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Fergy

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Everything posted by Fergy

  1. I've read that, just wary of doing it yet. Wanted to see what's going on first. Of course, the other question I've asked is whether or not VW can get more RAM allocation through the 64-bit versions of the Vista/Win7 OS, or on the Mac, for that matter.
  2. It's not a true crash. It's a hang. Or I get an out of memory error. Batch viewport rendering will tend to generate out of memory errors. Selecting multiple viewports and clicking "update" will sometimes generate out of memory errors. Other times, it will show that it's still rendering, but task manager will show 0 processor load, so nothing's going on. It's not any one particular file. It's just big, complex ones.
  3. Understood, but I still wonder if, when batching, it dumps memory between jobs. It seems to with Custom Renderworks and final gather, but not so well with FQRW. Also, while I realize that my models may be somewhat complex, there are WAY more complicated models out there. My thought would be that if you can dump enough hardware behind the software, the software should be able to keep up. I think we're hitting software bottlenecks before hardware ones at this point.
  4. Duplicate along path. You'll need to draw the path using a polyline or similar, but it works. I just used to to duplicate a lot of junk on curved trusses myself. You might need to tweak afterward, but it's a good way to start. You can also set them to align tangent to path.
  5. Here are the sample renderings I've been working on. These are sheet layers with two viewports per layer. The layers are set for 150DPI, 8.5x11 so clients can print them easily. I tried to do higher resolutions, but it was way too painful. These are for an ice show coming up in November for air on one of the networks following the football game Thanksgiving day. These are the concepts for the design. The venue is modeled accurately for the space. The scenic pieces are from actual models from the manufacturer, done in ACAD, and imported and re-modeled and textured in VW. All are colored only using lighting objects, and are either semi-transparent or white cloth surfaces. All of these were done with render cameras in the model. The 200-level is Custom Renderworks with final gather with 16,3 as the settings. It uses simple dome at 40%, 50% as the viewport lighting option, and the renderworks background is solid black with a haze effect. There is no ambient light or directional light. Camera 1 views has the renderworks background and the simple dome turned off. It's rendered using Final Renderworks. Jib views are done with FInal Renderworks and the black renderworks background turned on, with haze, and the viewport lighting set to simple dome at 40%, 50%. Please feel free to offer suggestions. I'd love to get better rendering results than I am here.
  6. I've actually got a couple systems, so I didn't want to plug up my sig file. I did notice that on my machine with the 6750 processor that I get better processor usage in final gather than I do on the dual Xeon machine and that rendering time is shorter. I've been reading through those threads, as well. I've actually got my pagefile running better now via those suggestions. Another question: I see two of you are using 64-bit OS. Does VW run smoothly under that for you? I realize it's not a 64-bit app, but before I upgrade the next machine to a "required 64-bit OS" I wanted to make sure. Of my systems: System 1: Dell 470 w/ 2 dual core xeons Nvidia 8800GTX, 1G, with the Quadra 5600 softmod XP Pro 32 4G RAM System 2: 6750 processor Nvidia 8800GTX, 1G XP Pro 32 4G RAM
  7. I'll try to upload later tonight...these last renderings took over 8 hours so they weren't finished when I left this morning. Final Gather really slows it down, but it does seem to look much better. Do the forum servers host images, or do I need to upload to a third-party hosting service?
  8. I've noticed that I get out of memory errors or lock-ups when running batch renders or when "refreshing all viewports". How does the rendering engine deal with this process? Does it gather all of the information, then render? Or does it gather for a single viewport, render, dump memory, and start over? I'm finding I have better results with storing viewport cache and doing each viewport independently, but this doesn't help me when I need to set up a bunch of stuff to render and leave for the night. Given the memory limits with the 32-bit XP systems, it would seem that it would be crucial to do this. Are there similar memory limits on the other OS? It might determine my next computer purchase.
  9. Gotcha. I played with it a little yesterday, and saw what was going on. I guess it's more for artistic representation than anything else. I'm spending most of my time working on as "realistic" renderings as I can get. Rendering time, crashes and out of memory errors are killing me, so I definately won't be adding another layer of rendering to the process. Unfortunately, my model has a lot of lights and light-emitting surfaces as well as reflective textures, and it's the interior of an arena with a lot of detail. Can either of you explain the "final gather" process? I'm seeing that it doesn't use heavy processor load, nor does it use multiple processors well, at least compared to the rendering process. It seems to hang there for a long time and not appear to do much. Peter: Just saw you're in Ashland. I'm from Eugene originally. Small world.
  10. Okay, I've searched here, and look elsewhere, but I'm not finding an answer on this. What is the purpose of foreground rendering versus background rendering? Is the background render mode specifically to apply to a renderworks background if a foreground rendering mode is used? I've mainly used solid black backgrounds with rendered weather effects for lighting haze. I have always used the background render mode and left foreground as "none". What am I missing here? I'm always rendering using viewport rendering, but I'm not getting the "focus" that I'd like. I always set up my viewports using cameras. But I'm not able to control depth of field like I'd like too, nor am I getting the focus that I'd like. I don't think this is a current ability in VW, but it would be very helpful for those of us who are modeling camera views for TV or film.
  11. I'd still consider it a major flaw. Why not put a tab in object info for rotation on each axis, instead of limiting to the Z only. I've tried editing duplicates of the Spotlight symbols, but the 3D components of the hybrid symbols delete themselves if you rotate them via the editing process the first time you change views. The issue is that I just want an application that works, solidly, and doesn't require a multitude of workarounds. Tha's why I changed from Wyg. It's extremely frustrating, especially for an app priced in this range.
  12. Talked with tech support. They say the only way to deal with this is to use multiple layers, and rotate the working plane for each layer. You'd then have to create a layer for each possible rotation plane you'd want to hang a lighting fixture. That's assinine. We also tried editing the symbol several layers down. Don't do this with anything such as the ETC fixtures which all reference a base symbol, because, though you can rotate that 3D object, it changes everything in your plot globally, not just that specific type of fixture. In my example, I duplicated the ETC Source4 NSP, then tried to edit that 3D symbol. I was able to get it to rotate, but it changed any other ETC PAR on my plot, regardless of lens.
  13. And another bug. When you create the rotated version using polar array, and then create a new symbol, it works fine the first time, but if you need to edit it, it deletes the 3D component of the symbol. These aren't bugs I'd expect in a version 12 of an app.
  14. Wow, so hanging a circle truss in anything other than a horizontal would really be bad. This is one thing that was SO much simpler in Wyg, but I got fed up with the other bugs. But, a Cyberlight mounted on a vertical truss was easy enough to figure out. Another super-annoying part of this is that the 3D symbols for the Martin fixtures are all set up to sit on the floor, not hang from a truss. I'd consider this a MAJOR flaw in this application. I'll use the array trick to fix this, but it's pretty stupid. Stupid enough that I may stop using this app for anything other than simple 2D plans. It's the same with truss...creating vertical truss towers should be far simpler. I guess the people designing this don't work anywhere except theaters.
  15. Yeah, I thought about that, but then my 2D plots will look like crap because it's a top view of a mesh. There's got to be a simple way to do this that I'm not seeing. I can't believe that no one else works in both 2D and 3D, and needs to hang fixtures at other angles other than underhung on a pipe.
  16. Am I just missing something simple here? I can't rotate in 3D, because the symbols are hybrid. I need to overhang conventionals, and underhang my intelligent lights. Can't do either. Can only rotate around Z. Can't seem to rotate truss simply either, except around the Z.
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