Renderworks Issue - Geometry Not Updating / Viewport Turns Black

[Francois Levy]

I'm testing a new MacBook Pro and I see a similar issue with 2018 SP2. Starting from a saved view (design layers, clip cube on, OpenGL), I turn off the clip cube, render in wireframe, then do a Final Quality Renderworks. All geometry disappears, though moving the cursor around activates pre-selection highlighting. Zoom out then zoom in clears it up and rendering can proceed as normal.

[PVA - Admin]

Anyone who was experiencing this issue, please retest after installing 2018 SP3 and let me know if the issue was resolved or if you are still experiencing it.

[echobing]

Nope. Still happens after updating to SP3.

I changed a custom style setting after which renders in viewports render in black with a couple of geometric shapes in blue.

[Wesley Burrows]

@JimW 

2 hours ago, JimW said:

Anyone who was experiencing this issue, please retest after installing 2018 SP3 and let me know if the issue was resolved or if you are still experiencing it.

 

I'm using 2018 SP3.   I just rendered this viewport as Artistic Renderworks,   it worked fine.   I changed the scale of the viewport from 1/4 to 1/2 and now the viewport will return blank after "rendering".   The below video shows the update failure with "Artistic Renderworks",  but I also tried with FQR and it did the same thing.     Hidden Line worked,  and so did Open GL.   Restarting VW's fixes it.

 

Render Update Fail.mp4

 

Not the geometry issue at the moment,  I'll keep testing,  but another flavor of rendering update weirdness.

[PVA - Admin]

Just now, Wesley Burrows said:

Not the geometry issue at the moment,  I'll keep testing,  but another flavor of rendering update weirdness.

Thank you, this is what Im attempting to clarify. We think half the issues are fixed but mostly the ones related to geometry just being static not the black or white VP/DL bugs.

[Andy Broomell]

Just had my first always-renders-black bug in SP3.

[josharoo4]

Also getting the black render! Still. In SP3. 

 

[Andy Broomell]

On 3/23/2018 at 11:20 AM, JimW said:

We think half the issues are fixed but mostly the ones related to geometry just being static not the black or white VP/DL bugs.

 

Just curious if there's any progress on the issue where a viewport renders completely black? It seems as though numerous people have been experiencing this for a few years(?) now. It still happens to me a few times a day and completely interrupts the momentum of getting things done.

 

I know it was once considered an unreplicable bug and therefore difficult to track, but hopefully there's been some progress on it given that it's fairly widespread?

Edited April 18, 2018 by Andy Broomell

[Wesley Burrows]

On 3/23/2018 at 11:11 AM, JimW said:

Anyone who was experiencing this issue, please retest after installing 2018 SP3 and let me know if the issue was resolved or if you are still experiencing it.

 

 

Update,  geometry updates still fail to render correctly in SP3.    IE:  Changes are reflected in Open GL,  but aren't in FQR.

 

Open GL: (Correct)

 

 

FQR (Nope):

 

 

Closing the file and re-opening the file as it was above and hitting cmd + shift + F  yields a completely black screen.

 

 

And of course,  re-launching and re-rendering causes it to work as expected.  (Until it doesn’t)

 

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by Wesley Burrows

[Andy Broomell]

Here's a fun one that just rendered:

 

 

Everything disappeared / turned to black, EXCEPT for SOME of the Image Props in the scene (not all), which lost their texture mapping, but are still responding to lights... Weird.

 

Time to restart again.

[Wesley Burrows]

On 2/23/2018 at 7:24 PM, zoomer said:

Send to C4D imports empty file.

 

This has been interrupting my workflow for almost a year now.

[PVA - Admin]

On 4/9/2018 at 2:16 PM, Andy Broomell said:

Just curious if there's any progress on the issue where a viewport renders completely black? It seems as though numerous people have been experiencing this for a few years(?) now. It still happens to me a few times a day and completely interrupts the momentum of getting things done.

Anecdotally it seems to have been less for me since sp3, however my rendering work since then hasn't been as intensive as it is when I'm prepping for the a release or the Design Summit, so this could just be a bias on my part. It is ABSOLUTELY still happening though, most commonly at least for me when I am rapidly updating/interrupting renders, overriding content of viewports by class or overriding lights.

[echobing]

37 minutes ago, JimW said:

Anecdotally it seems to have been less for me since sp3, however my rendering work since then hasn't been as intensive as it is when I'm prepping for the a release or the Design Summit, so this could just be a bias on my part. It is ABSOLUTELY still happening though, most commonly at least for me when I am rapidly updating/interrupting renders, overriding content of viewports by class or overriding lights.

Ditto. Particularly when I’m rapidly updating. I’ve found quitting out is the only solution. V frustrating and time wasteful on big files. 

[Haydenovative]

We have 5 VW users in a room, we all suffer from the all black or all white screens even post SP3. We all find that quitting and restarting is the only way to get it to come back. Very Very Frustrating!

[Tully]

Same problem here. It used to reset if I switched the detail to low, then back to high, but tonight it just stayed black. VW2018 SP3

[Andy Broomell]

On 4/16/2018 at 5:37 AM, JimW said:

most commonly at least for me when I am rapidly updating/interrupting renders

 

Same here, a.k.a. I'm probably in a hurry to meet a deadline, which means coming to a complete stop and restarting Vectorworks is the last thing I want to do.

 

Honestly I think I've found what causes it: Vectorworks can sense whenever it's the worst time for it to occur, and THAT's when it happens 

[Andy Broomell]

I just encountered the other issue again - where the scene renders but doesn't reflect changes. I changed the texture of an object inside of a Symbol (that symbol is inserted into walls, if that matters?) and when I render it's showing the old texture. Restarting fixed the issue.

 

I haven't seen this^ type of render bug for quite a while, but just to confirm, the bug where changes aren't reflected in renders AND the bug where renders immediately turn black are both present in SP3, the latter occurring extremely often.

[cxs]

On 9/23/2016 at 12:45 PM, MikeB said:

VW2017

I'm having an issue with the Final Quality Renderworks mode

I'm working on a model and render the model on screen in Final Quality Renderworks, then I switch back to open GL and edit an extrusion.

The changes to the extrusion show up in open GL, but when I switch to Final Quality Renderworks, the rendering show up almost immediately , but the changes to the extrude are not shown.  It appears to be showing a cashed version of the rendering and not actually re-rendering.

If I select Final Quality Renderworks again, it asks if I want to re-render the scene, I say yes, but it still shows the old geometry.

The only way I've found around this is to quit and restart VW

I tried setting the Retain Rending Model in the VW preferences to Never, that didn't help

Thanks

 

I'm also experiencing the same issues with Fast Renderworks and Final Quality Renderworks...

 

On 4/16/2018 at 9:58 PM, Haydenovative said:

We have 5 VW users in a room, we all suffer from the all black or all white screens even post SP3. We all find that quitting and restarting is the only way to get it to come back. Very Very Frustrating!

 

... and I experienced this issue too.

[Andy Broomell]

I know I've posted in this topic a number of times, but this is honestly the most frustrating bug I've ever encountered. Absolute hindrance to productivity.

 

This happens an average of 5-10 times a day (granted I do a LOT of rendering in one day). Each time sets me back probably about 5 minutes, once you add the time it takes to realize the bug is occurring, save the file, close Vectorworks, restart, hit render again (which takes longer now because nothing is cached), and get your mind back into point it was before you hit this roadblock. So let's say I lose 30 minutes a day.

 

There are three people rendering in the studio where I'm currently working. We all experience this issue (on unrelated files, started from different templates, with different workspaces, etc). Between the three of us that's about an hour and a half a day. Or 7.5 hours lost for the week. We're in the 19th week of the year. So far in 2018 we've probably lost 142 hours of billable time. That is many thousands of dollars lost because Vectorworks can't fix this bug.

 

Sorry to rant, but we're already in SP3 and no signs of change ☹️

 

(Can I send an invoice to Vectorworks for the lost time?) 😁

[echobing]

2 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

I know I've posted in this topic a number of times, but this is honestly the most frustrating bug I've ever encountered. Absolute hindrance to productivity.

 

This happens an average of 5-10 times a day (granted I do a LOT of rendering in one day). Each time sets me back probably about 5 minutes, once you add the time it takes to realize the bug is occurring, save the file, close Vectorworks, restart, hit render again (which takes longer now because nothing is cached), and get your mind back into point it was before you hit this roadblock. So let's say I lose 30 minutes a day.

 

There are three people rendering in the studio where I'm currently working. We all experience this issue (on unrelated files, started from different templates, with different workspaces, etc). Between the three of us that's about an hour and a half a day. Or 7.5 hours lost for the week. We're in the 19th week of the year. So far in 2018 we've probably lost 142 hours of billable time. That is many thousands of dollars lost because Vectorworks can't fix this bug.

 

Sorry to rant, but we're already in SP3 and no signs of change ☹️

 

(Can I send an invoice to Vectorworks for the lost time?) 😁

Yes like you I’ve posted numerous times about this. I’ve tried without success to pin it down to a procedure I might be doing but it happens too frequently after various different actions. My current thinking is that changing lights settings seems to trigger an instant render fail. 

 

Rapid changes in a file followed by re-renders results in failures which are only resolved by quitting. I’m doing this so often in these circumstances that I’ve given up trying to count the time or cost. 

 

I like to work on the model, render and carry on modelling. Because of the lack of progress in resolving this issue my only recourse is to work on the model without rendering and leave that to the last so as to avoid the inevitable delays in restarting VW. 

 

Hey ho 

 

 

[rDesign]

@JimW since it’s now been about 20 months since this bug was first reported on the User Forum, is there any progress on fixing it? 

[PVA - Admin]

Progress yes, but I am concerned it might never be fixed in 2018. It's looking more and more like a problem with the Cinema4D engine.

[Wesley Burrows]

1 hour ago, JimW said:

Progress yes, but I am concerned it might never be fixed in 2018. It's looking more and more like a problem with the Cinema4D engine.

 

This is disappointing to hear.    As a Cinema 4D user,  and someone using it to do the lion's share of my rendering work I've never had any of the described issues with it.   I don't know the mechanics of interfacing VW to C4D's render engine, but I assume there is some sort of behind the scenes format conversion/translation to get it to something C4D wants to see.  If that is the case I wonder if the missing geometry updates and black screen output are in anyway way related to the bug where VW can only Export/Send to Cinema 4D once,  maybe twice successfully,  before the resultant file starts missing most or all of the expected geometry?   Requiring a restart of VW. Perhaps both functions use the same conversion/translation functions?    Just a shot in the dark...   I know you have a team of people way smarter than me working on it.

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by Wesley Burrows
missing sentence.

[PVA - Admin]

We are pushing hard to find the core issue and see if a fix can be included in sp4 or sp5 for 2018. We don't want to leave it in this state at all, however if the issue ends up being on the c4d engine side, the only option would be to try to make the newer engine work in 2018, which is extremely risk so late in its development cycle and runs the risk of causing more problems. 

None of this is set in stone yet, just keeping the forum informed as best we can since this issue is so nasty and widespread.

[PVA - Admin]

Also, to clarify: The geometry not updating we believe to be a separate issue from the black/white render issue, and have been able to reliably reproduce the geometry one in even a simple file with only a few steps, there is far more hope for that one being fixed in 2018. The black/blank render issue is the one that looks much more difficult. This thread includes both so I just wanted to state them separately.