unexpected exception error....

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

Hi all,
my project is probably growing too much. I can render the site and the buildings, but when I turn on my cars and people (lopoly w/maps) there is no way I can manage to render.

Size, 3000pixel wide, on a 4200+, 2 gig ram, winXP home, via backburner.
Max 7, v-ray 1.47…

I ruled out scene defects because I can indeed render all the elements of the scene, just not at the same time.

I tried tweaking the raycaster params, the bucket size, the bitmap pager, I created 900+ vray proxy (30/40 cars, made of different parts), I swithced to dynamic memory, I even messed with the WinXP page file…but this thing just does not render.

I do not want to use the 3Gb switct, even because Microsoft support page says it is used to allow WinXP to allocate more than 2 gigs for the system and/or applications. So, having only 2 gigs…

Now I will try to render the cars and the people in passes…but what a pain in the neck!

What else can I try? What about people who render millions poly, or hundreds of maps? How do you do that?

thank you

regards

gio

2

What is the exact error message that you are getting? Also, what are your materials?

Best regards,
Vlado

3

Re: unexpected exception error…

Do use the 3GB switch, even with 2GB of RAM. You will be amazed of the results. We have lots of computers with 2 GB which greatly benefit from the 3GB switch! Don’t hesitate and do it :slight_smile:

The next thing you can try is rendering directly to VRIMG. It’s a real memory-saving solution which could work nicely in your case. In this forum you will find a lot of information on how to do that :slight_smile:

4

Vlado,
I sent you an email, with the vray.log…

Is that enough information?

To be honest with you, I have v-ray materials, but also a number of standard materials…expecially for the people and the cars.
I do not know of an efficient way to convert all materials to v-ray, without having to go back in and add transparency maps and other things…(the cars have transparency maps…).

Thank you

regards

gio

5

panthon:
vrayimg would only save memory when rendering the buckes of the final pass, right? My rendering crashes when calculating the irradiance map…I guess vrayimg would not save me anything, right?

The reason I do not want to try the 3Gb switch is that after some research I read that there are some (maybe small) chances to screw up your windows installation…I guess I could still get that chance on one of my slaves, I should be able to re-install using the off-the-shelf recovery DVD…

Vlado:
the exact error message is unexpected exception…that’s it.

Thank you again for your help,

regards

gio

6

I havnt seen of any permanent problems caused by the 3gb switch.
Some machines have some issues when running the 3gb switch but thats simply resolved by booting back up not using the 3gb switch. As long as you edit the boot.ini properly there should be no problems at all in terms of start back into normal -non 3gb switch- windows.

Also the error that your seeing is that a Max error or a Vray error? If it only says “unexpected exception” and no other wors whatsoever that to me sounds more like a Max error, possible due to it running out of ram.
Bring task manager and watch the memory usage just before it crashes.

7

I dont think the 3gb Switch works on XP Home :?,could be wrong…

8

yeah its not clear to me either.. i “think” it will work.

There is nothing that specifically says that it wont and in a microsoft page of available switch options for booting windows they include xp pro and home (among others) and the 3gb switch is listed.

9

no, /3gb does not work on my Gateway P 830…WinXP Media Center.

I get a blue screen of death, then win reboots. I took the switch out of my boot.ini…

Besides, that machine can “see” already 1.7 gigs available RAM…I would have gained 300Mb for MAX?

Well, my only hope is Vlado, whom I hope had a chance to look at my vray.log…

Thank you,

regards,

gio

10

The thing is it also allows it to use up more virtual memory AFAIK

Weird Media Center is based of XP pro… sometimes it just doesnt like certain hardware configs as well.

11

Well, my only hope is Vlado, whom I hope had a chance to look at my vray.log…

How much is the RAM usage ? If it goes above the 1.7-1.8GB,
it is expectable that you get the error !

Can you please send that Vray.log to < nikki@chaosgroup.com > as well,
as Vlado is quite busy actually. Thank you !

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

12

Nikki, I sent you the log file as well.

About memory consumption, I have not check the task manager during rendering time.

What I know is that the computer shows 1.7 gig phisical RAM available, fresh from boot.

Question: v-ray (MAX) uses only phisical memory, no matter what Windows system does, correct? So, whatever virtual paging windows is doing, it is ignored, right?

Is there any way to make v-ray “page” memory usage?
I know it would be slower, but at least it would go throu the rendering…

The Dynamic memory setting consistently crash my redering even faster than the regular static settings…I am wondering if I am setting it correctly.

Again, I am wondering how people render hundreds of maps and millions of poly in v-ray…Maybe they all have winxp pro, with /3gb and 3 gig ram minimum?

Thank you for your help…

regards

gio

13

Do any of the cars have glossy reflections? I have had some trouble in the past with the glossy effects when my ram consumption is high.

14

nope, very straightforward, lowpoly meshes, with diffuse map, ans some transparency maps…

These are the LowPolygon3D cars…

I even export them as vray proxy (over 900 single objects…).

The people are XYZ people and another seller, but same concept.

thank you

regards

gio

15

Well, of the 1.7 gig RAM available, most goes when “loading bitmaps”.
When v-ray starts calculating the irr map, the RAM is at few dozen megabytes…AT 30mb available, the unexpected exception occurs, and MAX crashes. Bitmap pager is ON, 50Mb, 10Kb, 50Mb.

It appears it is definetely a memory problems. The system runs out of physical memory, althought the page file goes from 250Mb to over 1.5 gig.

If v-ray uses only physical memory, who is using the page file? MAX?

But ultimately, how do you make vray using the disk to cache its operations? Again, at this point speed is not an issue, as long as the rendering completes.

Anyone has ever succesfully used the dynamic memory switch?

More to the point, for a P4 830 DC, with 2gig installed, what settings would you use?
The scene has 1 mil polygons, and 650 maps (JPG, TGA and TIFF) the largest 8Mb, the second largest 6Mb, then 3Mb, a few 2Mb, lots of small maps (from 100Kb to 10Kb).

I hardly believe the above is really a “large” scene for many V-ray professionals…

Thank you

regards

gio

16

gio, have you tried using the dynamic memory option?

17

Jack, I tried the dynamic memory option. I set the memory limit to 1gig (500Mb per core).

The results are pretty much the same: “loading bitmap” takes 2/3 of the 1.7 gig physical ram available at beginning, and when v-ray starts calculating the irr map, all is left is about 200mb, which quickly drains down to 70Mb, when MAX crashes with unexpected exception.

I am wondering if the bitmap pager and the dynamic memory settings are propagated properly to the servers using backburner…because I could not really see any difference in the way the memory is used…

Back to the question: are you guys able to render on 2 gig RAM a million poly scene with 600+, small maps? Is it normally done?

Thank you

regards

gio

18

I don’t believe the Bitmap pager option is transferred to the slaves - you’d need to edit their 3dsmax.ini file manually to set this.

Best regadrs,
Vlado

19

Thank you Vlado, that is correct.
I looked up my local MAX.INI, and copied over the pager settings to the slave max.ini.

Well, now it does not crash. But it takes about one hour just to doenload the bitmaps…

When the irradiance map starts calculating, it is also 10 to 20 times slower, but that may be due to the vray dynamic memory settings (1gig for two cores)…

I will let it render at night and see. Maybe I can turn back static memory, and maybe the bitmap pager settings are wrong…I will try to tweak those too.

Any suggestion for those parametrs? Page size, map treshold…?

Thank you again

regards

gio

20

I left the thing render at night, and it crashed 4 or 5 times.

So, the bitmap pager and the dynamic memory only take longer to…well, crash.

Right now I am trying to render all geometry but no maps…
It just started…It took awhile to begin, now it is 50% irradiance map, pass 1 of 3, memory is at 450Mb…but going down…no, wait, it is stabilzing at 450Mb…the rendering is quite fast…maybe…just maybe…

pass 2of 3…350Mb ram left…but it’s variable, depending on the geometry being rendered…390 now.

Well, now will either crash trying to render the final image, or trying to save the 3000pix wide rendering…or it will not crash at all.

At that point it could be a problem of maps (DOH!)…

irradiance map, 3 of 3, ram back to 450Mb, I do not see why it should not make it throu…DAMN MAPS!

50% irr map rendering, 3 of 3, ram is back to almost half gig. V-ray must be using the previous passes, no extra ram needed…Ah! chaos kick asses…

Well, if everything goes well, it will tell us the geometry is fine.

It started to render the final image, RAM available is back to 650Mb, and incredibly it is not going down…

So, the bottle neck is at the beginning, right after loading the bitmap, and at the firt irr map pass…That point is the most RAM consuming.

How do I go through that? Why is the bitmap pager not working? Settings?

Well, the image is rendering, fast, the RAM is at 750Mb (how does it do that!?!), it should all be fine.

I will tweak the bitmap pager and see if I can hit the sweet spot.

Again, anyone has suggestions on the best settings? Specs of my computer and scene in the posts above…

Thank you

sorry for the long (mostly useless) post, but hopefully it will help someone else in the future.

regards

gio