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Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 07 Apr 2011, 17:44
by ActionArt
Well, just got 2012 installed and decided to render a scene with ice particles that have instanced geometry (rendered on 2011 but with big memory leak). It seemed this was to be fixed in MR 3.9.

Results: Ka-Pow! Instant crash. Not a great start.

I'll try a few things later to see if I can figure out what's happening.

Anyone else have some early reports?

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 07 Apr 2011, 17:51
by Maximus
Fantastic indeed.
There is a similar discussion on xsimailing list

quote from there

"Can I get a silver medal? Mine crashed on the very first scene I
tried to render! Mental Ray, nothing special, just some instanced
objects. Grrrrrrrrrrr. "

it appears to be a problem with Mental Ray and instances, wonder how they didnt notice that if its the first thing people noticed as soon as it came out.

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 07 Apr 2011, 18:26
by ActionArt
That was me :))

I guess I'm the only one so far.

I'm going to try re-simulating and re-saving the cache, maybe it's different somehow.

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 08 Apr 2011, 01:36
by ActionArt
Well, I re-simulated the scene and re-wrote the cache files and now it works fine.

I guess it didn't like my old cache files for some reason.

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 08 Apr 2011, 02:49
by ActionArt
I spoke too soon. It rendered 1 frame and then crashed on the second.

Makes me wonder if this version was tested AT ALL. If can find major bugs in the first couple hours of testing what were they doing in Beta?

So far, NOT impressed with 2012. Don't rush to download :(

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 08 Apr 2011, 10:57
by Rork
Not speaking for all the beta testers, but it's a fine line between dedicating time spend on the beta and it's new features, and getting actual work done ;)

Most of crashes in any new versions comes from some settings not entirely coming across properly. We have a new mental ray, new ICE stuff, new caching system etc., al this can affect a scene set up in a previous version of SI.

The more complex the scene, the more stuff can go wrong opening it up in a new version of SI..... Not saying it should crash on you straight away :D

I haven't seen the Known Bugs list yet, so I don't know what was fixed in the last weeks before release....

rob

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 08 Apr 2011, 11:02
by Firebird
Well cant really say anything about stability jet.. works fine so far.

Just 2 things I quickly noticed..

Unified sampling does not work with satellite rendering. (maybe a technical limitation?)

and motion vector output pass shader is always displayed as main channel in the Render Region even if set into a different channel. (dont happen in SI2011.5)

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 08 Apr 2011, 15:40
by caledonian_tartan
Fixes:
http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... image_2012

Moderator edit: please use the URL tags - HB

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 11:10
by Maximus
ok i have a big issue here..
I've opened an old scene its nothing big, is an exterior house, whole scene is 97796 triangles.
Drag a render region and Softimage went in halt for like 10 seconds then it started rendering, no final gather, no lights except 1 point light, architectural material, i have absolutely nothing in the scene.

I've did the same test with 2011 and it just instantly start the render, it seems 2012 hangs on geometry loading?!
Also i've exported the model as obj to test into a new fresh scene, maybe the old scene cause some kind of problem with 2012, well imported the model, all default settings 1 infintie light, render -> same things, Softimage hangs for seconds then start the render wich is kinda instand since the scene has nothing. The render takes 1 second in wallclock, but it passes like 5/6 seconds before it starts rendering..

Any clue? I'm running further tests but so far i didnt manage to have the same responsiveness and quick render start like in 2011..

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 11:38
by Maximus
Well unfornately i can confirm this, i've just tried with a cube with a bit of subdivision, duplicated it couple of times, grab all cubes and duplicate them again, now i have in scene 112 cubes, and 70336 triangles, wich is just nothing, 2012 render hangs before start. 2011 is just instant.
It seems there is a problem here, can someone double check?

Thanks

edit: well triplechecked and sadly i have insane pre calc times on somthing like 150.000 triangles...200 cubes takes 20 seconds before it starts the render.. its someting regarding mental ray geometry cache or something?

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 11:42
by owei
Hi!

Made a simple test. Sphere with 1000 subdivisions U and V and arch material default in full HD (1080):

2011:
' INFO : RC 0.4 info : wallclock 0:00:04.08 for rendering
' INFO : RC 0.4 info : allocated 189 MB, max resident 294 MB
' INFO : GAPM 0.4 info : triangle count (including retessellation) : 1998000

2012:
' INFO : RC 0.4 info : wallclock 0:00:04.99 for rendering
' INFO : RC 0.4 info : allocated 167 MB, max resident 257 MB
' INFO : GAPM 0.4 info : triangle count (including retessellation) : 1998000

So, MR seems to be slower..but a bit more memory efficient on this test..

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 12:09
by Maximus
i think i didnt explain myself :D
the problem is not the render time (wallclock)
the problem is the amount of time it takes after you hit Render to when it actually starts to render.
The render times is fine, it just something on pre-calc phase that it does before it starts rendering.

also it appears its caused by many objects, not just one, try to duplicate the spheres, with less subd, make like 200 objects like i did, and test 2011 vs 2012, its kinda evident something is wrong

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 12:31
by Maximus
well here is the scene, it is really a problem to me, takes lots of time to start the render, also if you try to stop it while it starts rendering, it hangs..i dont understand..

there is something going on

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 12:49
by owei
...yeah, I see what you mean. 2012 is not as responsive in rendering as 2011 on a 300 sphere scene (freshly built on each software). There is a significant difference in time from pressing "render" until rendering really starts. Beside of that, rendering is slower..that doesn´t sound good to me ;)

cheers,
oliver

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 12:51
by origin
yep it hangs xsi for x seconds (where x depends on number of objects in scene)...preview window is also affected

I also have tested 3dsmax 2011-2012, and translation time in 2012 is actualy abit faster >tested on 2541 teapots, 2.6 mln polys, translation time is 3 seconds <

edit: funny thing, I brought this scene to XSI and there is a 50sec hang before it starts rendering. But there shouldn't be any 'translation' time since "mr has direct access to xsi memory", right?!

Re: Softimage 2012 Experiences

Posted: 09 Apr 2011, 13:42
by Maximus
i hope this get fixed like now, it makes impossible to use the software..