Machine-specific flickering!

V-Ray V-Ray for 3ds Max General
1

Get ready, this is majorly messed up!

I’m getting a flickering in my animation (rendering with VRay 1.5 RC2). The frames render identically on all but on of my render nodes. We have three other nodes that are mirrored in hardware and software configuration -- they’re literally quadruplets -- that render the frames normally. Here’s what a good frame and a bad frame look like on top of each other:

The trees flickering on the left are V-Ray proxy objects. For some reason, this one machine will not apply the environment fog that I’m using to that one set of proxy objects. Note that it applies fog everywhere else in the scene, including the rest of the trees, bushes, and the car -- all of which are also V-Ray proxies. Anybody seen anything like this before? I’ve restarted the machine, re-launched the tests, and for sure it’s just the one node that produces this glitch time and again.

I’m going to leave this puppy off the line for the weekend, but I’d really like to know what could cause this to happen!

Thanks dudes, and have a great weekend!
Shaun

:: edit :: I just noticed that it doesn’t fog the shadows from the same troublesome trees either! WTF??

2

I have had so many problems with proxies as of late. I am here now at 3am fixing regions of a scene where the proxies failed to load on 1 of the machines in the DR.

I am wondering if there is a way to make that machine FAIL if the proxies aren’t loaded? Similar to missing maps? This would fix both of our problems.

3

Make sure the machine that fails has a “.” and NOT a “,” as decimal sign in your regional settings !!!

4

Yes, this can be done easily - I’ll make a note for the next RC.

As for the flickering, checking the decimal symbol is a good idea too.

Best regards,
Vlado

5

That’s interesting. Where could I find this regional setting to adjust? The machine in question is a dedicated render node, so I assume there’s an INI file I need to be looking for?

Thanks guys,
Shaun

6

It has nothing to do with VRay. They are Windows settings that can be found in your windows configs under " regional settings". If this render node is coming from Vienna this could surely be the problem !!!

7

Start - Control Panel - Regional Settings.

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

8

Thanks Nikki, however I checked all our render nodes and they all have correct and identical decimal settings, so I’m afraid this isn’t the problem.

I’m removing the environment fog from my render scene and trying to add it in post. At least that will give me more control over the errors, at the cost of a significant boost in render time to do this for all my animation sequences.

Thanks,
Shaun