Crashing without error message

[cullen]

I am seriously going crazy here.

 

I've got a file that I have been trying to render for 2 days. It will reach different points of the rendering process then completely close max. I don't get any error messages or anything.

 

I have stepped back through the model several times deleting pieces trying to find out what the problem is. Below are my rendering settings.

 

Polys: 1,961,833

 

Vray Sun

Image sampler:

Adaptive DMC

 

Inderect illumination:

Primary bounce: 1.0 Irradiance map

Secondary Bounce: 1.0 Light cache

 

Irradiance map:

very low

 

Light Cache:

subdivs: 1000

Sample size: .02

Scale: Screen

Passes: 2

Store direct light: yes

Show calc. phase: yes

 

Pre-filter: no

filter: Nearest

Samples: 10

 

 

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

[BrianKitts]

render with your task manager open and watch your ram count... biggest cause of a vray crashing is running out of ram, so if you hit 0 and max closes then you'll know why.

 

which will basically mean it's time to start using the vray proxy and vrimg to make better use of your system resources.

[cullen]

Thanks for the tip Brian, I actually tried this already and generally have about 1.5gb still available when it crashes. Below are my system specs.

 

Core2 Quad @ 2.40GHz

4GB RAM

 

MAX 2008

V-Ray Adv 1.5 SP1

 

I should also mention that I am using Onyx Trees in my model.

[smr_VIZ]

one time, I changed my second bounce to another type. And it didn't crash anymore. Not sure if it is your case, but just want to share my 2 cents.

[cullen]

Thanks James. I've actually tried serveral different configs for the bounces. I decided to remove all of my grass (vray fur) and it seems to be going further than it has in the last 2 days. It would figure the main thing the client wants is whats crashing it.

[Ricardo Eloy]

What resolution are you rendering? Are you using proxies for the trees?

[cullen]

Currently I'm trying to render @ 490x270. My final will need to be much larger. I have 16 trees in the model. These trees are not using proxies but they are different variations.

 

It seems to be something wrong with the VRayFur. When i completely deleted them from the scene the rendering completed in less than 5 min. Does anyone have any tips for optimizing the VRayFur for grass?

 

Thanks.

[Billabong]

This happens to me sometimes to, but it done it in max 9 as well,when I was using it. I think its just a max bug and doesn't have anything to do with vray, but I'm just speculating

[Ricardo Eloy]

Pay attention to the amount of fur you have. I've seen people use distribution "per area" set to something like 20 (the default is 0.2) and experience constant crashes. Keep in mind that the more fur you have, the heavier and more unstable the scene will get.

[cullen]

The fur was the problem. I was one of those people... I had 3 planes each with the distribution around 30. I've switched it to displacement and it seems to be working now. I'll have to see what happens once I go big though.

 

Thanks for the help everyone!