Large Scenes

Hello, I´m having trouble rendering large scenes. My scene has about 15 milions faces. I can´t render even 6 milions faces. The strange thing is that max use only 1,5 GB of RAM while my computer is a dual 2.0 MP with 3GB of RAM and one videocard WildCat VP 990 Pro.
I has a virtual memory of 4GB.
In all cases Vray shows me a message of error telling me to send the report message to Vlado…

Thank´s.

Are you using advanceed, free or trial version?

Arkitec

this is caused by max, not vray. the only thing you can do is to install the 3GB switch in windows XP. Do a search @ microsoft.com, how to do this. But be carefull if you have installed SP1.

MicheIN

What OS are you using?

15 million poligons may be simply too much, if it were to be instanced geometry (same object instancied many times) you can try go to System and instead of deffault Replicate, check Instanciate.

This may do the tric or not, depending on the scene, I’ve had great succes sometimes, in scenes with insane instacied poly count (over 200 million poligons) But just now I am in trouble in a scene which has not 8 million, it renders better with replicate… no clues.

Back to OS,

If your OS is Win 2K or NT, it won’t allocate more than 2 Gigs per process (2 Gigs of physical+virtual memory) so systems with say 1 gig of RAM and 1 Gig of swaping space may do exactly the same job as a system with loads and loads of RAM, Actually the scene I am talking about renders better on an old Dual PIII with 1 Gig of RAM, than on a Dual MP 2000+ with 2 Gigs… the old PIII crash when mem usage goes past 1.7 gigs, while the MP if meme usage goes past 1.65 Gigs… go figure.
Of course if hte MP starts rendering is way way faster than the PIII.

If your OS is XP, then you may tell it to allocate 3 gigs per process, (not my case) then you probably can render higher poly conted scenes…

But the 15 million, or you jump over because it is instanciate geometry, or I am affraid even with 3 Gigs of allocated memeory per process… :frowning:

tell us how it goes.

Fermí

My OS is XP PRO and the objects in my scene are not instances. What you mean with allocate 3 gigs per process? Is virtual memory?

Thank´s.

Thanks for the advice!!!

I recommend this for anyone who is having problems with rendering large polygon scences.

Vray would crash on me everytime it used 1.6-1.7g of ram. My scence is just over 20 million polys.

I followed the steps from Microsoft and the 3GB switch and wha laa Max now uses 2.5gb of ram and Vray no longer crashes!!!

Saved my life.

Tony MacDonald

Hi Tony, the 3Gb switch work´s to me too. But i can render scenes with just 6 or 7 milions faces.
Tell us more about your render with 20 milions.
You are using instanced objects with instanciate turned on?

Thank´s for all for help.

Hi Tony, the 3Gb switch work´s to me too. But i can render scenes with just 6 or 7 milions faces.
Tell us more about your render with 20 milions.
Are you using instanced objects with instanciate turned on?

Thank´s for all for help.

Yes I have tried to use instances where possible.

All of my trees are instanced. I have scaled and rotated them to eliminate repetitiveness.

I have instantiate on. When I had Vray set to replicate Max would crash.

I have also used many xrefs rather than having everything merged into the one file. I have about 50 seperate Max files in total.

As a test I have added more people and a higer polygon count for some trees and Vray hasnt crashed!

Vray is an amazing renderer!

Regards
Tony MacDonald

just courious- what are you doing that’s so large??..is it arch viz - if so what is it?

paul.

we have been working on an extremely large project.

it has invlolved us modelling the entire sydney cbd, sydney harbour bridge, and north sydney terrains. this has all been modelled in mass form but is accuate to survey data.

the model includes a detailed area within the cbd. it includes architectural buidling, landscaping etc. we have mapped on many of the facades of the surrounding buildings with high resloution digital photography.

it also includes over 300 treepro trees.

Regards
Tony MacDonald

How can I allocate 3 Gigs per process? It’s a registry key? :?:

yeah, I’d be interested in that as well…

paul.

we have been working on an extremely large project.

it has invlolved us modelling the entire sydney cbd, sydney harbour bridge, and north sydney terrains. this has all been modelled in mass form but is accuate to survey data.

the model includes a detailed area within the cbd. it includes architectural buidling, landscaping etc. we have mapped on many of the facades of the surrounding buildings with high resloution digital photography.

it also includes over 300 treepro trees.

Regards
Tony MacDonald

What a legend! yOU DA MAN

haha jungle juzzzzzzzzzzzz
t

But be carefull if you have installed SP1

Umm has anyone done the 3 gig switch ..on SP1 and had it work

hmmm…that doesn’t sound too good…seems kinda unstable.

paul.

yep i had service pack 1. it was now or never. it worked.

although not recommended by microsoft.

Good luck
Tony MacDonald

i had problems, thats why i wrote that warning, make backups before installing that switch.

How to render very large scene:

Break it into parts. Forground, midground and background, and comp it together.

Use instances. Using instances, I have rendered over 20 billion polygones

wait for Vray standalone. There was an image floating arounf with a 25 milliuon poly model done this way.

one thing I have always learned, do as much in comp as possible, makes your life easier in the end.