possible raytrace material in my scene

[Guest]

When i hit render i get this message:

this is what i get:

RayFX Raytrace Engine v5.02
(c) 1998-2000 Blur Studio Inc.
---------------------------------------------------

Waiting for trace request...

Frame complete.
Rays traced: 0
---------------------------------------------------

I assume that means i have raytrace materials in my scene? But i cannot see any. Any ideas?

[JohnVK]

Yes, it sure does.

I usually first check the Slate Material Editor, left pane > Scene materials (right-click the "scene materials" header and enable the option "Show Subtree" to be able to view the maps in the materials) and see if I can find the map there.

If there are many many materials there (which there usually are in my case) and manually searching them isn't an option then I just delete roughly half of the scene's objects, do a test render and see if the message keeps appearing. Then I keep the half of the objects that triggers the message, delete again half of the objects of that, do a test render and so and so forth. I just keep deleting half of the objects until I find the culprit. Then sample the mat from that remaining object, delete the raytrace map and I'm done

It's a fairly fast method, or at least, I think so especially because this only happens on imported objects that I have not modeled myself. So I can already exclude everything I know has a mat that I set up myself. My scenes are always well organized with everything named and grouped in named layers, so it's very easy to hide everything I already know has nothing to do with the issue. Another good reason to keep things nice and tidy

There are probably many more methods to find that raytrace mat. Most likely better ones too but I hope this helps anyway

[Guest]

Thanks, I will give it a go. The scene has been completely created by my client and its a mess. He said can you make it render faster for me? I opened it did a test render and oh my god. Nothings named or organised at all

[vlado]

V-Ray will also print out warnings about all raytrace materials in the message log.

Best regards,
Vlado

[JohnVK]

Thanks, I will give it a go. The scene has been completely created by my client and its a mess. He said can you make it render faster for me? I opened it did a test render and oh my god. Nothings named or organised at all

Oi... that is indeed bad......

I hope you can make something decent from that then! Good luck man!

V-Ray will also print out warnings about all raytrace materials in the message log.

Best regards,
Vlado

Ah yes, that's right! Good one Forgot about that! I always disable the message window by default, maybe I shouldn't

The only problem with the warning message is that it will only mention the name of the map and not the material it is attached to. So that can still make it kind of hard to hunt it down. Especially if there are many materials/maps in the scene. But at least you know which one to look for! So that's definitely useful!

[3DMK]

Oi... that is indeed bad......

I hope you can make something decent from that then! Good luck man!


Ah yes, that's right! Good one Forgot about that! I always disable the message window by default, maybe I shouldn't

The only problem with the warning message is that it will only mention the name of the map and not the material it is attached to. So that can still make it kind of hard to hunt it down. Especially if there are many materials/maps in the scene. But at least you know which one to look for! So that's definitely useful!

HERE is a nice addition to the warnings dialog.....Like you just mentioned, Can we have the warning dialog tell us the material that the map is in.

It would save a lot of time to know straight away

Is this possible VLADO????

Thanks

[vlado]

Right now V-Ray does not remember which material the map came from, but it may be possible to track it down... I'll make a note to look into it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[JohnVK]

Indeed 3DMK, I think it would save a LOT of time for many of us.

Thanks for looking into this, Vlado! I sure hope this will make it into one of the next builds!

[Guest]

the Vray log says 0 errors, 0 warnings :/

[JohnVK]

That's ... unexpected ... that doesn't make sense if one gets to see the RayFX dialog window. Pretty weird to say the least?

So I guess the next question would be: is there something else that could cause this dialog window to appear?

[Guest]

Heres the kicker, if i delete everything in my scene it still comes up. If I merge all in to a new scene it comes up.

[JohnVK]

Huh?? It happens in an empty scene?? That's quite bizarre to say the least.

It must be hiding somewhere in environment or some other hidden object/setting. But then there should be some material entry in the "Scene Materials" in the Slate Material Editor.

Is it possible to post the 3ds Max file, the empty one? In a zip or rar file. That way I could take a look and see if I can find anything.

[Guest]

Ok ruled out empty scene, must have been confused with old and new warnings. If i resave close and open Max the message is gone. So its definitely in the geometry. Going to have to delete half the scene and close and open Max. grrr