Viewports are rendered blank with Fast or Final Quality Renderworks

[rseybert 7]

I'm demoing a possible new render machine. I'm currently running 2019 but using 2020 for the demo. The test file I'm using was created in 2019 and it rendered the files correctly. When I opened it up in 2020 and the usual "this file needs to be converted to 2020 blah blah blah" popped up. Everything converted correctly and showed up as it should. I made a minor change so the viewports would need to be updated. Upon trying to update the viewports with fast or final quality Renderworks, the viewports go blank. If I switch the viewports back to Open GL or Wireframe, they display geometry.

 

Is there an issue going from 2019 to 2020 or does any sort of Renderworks quality not work in 2020? Not sure where to start with troubleshooting this problem.

[Stephan Moenninghoff 221]

Update your custom lights. There was a bug when converting IES-based lights. I think it's fixed but the fix may not be in yet. 

[rseybert 7]

@Stephan Moenninghoff Thanks for the reply.

 

I created a new viewport and the issue continued.

 

I restarted VW and it seemed to fix it.  Once it did finally render, the lighting definitely looked different compared to the original renders I did on my MacBook Pro.  Your suggestion might fix that but I'm thinking it could be some lighting settings in the viewport I lost when I recreated the viewport.

[Stephan Moenninghoff 221]

I know. Long shot. Sorry this didn't help. 

[Dave Donley 150]

There was a bug (Windows-only, fixed in 2020 SP2) where VPs might show black when default image compression preference was set to JPEG (instead of the default which is PNG compression).  Don't know if that is the issue here.  If it is file specific that helps to know.  If it is machine-specific that is helpful to know too.  Can you strip out any proprietary stuff you can't share and post the VWX file here so we can try it?

 

[rseybert 7]

@Dave Donley 

 

I was testing out an Intel NUC (NUC8I7HNK) as possible new render machine since we had some not on a show and the powers that be want me to look into all options available before making a purchase.  I downloaded 2020 SP1 on the machine and opened a 2019 file that already had renders set up and I knew how long it would take to render on my MacBook Pro.  After it failed to render correctly, I restarted VW and it rendered fine, save for a few settings that were lost in translation.  Not sure if it was a minor hiccup or the problem you describe.  

 

I would share the file but its very proprietary.  I've also completely restored the NUC as I've ruled it out as a rendering machine so any further tests are not an option at the moment.