Putting caustics on makes render darker

[jkontiola]

I have three lights assigned for caustics only. Other lights are lighting the scene. When i render the image without caustics the light is prefect and bright. When i put caustics on the render is much darker than without caustics. The caustics look good though, but i want to render the caustics with the bright perfect light. I wonder why the caustics change the overall lighting.

Is there a solution?

[jkontiola]

Now rendering the scene causes Blender to crash and rendering doesn't start at all. This is quite frustrating. Five hours of my work just turned in to dust if I dont get it render again. Usually I save a new file once in an hour or something. This time I forgot :/

[jkontiola]

Found out finaly how to open blender in terminal mode in OSX.

Crashing gives "Segmentation fault 11" in terminal

[jkontiola]

This is the error log:

# Blender 2.77 (sub 1), Commit date: 1970-01-01 00:00, Hash 8141c15

# backtrace
0 blender 0x0000000100c4918a BLI_system_backtrace + 58
1 blender 0x000000010015604d sig_handle_crash + 365
2 libsystem_platform.dylib 0x00007fffe2abfbba _sigtramp + 26
3 ??? 0x0000000114e24378 0x0 + 4645340024
4 blender 0x0000000100a2f505 RNA_property_pointer_get + 213
5 blender 0x0000000100a3500f RNA_pointer_get + 143
6 blender 0x0000000100604af2 _ZN9VRayScene16VRayNodeExporter11getNodeTreeEN2BL9 BlendDataEP2ID + 114
7 blender 0x000000010065f0bf _ZN9VRayScene4Node15GetMaterialNameEP8MaterialRKSs + 79
8 blender 0x000000010065fc92 _ZN9VRayScene4Node15GetNodeMtlMultiEP6ObjectSsRSt3 mapISsSsSt4lessISsESaISt4pairIKSsSsEEE + 1554
9 blender 0x00000001006609fe _ZN9VRayScene4Node13writeMtlMultiEP7_object + 110
10 blender 0x0000000100663009 _ZN9VRayScene4Node9writeDataEP7_objectPNS_14VRayEx portableEb + 105
11 blender 0x00000001005fbeec _ZN9VRayScene14VRayExportable5writeEP7_objectf + 268
12 blender 0x00000001005e4a96 _ZN15VRsceneExporter10exportNodeEP6ObjectRKN9VRayS cene9NodeAttrsE + 1254
13 blender 0x00000001005deea9 _ZN15VRsceneExporter12exportObjectEN2BL6ObjectERKN 9VRayScene9NodeAttrsE + 1097
14 blender 0x00000001005d854b _ZN15VRsceneExporter16exportObjectBaseEN2BL6Object E + 10587
15 blender 0x00000001005d1f03 _ZN15VRsceneExporter11exportSceneERKiS1_ + 2051
16 blender 0x00000001005c0f78 _ZL12mExportSceneP7_objectS0_ + 104
17 blender 0x00000001023332f8 PyCFunction_Call + 280
18 blender 0x00000001023ad045 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 26149
19 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
20 blender 0x00000001023a69fe PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 78
21 blender 0x000000010231573d function_call + 381
22 blender 0x00000001022edec0 PyObject_Call + 96
23 blender 0x00000001023ad699 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 27769
24 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
25 blender 0x00000001023b12df fast_function + 351
26 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
27 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
28 blender 0x00000001023a69fe PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 78
29 blender 0x000000010231573d function_call + 381
30 blender 0x00000001022edec0 PyObject_Call + 96
31 blender 0x00000001023ad699 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 27769
32 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
33 blender 0x00000001023b12df fast_function + 351
34 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
35 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
36 blender 0x00000001023a69fe PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 78
37 blender 0x000000010231573d function_call + 381
38 blender 0x00000001022edec0 PyObject_Call + 96
39 blender 0x00000001023ad699 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 27769
40 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
41 blender 0x00000001023b12df fast_function + 351
42 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
43 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
44 blender 0x00000001023a69fe PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 78
45 blender 0x000000010231573d function_call + 381
46 blender 0x00000001022edec0 PyObject_Call + 96
47 blender 0x00000001023ad699 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 27769
48 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
49 blender 0x00000001023b12df fast_function + 351
50 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
51 blender 0x00000001023b125f fast_function + 223
52 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
53 blender 0x00000001023b125f fast_function + 223
54 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
55 blender 0x00000001023b125f fast_function + 223
56 blender 0x00000001023acae4 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 24772
57 blender 0x00000001023b09d5 _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName + 2421
58 blender 0x00000001023a69fe PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 78
59 blender 0x000000010231573d function_call + 381
60 blender 0x00000001022edec0 PyObject_Call + 96
61 blender 0x000000010056cc5d bpy_class_call + 1133
62 blender 0x0000000100b1b291 engine_render + 113
63 blender 0x00000001004e9b99 RE_engine_render + 985
64 blender 0x00000001004ffd70 do_render_3d + 48
65 blender 0x00000001004fe40b do_render_fields_blur_3d + 283
66 blender 0x00000001004fd5b1 do_render_all_options + 369
67 blender 0x00000001004fd082 RE_BlenderFrame + 194
68 blender 0x00000001004369aa render_startjob + 154
69 blender 0x0000000100168c5f do_job_thread + 31
70 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fffe2ac9aab _pthread_body + 180
71 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fffe2ac99f7 _pthread_body + 0
72 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fffe2ac9221 thread_start + 13

[jkontiola]

Appending all the object as a group or joined mesh works, but when render i crashes the same.

[andybot_cg]

Did you look for any backups in your local temp folder? It's saved me a few times that I found an older version in the temporary backups.

[jkontiola]

There was one backup. It had the same crash problem too. When I got the first few crashes I kinda paniced and rebooted the computer. It might have deleted the backups :/?

[andybot_cg]

Did you look in the system temp folder? C:\Users\*yourname*\AppData\Local\Temp

There are usually some extra copies in there.

[jkontiola]

Thanks for trying to help. Im on mac os. I went trough all the temp folders i could find. Only found the crashing file.

[andybot_cg]

Sorry, that's too bad. For years, I've been keeping multiple versions of files (a, b , c, d...) since more often than not I've had some corruption or some crash that messed up whatever current file I'm working on. Hard drive space is cheap, messed up files are expensive! I have been using linked files for static assets a lot more lately, so my main file can be just a couple dozen MB in size.

[jkontiola]

Yea I also try to save a new file often. Sometimes im just working so eagerly that i forget. I was wondering that because the project still opens, maybe I can just export the Geometry and materials to a new file. Any suggestions how to save the materials?

[jkontiola]

Phew. Got all the objects exported as fbx file. Imported them, the rendering works now without crashing. How could I transfer the materials and textures to this working project?

[jkontiola]

YESS! I got the scene working again. The crash happened because of some material. I removed all the unused materials and got it working again. There should be some smart way of cleaning the scene. Im so glad!
PEOPLE MAKE BACKUPS!

[jkontiola]

Still my first problem occurs. Caustics make render darker.

[andybot_cg]

Still my first problem occurs. Caustics make render darker.

Perhaps the GI caustics are turned off when caustics are enabled? See what happens if you save your GI maps and render GI "from file" when you use caustics.