Big Little Pictures

Any Idea when a Max 2021 compile will be completed?

Not really, it still freezes, i just left it disabled because you said to try it. The biggest help was reducing frames per batch and keeping cores count to 1. Probably a bug somewhere in there, feels like it it tripping over itself. The nerd in me wants to say it is looking for a variable that was local and is no longer there, so it just keeps waiting for it.... or something of that nature. I've had maxscripts I was working on lock up for this reason in the past. I should mention i am on a machine with a 72 core machine with a Quadro 5000 and 256GB ram, so that's not the issue.. haha.

Here's what I did that helped... so others have additional input: Checked disable progress bar Set Number of Threads to 1. (More crashes one core and locks up max even if other core keep writing whiel it is frozen. It won't unlock with even just 2 selected.) Cached 10 frames at a time, it seems to choke after (some too high) number Adjusted metamesh settings to limit calculation (Stop Stitching %) Checked convert to mesh

That's awesome. Exactly like I was hoping! Great work guys!

It'd be super awesome to have a checkbox to "Add/Expose To Animated Property list" on the root of the object, like how manual custom attributes work. Then you don't have to dig through heavy lists to find animated properties and could name them appropriately or link them to other things easily and as needed. I tried a few CA's on a tree but it seemed to crash it, having an internal thing to expose parameters would be really cool. Sorry for all the suggestions... I am just excited about the tool and like to contribute to improvements! -Joel

I am on 1.9.9.9 SP8 Beta The Cache keeps locking up and freezing max mid-write. Do you have a recommended checklist of things to look for that may be the cause of something like this? The reason I ask... Tree is 1.1M polys, shouldn't be locking it up. It is 20 different parts... but caches fine for the first few hundred frames, then it seems to lock to infinity. I can't seem to cancel or stop it without force closing max. Previous frames about 20-30 seconds a frame to cache, let later frames go for over an hour and they never kicked. If you have a standard troubleshooting list for this I'd give it a shot. Sorry for all the questions, I am pushing this thing to its limit! Thanks! -Joel

More info for the team.... Seems to work fine on my 8 core machine. My main workstation is a dual Xeon Gold 6140 (72 Cores) machine... it fails on there with anything more than 1 core. Perhaps newer architecture works differently.

Background Cache would be a nice add ...so that you could continue working on other parts of a scene while it goes. BTW, loving this tool, super fun and really nice outputs so far!

I am having an issue where VRay Fur is applied to roots to give really kick ass micro detail. The problem is that if anything is animated to grow, the fur recalculates locations on every frame and it flickers like crazy. I tried locking it to surface using its texture mapping with the vray node, but it still flickers when growing. I even tried the absolute width parameter in the mesh builder. I have tried all of the possible options to lock it down, seems like it is just the way poly ID's are or something internal. Any ideas on how to fix this?

When I cache with multithreading on it freezes max on the last frame.... but if I set it to 1, it finishes. Not sure what it could be, but it is worth checking to see if this is a bug in build 1_9_9_SP8. That's all ....being patient with 1 core works. -Joel

Hi people. When you save a GFX file, am i correct is seeing that it does not save any animated properties? So if you save a GFX file, it will be in the state it is at, depending on what frame you are on? or does it work differently? Thanks for any info! -Joel

Thanks for the tip, that was exactly the issue!

I thought to reverse the order in the Path stack. I started with roots, so they were highest in the list. I moved them till after the trunk/etc and it fixed the inconsistency. Not sure what is going on there, but hey it's fixed!

I have the roots as a separate path system, when I enable it, it changes the branches up top even though there are no Affects or connected parameters tieing the roots to the top branches. The only thing that I can think of is the metamesh. I checked my metamesh limits and it seems fine, as are the alarm limits. The branches are exactly as needed without the roots, but when I enable the roots it changes them.... have you ever seen this before? Any Ideas? Thanks in advance. -Joel

It could be useful to make an "In Volume" Modifier, where you could cull out elements by having a gizmo or geo determine if they are "in volume".