loads and unloads geometry forever.

[mikeh]

I have a file that has less than 20 vray proxy trees in it. It is a camera match and i have used the file previously for two other views with relatively fast render times. Now for this third view i added another 3d tree but not as a vray proxy. i cloned it twice. So in this file all the trees are proxies except these two. I am using GI on all views at a low setting. For some reason, this view never stops loading and unloading geometry and so far has not gotten past the first GI pass. I'm going to let it hang itself and run over night but i was wondering if anyone has encountered an error like this.
Thanks.
mh

[vlado]

Give it more dynamic memory and it should be fine.

Best regards,
Vlado

[mikeh]

i realized what the problem most likely was this morning as i was driving to work. We get cad files of existing topo, roads, trees, etc. that we work from, that at least 50% of the time have something in them that is corrupted and will crash my 3d work in autocad as well as max/viz. This view had different pieces of that cadwork imported into it that the other views didn't have. I saved one of the problem free versions out and merged the camera from the problem file into it and am rendering right now. If that doesn't solve the problem, i'll try your solution, Vlado.
Thanks.
mh

[mikeh]

yep...corrupted cad files was the problem. Interesting that it only affected the file when GI was on and not when it was turned off.....and it affected the render even when the cad work was hidden.

It is a standard problem here, so nothing new, just part of working in the AEC world.
mh

[RErender]

I had similar back in max 3 or 4 when using scanline, had some bad CAD in the file and it would take ages to prepare geometry, would hang too if I canceled the render. Took a while to figure out what it was...