Vray distributed missing buckets

[LQ2]

Hi,

I've been using Vray for ages now, and can usually spot DR problems a mile away, but this one is beating me.

We have just upgraded our Max from 2013 to 2014 (both 64bit, and with the latest service packs installed), and at the same time, upgraded Vray to the latest version 2.40.04. At the same time, we are using a small render farm that has been upgraded to win 7 so as to allow us to install Max 2014. We have all plugins installed on all machines, and I have checked to make sure all the file paths are correct, both in the max files and on all the servers.

We are opening a Max 2013 file with many (15+) xrefs (2013 files), saving the master file in 2014 and then rendering. The xrefs are not updated to Max 2014, but hoped that would be ok?

The effects we are seeing are buckets from the render nodes not rendering everything that is in the scene, and rendering very strange lighting on parts that they are picking up correctly. Is anyone else having these problems? Has anyone got any ideas? Should all the files be re-saved as 2014 versions first? Could it be a Max problem, or a Vray problem?

I hope someone can help.

Regards,

Bill Sands

[tricky]

Have you tried cloning the camera?

(everything asset tracked? Are you using spawner as a service? If yes, is everything UNC?)

[LQ2]

We have tried cloning the camera (should have mentioned that... an old trick).
We are not using the spawner as a service... just running the icon on the desktop on the render nodes. Should the nodes be set up as a service?
All paths in the asset tracker have the complete file path, in the format "C:\user\docs\Letter.txt" All computers have the drives mapped in the same way with the same drive letters, which are set up with a script, so I know they are all set up the same.

[tricky]

We have tried cloning the camera (should have mentioned that... an old trick).
We are not using the spawner as a service... just running the icon on the desktop on the render nodes. Should the nodes be set up as a service?
All paths in the asset tracker have the complete file path, in the format "C:\user\docs\Letter.txt" All computers have the drives mapped in the same way with the same drive letters, which are set up with a script, so I know they are all set up the same.

Mmm. Puzzling. Does it work without any XREF scenes?

You don't have to run spawner as a service, but if you do, you need to ensure all assets are following the UNC protocol.

[LQ2]

This problem becomes more puzzling...
It would seem that some of the files did actually have the wrong file path, BUT... they still showed up on the local machine, and rendered on the local machine! I don't really understand how they can render on any machine if the path is wrong. How did they display in the viewport?

I'm still looking into the problem, and am not sure if we fixed it yet.

[Morne]

This will happen if the same file is in another folder that is in your user paths
OR
the map happen to be in the same location as the max file

Best to check in asset tracking if all your path are pointing to the correct location. It helps in asset tracking to enable unc paths. Then any new paths will be automatically converted to UNC if you use mapped network drives

[svetlozar.draganov]

At first I would suggest to leave all complicated scenes with a lot of textures and reference and prepare a simple setup which is similar to your workflow but instead of having a hundred of variables to think about make a few of them and observe them very carefully.

Then run Distributed Rendering and look for the same issue - if it doesn't persist then the setup is correct and the issue is not related to Vray but in the scene-file.
Then the following checks must be done:
- Make sure that all paths are UNC - Vray doesn't like much mapped drives.
- Check all external assets pats ==> texture / proxy / ies-lights / precalculated GI / any caches and etc
- Activate Check For Missing Assets option in Vray System Tab
- Make sure that all slaves have rights to open all needed assets from the server
- check not only the Master file - but all Xrefs also
- make sure that all slaves use the same version of Max and Vray

If after all of those changes and checks the issue still persists please contact us again.

[LQ2]

Thanks Svetlozar for your comprehensive check-list, I'll work through those to solve the old files.

I have just set up a new scene, with x-refs, and have checked all the file paths etc. but I still have the same problems. When I render on my machine everything is ok, but as soon as I turn on distributed rendering, there are buckets missing. I can however fix it by instancing the camera and using the instance. Why does this fix it? Why doesn't it work by default?

[svetlozar.draganov]

Make sure that the camera-names are unique.
When you set up scenes with Xref the cameras are in any of the Xref file , or in the Master file ?
Can you send us one of those non-working files ? It would be better if you are able to reproduce it on simple scenes with a few objects otherwise it is a bit hard to debug it.

A few screen-shots of what you have on your side would be very helpful for us.