A faster IPR using cpu

[Morbid Angel]

Unfortunately I couldn't provide the production scene. Sometimes I "feel" if I turned off geo and bitmap caching, it helps a bit on the stability. But I really couldn't reproduce exactly the crash. I have to say it crashes a lot and I wasn't doing anything special. Simply just changing light attributes and positions. After 10 minutes or so, I pressed stop RT and Maya crashed.

I agree, its difficult to isolate and pinpoint the issue. Especially when you are in production under deadline and you have to get it done. This does not mean the issue does not exist. I'm not sure what process the RT goes through went its being tested, I'd really love to see production scenes tested in RT by the development team since you can best isolate issues on your side, vs us trying to explain and catch a problem. I think its safe to say that in a med/complex scene you can expect such problems to arise sooner or later.

[t.petrov]

It would be best if you can share some scenes and explain your work-flows.
We're doing some tests, but I'm sure we're missing lots of cases.

[t.petrov]

FYI:
We've found some problems in the code related to the IPR update latency.
These are mostly fixed and so the IRP should be way more responsive in current night builds and also in the upcoming 3.30 builds.
Please test and report if this is not the case.

About the crashes:
The plugin has more verbose logging capabilities that are disabled by default.
Is anyone willing to do some lighting/rendering sessions with the logging enabled
and if there are crashes to provide the generated logs for inspection?
The logging is not enabled by default, because it slows down the exporter (it is really verbose).

[jasonhuang1115]

This is great!

Regarding the test with verbose turned on, how do I enable the verbose? And if RT CPU crashed, will the verbose still be saved somewhere so I can send it over for further investigating?

FYI:
We've found some problems in the code related to the IPR update latency.
These are mostly fixed and so the IRP should be way more responsive in current night builds and also in the upcoming 3.30 builds.
Please test and report if this is not the case.

About the crashes:
The plugin has more verbose logging capabilities that are disabled by default.
Is anyone willing to do some lighting/rendering sessions with the logging enabled
and if there are crashes to provide the generated logs for inspection?
The logging is not enabled by default, because it slows down the exporter (it is really verbose).

[t.petrov]

Regarding the test with verbose turned on, how do I enable the verbose? And if RT CPU crashed, will the verbose still be saved somewhere so I can send it over for further investigating?

To enable the logging you need to:
1. Export/set the VRAY_FOR_MAYA_RT_LOGGING environment variable to 'true'.
2. Start Maya. You'll see in the log/output if you've set the it correctly.

The log will be saved in the %TEMP%/vray4maya_log.txt file.
I think we're making sure that even if there is a crash the log will be fully saved.

[jasonhuang1115]

To enable the logging you need to:
1. Export/set the VRAY_FOR_MAYA_RT_LOGGING environment variable to 'true'.

I am on Windows 7 and didn't see this in my environment variable. Should I create one and set it to true? What's the Export option? Is it exposed in Maya UI that I can simply toggle on?

The log will be saved in the %TEMP%/vray4maya_log.txt file.
I think we're making sure that even if there is a crash the log will be fully saved.

Is there a way to look up which this %TEMP% points to on Windows 7?


Thanks!

[t.petrov]

I am on Windows 7 and didn't see this in my environment variable. Should I create one and set it to true? What's the Export option? Is it exposed in Maya UI that I can simply toggle on?

Exports is the linux/unix term.
And yes you need to create this variable using the dialog for setting environment variables in your OS.

Another option is to run maya from cmd.exe. To do so:
1. open cmd.exe
2. type "set VRAY_FOR_MAYA_RT_LOGGING=true" without the quotes
3. start my by executing <full path to maya>\bin\maya.exe

Is there a way to look up which this %TEMP% points to on Windows 7?

Yes, just type %TEMP% in the address bar in the Windows Explorer.

[jasonhuang1115]

Thanks Petrov. I am able to set the ENV variable and locate the log file. When I encounter RT crashes, I will send support the log file with link to this thread.

[t.petrov]

Good. Thank you.

[jasonhuang1115]

One quick question. I am using both Maya 2014 (with stable 3.1 build) and Maya 2016 (with much newer 3.15 nightly build). With both RT crashes be written into the same log file you mentioned?

[t.petrov]

Yes, but this can be controlled with environment variables. See here http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...iables-LogFile
If you can setup the variables differently for the two instances of Maya then the log will be different.

[jasonhuang1115]

Great! Thanks Petrov.

[sharktacos]

+1 for the "Isolate Selected" feature to show textures and other nodes.

Also it would be great to have the feature to select geo in the render view.

Finally, I'd like to be able to click a spot on the render view and have Vray make a light that puts a spec dot right there. Arnold can't do that, but HDRlight Studio can, and Pixar had an in house system called lpics that could too (ca. 4 min into the vid).

It's worth noting how fast the lpics system is too, even though it's more that a decade old (2005).

[jasonhuang1115]

Finally, I'd like to be able to click a spot on the render view and have Vray make a light that puts a spec dot right there. Arnold can't do that, but HDRlight Studio can, and Pixar had an in house system called lpics that could too (ca. 4 min into the vid).

Curious if it's similar to another feature mentioned in this thread (3delight's Light Mixer (link)) where contributing light(s) can be hinted based on mouse movements in a render view. If that's the case, then based on Vlado comments, it's actually not that hard to implement something like this.

I was hoping to have this way (Lightrig Technology) of editing lights inside of V-ray. But it may have to do with LPE, which I am not sure about Vlado's take on this.

[sharktacos]

Curious if it's similar to another feature mentioned in this thread (3delight's Light Mixer (link)) where contributing light(s) can be hinted based on mouse movements in a render view. If that's the case, then based on Vlado comments, it's actually not that hard to implement something like this.

I was hoping to have this way (Lightrig Technology) of editing lights inside of V-ray. But it may have to do with LPE, which I am not sure about Vlado's take on this.

These look like they are about modifying the intensity of lights. My suggestion is more about modifying the position/orientation of a light based on clicking where you want the spec to appear on an object in the render view.