Rendering Issues in Max 9

[Vfx Gal]

hi all,
I am having problems rendering a 200 frame animation using max.Nothing complicated.Everytime I render it max jus crashes. Any help will be appreciated.

[ShadowMaker SdR]

You'll need to give us a little more info than this. Nothing complicated can mean a lot of differen things to a lot of peopel. What's animated? Dynamics? Hair? Fur? Camera? Is it character animation? What resolution are your rendering to? MR or Scanline? etc.

[ragupasta]

A lot of the time crashes on rendering are a result of low or lack of physical memory. Too complex a scene maybe? Also Max is known to be buggy. Try resetting the scene, the go...file--->merge---><merge components from previous scene>.
If it is still doing it, try, going to the white MaxScript bar at the bottom left, and type "gc()", without the "", for a memory garbage dump.

Keep us posted!!:)

EDIT: If you are using Scanline, at the bottom of the render tab, check the "Conserve memory" box, In Mental Ray, same box but in the top of the processing tab, plus in Mental Ray/VRay reduce the size of the bucket a lot, that can help if it's memory issues.

If all fails and it's not copyright, up the models as a .3ds, let me know the settings you have used, and I'll take a look. (I have access to Max8, not 9)

[Vfx Gal]

Thanks a lot to both of you. As mentioned earlier it is just a airplane animating on a path & crashing in to a building thereby disintegrationg the top part of the building. I have added two atmospheric effects of explosion & 1 smoke effect.3 omni lights with shadows. 1 camera. The only animated objetcs are the aircraft on a path & the dintegration of building using bomb .I havent animated any of the explosion parameters yet.
I'm doin it for my school assignment.I have tried merging it into a new scene but still have the same issue.As far a s render settings were concerned I had used the Scan line render without Mental Ray.The resolution was 320 * 240 as I was just doing test renders. The system Configuration is P4 Xp Pro. 2 GB RAM.

PS: I am just transitioning from MAYA to 3d Max so am kinda newbie to max.So please bear with me.

[chrislee]

hmm...does it crash on the first frame of render??did u use too extreme reflection/refraction that ur computer cannot handle?

well...u can try to render ur work in parts...the plane,the explosion,the building?hopefully it be able to tell if which is causing the problem when u render that particular object/effect.

[ShadowMaker SdR]

what are you rendering to? an image sequence or a movie file? this can make a difference as well.

[Dreamie]

Do you have any freeware / commercial plugins installed?
Sometimes max gets crazy in UI and general configurations as well. The solution for that is to delete the 3dsmax.ini file and restart max.

I'm surprised these errors still happen in the 9th! version. I've returned to max at work for a month now and had to delete the ini file 3 times already.. One time I had to make a fresh install just in order to see the UI again.

[Vfx Gal]

I tried rendering it as a movie file initially but it kept crashing on the 1st frame itself.So I tried doing a .tga sequence but had the same problem.

As far as plugins are concerned I don't have any plugins installed for max. Should I just reinstall max?

[ragupasta]

I would suggest a fresh install as a very last resort. I think you should try what chrislee suggests, and try a render of a few seperate parts first. Try and solve all avenues before a install.

[Vfx Gal]

oh ok I'll try rendering it as seperate objects. Thanks everybody for your help.

[ragupasta]

Hope you get it sorted soon, as Im fast running out of ideas.:(

[Vfx Gal]

hey Guys,
I was finally able to render the animation. :) I tried rendering it as seperate objects as suggested by Crislee and it worked. It was by background image which was causing the problem . Thanks guys for your support .