Complete crash.

[oophus]

Hi,

I've got a problem with a scene. As soon as splashes or foam are generated it crashes within a couple of frames - and often at the same frame they get spawned.

The scene have been the same as a previous scenes where I have been able to get a sim through, but this time I get no where. I have tried to export everything out to a fresh scene, but the same thing happens. I downloaded todays nighly and there is nothing different. I have tried to find the issue with several things all day. Switched out the hull of the boat for a sphere. Not simulating containers that are supposed to fall into the ocean etc. But I get no where. I would really appreaciate any help I can get with this.

I am using 3ds max 2016 with ext.1.
Vray 3.20.02
Latest phoenix FD build (as of 14.10-2015).

[Ivaylo Katev]

ok, i think today is too late to have a fix, but hopefully tomorrow. can you use an old nightly until we fix this?

[oophus]

ok, i think today is too late to have a fix, but hopefully tomorrow. can you use an old nightly until we fix this?

The problem showed up during an old nightly which I had no problems with, thats why I downloaded the new nightly from today, but the same problem persists.
The only difference is that I've included some containers to the sim. Oh, and I've also turned "by free fly" down to 0.0 from 0.5.

Right now I am doing an sim without the foam and the splashes, and hopefully I can use that with a resim tomorrow to get the foam and splashes without the mesh, in case its a RAM issue or something.

EDIT: I was able to reproduce a crash. Not sure if that is the cause, but I simmed through 100 frames with no problems without foam and splash, and then tried to sim with the displacement turned on and it crashed. So it may not be related to the splash and foam, but the displacement function? I have not tried to sim with foam and splashes without displacement yet, as I'm gonna let it sim to frame 100 before I conclude that it goes well. But I will try that later.

EDIT2: Turned on splashes and foam without doing anything else, still displacement off, and it crashed right as splashes spawned.

[Ivaylo Katev]

well, the problem is that we were unable to reproduce the crash with your scene, apparently it happens randomly, and we have to found the factor related to it.

[oophus]

well, the problem is that we were unable to reproduce the crash with your scene, apparently it happens randomly, and we have to found the factor related to it.

Ok, any ideas on what I should try next?

[Ivaylo Katev]

you said that the problem started after turned "by free fly" to zero, just for the test you can restore it back to 0.5, if the simulation is stable, then eventually the part of the code related to this parameter can be investigated very carefully .

[oophus]

you said that the problem started after turned "by free fly" to zero, just for the test you can restore it back to 0.5, if the simulation is stable, then eventually the part of the code related to this parameter can be investigated very carefully .

A new day, a new start. ^^

I never got to update vray to 3.20.03 yesterday, so thats the first thing I did today. I also turned on velocity on the output channel and switched on splashes and foam. Right now it has survived for 30 frames and splashes and foam have been generated, so it has surpassed all of yesterdays tries so far. Will let this sim run and maybe, we got a stable sim again, and the vray update did work. Or maybe turning on velocity channel in the output did the trick, I dont know.

EDIT: I have also let the computer restart, since it was 3 days since last restart. That may have helped as well. But it looks like it works now, thankfully.

[Ivaylo Katev]

did you restored the free fly value?

[oophus]

did you restored the free fly value?

No, I just wanted to try now with the exact same settings as earlier, seeing as I updated to the latest stable vray. So the "by free fly" is still at 0,0. We're at frame 50 now, and still going strong. ^^

[Ivaylo Katev]

ok, but you didn't mention any rendering, perhaps open material editor? let be clear - it does not crash with vray 3.20.03, but crashes with 3.20.02 ?

[Ivaylo Katev]

btw, i forgot the most important question - if you are able to reproduce the crash, attach the phoenix log file please! you can find it using the about button.

[oophus]

ok, but you didn't mention any rendering, perhaps open material editor? let be clear - it does not crash with vray 3.20.03, but crashes with 3.20.02 ?

The things I did different from yesterday to today is:

Update vray to 3.20.03.
Put on velocity in the output channel.
I also had an windows update that was bugging the hell out of the computer yesterday, so that may have been the cause as well.

Right now, I have simmed to 150, and everything seems to work perfectly again (knock on wood...).

btw, i forgot the most important question - if you are able to reproduce the crash, attach the phoenix log file please! you can find it using the about button.

Yes, I will do that if I encounter the crash again.

[Ivaylo Katev]

i really hope to reproduce the crash, one more question - do you keep the preview enabled during the simulation?

[oophus]

i really hope to reproduce the crash, one more question - do you keep the preview enabled during the simulation?

Yes, but only the particles. With auto adjustments on for the reduction.

Do the system generate files all the time, or do they overwrite? If I got a file somwhere from yesterday when I had all those crashes, I could send that to you.

[Ivaylo Katev]

the files are overwritten, no chance to use them