[Neilg]

Is anyone able to look at that link and confirm the same issue?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, sorry for the delay - on my machine I've got problems even with 461, turned off embree from the V-Ray settings and then rendered both frames ok, can you try that?

[Svetlozar Draganov]

What Phoenix and Vray version you are using in order to get this behavior?
I did a quick test with the latest ones available so far and everything worked without any issues.
Would it be possible to update to the latest builds and run the same test again?

[Neilg]

not of vray, we're on 3.0.4 (just updated in a lul between projects) and wont be moving to .5 until we update max so we can run both side by side. We have to do 3 studios at the same time, it's a nightmare.

My tests with embree off also failed. I'm on a nightly build of phoenix from the first of april, will try last nights - thanks!.

[Neilg]

Installed the nightly from 20140423, it's even worse. it used to get about 75% of the way through frame 462 before crashing. now it does less than 10 buckets and quits out, 'an unexpected exception has occurred'

All other frames that previously worked still do, just the ones that didn't work quit out much sooner now. embree is off. still broken with embree on too.
Is there anything i could start changing in the ocean settings, seeing as it's just that which causes issues? Would changing jittering, step% and sampler type help?

[Ivaylo Katev]

yes, apparently the latest bug fixes in the mesher are not stable, i'm currently working on this.
i hope until the end of the day the mesher will be stable, but my suggestion is to send you directly a build for testing.

[Neilg]

happy to test a build if you want to send one over, thanks

neil.griffiths at dbox com

[Ivaylo Katev]

ok, but i need your max and vray versions