Light maps now not seen

[stezza]

We stopped our rendering half way though at frame 300. All the light maps for our character animation are calculated and the first 300 frames look great!
On starting up the render again, on the same computer nothing has changed, the images all seem to render dark. It seem that the maps are now not read.
If I do a single frame render with IR and LC set to single, it looks fine but when we switch back to animation mode and turn LC off, set the IR map location and BAM! dark images.

So why did the first 300 frame render fine and now this issue.

Please advise....



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[vlado]

Do you get any errors or warnings in the log related to that? What were your settings in general for the light cache/irradiance map?

Best regards,
Vlado

[stezza]

There are no errors all maps/ textures are stated as loaded.
Adaptive DMC 2/5
IRMAP medium animation 50/30
LC samples 1200
image 630x415

Using prepass/animation mode with LC turned off during the second phase. Whats also interesting is that one of the pages behind the bottle seems to have rendered as it should.
The first half of animation rendered fine with these settings. The maps where all rendered out one in one go and saved out but they don't seem to have an effect now.

Trying again...

[vlado]

What if you render also the first frame when you restart (i.e. frames 0, 301-....)?

Best regards,
Vlado

[stezza]

All dark, using the very same maps. None of the maps have been over writen and only one set has been produced. The network paths have not changed using the same mapped drive and projects folder. I am rendering out another set of maps, done the 1st 5 light maps then rendered, then again for frames 6-10 and all seems to be fine. I'll do the rest of the 600 frames again, maps should be done by tomorrow ready for rendering...again. I'll let you know how it goes.



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[Neilg]

Did you say that you're turning the light cache off for the dark rendering, but the lighter ones have it turned on?

[stezza]

During the rendering in animation mode LC is always turned of as the LC is stored with the IR maps. so it's no longer required for the rendering process, just point to your IR maps and go. Secondary bounce is set to none during the rendering phase That's how I understood it, But maybe I'm wrong!

This is my process for character animation

phase 1
turn on DONT RENDER FINAL IMAGE
Primary GI set to IRMAP
Secondary set to LCache
Set to Animation Prepass
Input path to mapped drive for saved Vrlmap and Vrmaps.
Create vrscene

open prompt and render out.

Phase 2
turn off DONT RENDER FINAL IMAGE
Primary GI as is
Secondary set to none (LC is merged to IRmaps)
Set to animation Rendering
Locate saved map (No 1 in the list of 600)
Create vrscene

open prompt and render out.

[Neilg]

Where does it say that? We've always left ours on and they've rendered as expected.

edit: oh, spot 3d. Weird. Try just leaving it on anyway.

[stezza]

So is your LC being calculated twice?
I have done it this way for some years now (going back from beta stage) and have always had great results. Apart from this scene file which is not my creation, I'm trouble shooting it.
Vlado can you confirm that the LC is merged with the IR map and is not needed for the second phase in animation mode??

Thanks

[vlado]

Yes, once you have the irradiance map, you don't need the light cache anymore (except in some specific cases). In any case, it would be helpful if you can get us the scene to vraymaya@chaosgroup.com so that we can check it out.

Best regards,
Vlado

[stezza]

Hi Vlado I don't think I'll be able to send the scene as there are 15 referenced characters in it. I have rendered out 200 frames so far and all looks good. I'm just not going to restart my PC until it's all done.
In theory I should be able to stop the rendering and start it on another PC but this is what caused the issue in the first place. Don't want to take the risk as time is pressing spent far too long trouble shooting this already.
As soon as the job is done I will start up the render again after restart and see if the issue is re appearing....

PS. does the "don't render final image" turn itself off when you select prepass mode, should this be automated.. and I am interested in what specific cases would you need to use LC turned on in animation mode?
Thanks

[Neilg]

So is your LC being calculated twice?

no... nothing gets calculated at render time. We do ir & lc together, then load both. Renders the same as a single frame image. It's never worked the other way.