01-26-2007, 06:49 PM
Hi, thanks for the reply...
1 - no, that's the strange thing -- there are no cases where the cache is being reused from a previous frame that a particular node already rendered. What I mean is that it just simply seems to read the wrong cache frame (1 frame earlier than it should).
Other things we have noticed... so far it seems to only do this when you render a sequence with matte geometry in the scene. I cannot be sure that is the case, but we submitted 3 renders with only FumeFX and no geometry at all and had no bad frames for those sequences so far.
Also, it seems that each machine will only render 1 bad frame at most per rendered sequence. For example if there are 3 machines rendering you will generally get at most 3 bad frames for that sequence, but sending to over 200 machines, you get a LOT of bad frames.
The cache sizes for these sequences are generally very large, but it happens with very small cache sizes also (like a simple flaming torch or whatever). The machines vary, and it is totally inconsistent as to which machines will render a bad frame. Some are WinXP 64bit, 4Gigs Ram, Max 8, Dual Opteron CPU's. But also seeing the same problem on Intel 32bit XP machines, etc. It's a mix of all types but I cannot see any pattern.
2 - the blank frames problem is not a big deal right now for us, because those frames are easy to catch, and re-render. Also, this does not happen often.
3 - I should have stated that this is not a network problem. The light flickering hapens locally also. The case with 2 FumeFX systems did not have read/write to disk checked. We have also seen this problem with only 1 system and read/write not checked. It looks like the shadows are maybe turning on and off between frames.
Thanks,
-Kirby.
1 - no, that's the strange thing -- there are no cases where the cache is being reused from a previous frame that a particular node already rendered. What I mean is that it just simply seems to read the wrong cache frame (1 frame earlier than it should).
Other things we have noticed... so far it seems to only do this when you render a sequence with matte geometry in the scene. I cannot be sure that is the case, but we submitted 3 renders with only FumeFX and no geometry at all and had no bad frames for those sequences so far.
Also, it seems that each machine will only render 1 bad frame at most per rendered sequence. For example if there are 3 machines rendering you will generally get at most 3 bad frames for that sequence, but sending to over 200 machines, you get a LOT of bad frames.
The cache sizes for these sequences are generally very large, but it happens with very small cache sizes also (like a simple flaming torch or whatever). The machines vary, and it is totally inconsistent as to which machines will render a bad frame. Some are WinXP 64bit, 4Gigs Ram, Max 8, Dual Opteron CPU's. But also seeing the same problem on Intel 32bit XP machines, etc. It's a mix of all types but I cannot see any pattern.
2 - the blank frames problem is not a big deal right now for us, because those frames are easy to catch, and re-render. Also, this does not happen often.
3 - I should have stated that this is not a network problem. The light flickering hapens locally also. The case with 2 FumeFX systems did not have read/write to disk checked. We have also seen this problem with only 1 system and read/write not checked. It looks like the shadows are maybe turning on and off between frames.
Thanks,
-Kirby.