A bug with regards to Phoenix & GI

Hi,

There seems to be a bug in Phoenix regarding GI as I have a scene that Keeps sending the GI [either LC or IRRAD] into a never ending gi calculation.
Light Cache would just keep getting larger render time & not update & the Irradiance map [I tried both Localy & DR ] was having random machines stuck on random buckets that never finished
If the Render is cancelled the Gi still trys to calculate away and when you try to close max it crashes.
I spent 2 hours trying differnt GI settings & nothing fixed it.
If i turned off phoenix it rendered fine.

I am only a new user so I am unsure as to what is causing it …needless to say that it was finally solved by turning on the VRAY -Geometry-mode in the rendering section.
[Note** For my fire I was using the merged phoenix setup/objects from the sample sceneBurning plane]

I have seen exactlly the same thing happen to GI in other scenes ages ago in earlier service packs of Vray befor phoenix so it may be a know issue that phoenix has re-triggered

Hope this helps
Jamie

Hi Jamie,
can we see the scene with the problem?

Regards,
Ivo

Hi Ivo,

Yes I will send the scene later night when it has finished rendering. [How do I send it if it’s too big to email??]

Thanks

jamie

Hi Jamie,
Have you tried adding your Phoenix setup to a VRayenvironmentFog?
It can greatly help with reducing GI calculation time

you can use some free storage, but i’ll be really surprised if the compressed scene is still too big for emailing. the max format has good compression rate.

Thanks Chris

I tried a quick test from the Help file but the setup didn’t seem exactly clear…well it didn’t work when I tried it anyway.
Would you/someone be able to post even the most simple setup??? I just don’t have the time to learn new software in the middle of the pre-Xmas rush-hour.

What’s strange is that the fire was working fine in my draft renders…but then it just bugged out??? I have a feeling that max has currupted something in the scene??? as i Did have a lot of crashes on this scene even befor phoenix

Cheers
Jamie

Hi Ivo,

I just emailed you the problematic scene [‘phoenix@chaosgroup.com’]

Cheers
Jamie

Jamie,
I will get you a scene in the morning if thats ok?

thanks for the report and the scene, there is really a bug, and until the new release i would recommend you to use the VRayEnvironmentFog as an alternative shader.

edit:
you can try to switch on/off the option “particle mode secondary bounces”, this affects the GI even when the diffuse part is disabled

Jamie, what version of max are you using?

Sorry for the late reply Chris…rather overloaded with the pre-christmas rush hour.

Max 2008 64bit

Thanks heaps

Jamie

No worries!
There is a new build of Phoenix (1.2) grab that and see if it solves your issue

Unfortunately the work-load at this time of year is preventing ANY new installs or testing…Arrrrr :frowning:

Can’t wait to test phoenix, vray 2.0 & RT more…bring on the holidays & lots of spare time.

Jamie

yes, the issue is solved, this was the last bug fixed before the release:
(*) The rendering hangs when the cell size is too small
:slight_smile:

Great to hear another bug squished!

Was the cell size too small because i was using meters as scene units?? [Does scene units afect the simulation at all??? as i always use meter units due to my work being Arch-Viz]

Thanks

Jamie

the scene scale affects the simulation (due to the gravity), but here the rendering was the problem.