erickdt Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Hi All, I've been interested in trying out this new fangled IRay renderer but at this point I have had no luck getting it to work at all in 3DS Max Design 2012. It doesn't even show up as an option for Activeshade. When I use it for Production renders it produces nothing but a black render window. Any help in what I can do to make this work would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 14, 2011 Author Share Posted October 14, 2011 I've also got no "hardware resource rollout". E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihabkal Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 I think even if it works the only way to get use out of it is to shell out 40K to Nvidia and get their hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelperfectg Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 (edited) It doesn't even show up as an option for Activeshade. I've also got no "hardware resource rollout". Sounds like the Subscription Advantage Pack for 2012 that contained those features isn't installed. You may want to double check your installation of the Advantage Pack. Edited October 15, 2011 by pixelperfectg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter M. Gruhn Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 Well, I already had an nVidia card, but I think I paid $90 for it. iRay works fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenpimentel Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 iray is a physically-based renderer, so if you don't have the right lights and materials, it won't render. Read the manual or check out the videos on how to use it. It sounds like your exposure control is set incorrectly to me. Separately, you'll need at least a 2Gb VRAM CUDA-based card to use iray's GPU acceleration. Iray itself takes up about 500Mb of VRAM to run, so depending on your scene, you'll need more VRAM to run it properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 Hi Ken, Thanks for getting back to me on this. Like I said in my OP, IRay doesn't even show up as an option for Activeshade nor do I have the "hardware resource rollout". Would these options/rollouts not showw up at all if I didn't have the proper hardware? In terms of the materials and complexity of the scene it was a series of 9 spheres and a plane with an off white, slightly reflective Mental Ray A&D material. I was using photometric area spots to light the scene. Exposure control was enabled and set to and EV of 2. My GPU is a NVidia Quadro FX 3800 which has 1GB of RAM. I am hoping that I can get IRay to work for me. I think it would be a valuable tool for my workflow. Thanks in advance for you help! E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenpimentel Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 I'm not a technical expert, but it sounds like if you installed the SAP, you seem to have an install problem. Does your scene render with iray (just ignore activeshade for now)? I would think that your scene will fit in your GPU memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 No. All I get is a black render window when using IRay for production rendering. E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenpimentel Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Does the render window tell you it is iray 2.0? That would confirm you're rendering with the SAP. If it says iray 1.? then you have a bad install of the SAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 The render window doesn't say anything about IRay. In the render setup it just says "IRay Renderer". See attached: [ATTACH=CONFIG]45377[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]45376[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]45375[/ATTACH] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenpimentel Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Well, you do not have the SAP installed. You need to uninstall and then try reinstalling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 If by SAP you mean the cumulative hotfix/service pack update, I did install that but I guess it's not working... So I need to totally reinstall MAX? BTW: I'm using MAX Design 2012 (if that matters). E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenpimentel Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Yes, you should install SP1 and SP2. They include all Hot Fixes. I meant the Subscription Advantage Pack (SAP). That is where you get the Activeshade for iray. You have not installed that apparently. That is why you're not seeing iray as an Activeshade option. You get the SAP from your Subscription center download area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelperfectg Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 If by SAP you mean the cumulative hotfix/service pack update, I did install that but I guess it's not working...Odd, I could have sworn I explained in post #4 some days ago that it sounds like you didn't install the 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theqball Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 you also need to provide us more information about your HW config. if you try to follow the simple steps in this video what do you see posted in the "Render Message Window"? http://www.screencast.com/t/WLCN3GBfsr (as stated by others in this thread you don't need an extreme machine to render with iray, it will work in CPU mode even. I just happen to have a super nice BOXX 4880 system I'm doing a review on.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 Odd, I could have sworn I explained in post #4 some days ago that it sounds like you didn't install the 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack... Hi Jeff, I didn't purposely ignore your advice. I just got caught up with other more pressing issues. I will try the Subscription Advantage Pack and report back in the next few days. E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 So I've been trying to dowwnload the SAP for the better part of two hours with no luck. The Autodesk website just churns saying "processing request" for a few minutes and then nothing happens... Very frustrating... E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 I can't even get the f-ing "subscription help" link to work. Seriously? E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 21, 2011 Author Share Posted October 21, 2011 So after 3 straight days of trying I was finally aable to download and instal the SAP. Now I am able to select IRay as the Activeshade renderer and I also have the hardware resource rollout. Still there are issues: 1.) For some reason it does not recognize my GPU as a CUDA device. I have a NVidia Quadro FX 3800 which I know uses CUDA. 2.) When in Activeshade the only thing that causes the window to re-render is moving the view. If you change lights etc. nothing happens. 3.) Adjusting lights in the scene seems to have no effect on the IRay rendering. Even if I turn all of the lights in the scene (9 spheres and a plane) it has no effect. Am I doing something wrong? Any advice would be helpful. If these problems are typical of IRay I fail to see how it is of any use... E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theqball Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 an FX3800 is an older gen card (i know it's not that old I have several) and if you only have one GPU in the system you will have limited success with ActiveShade iray. You are working with limited resources, 1GB GPU mem -192 CUDA cores @ a much slow compute rate than fermi cards. both what you are doing within the viewport and what you are doing with ActiveShade will be fighting for these limited resources at the same time, result is bound to be a poor experience. Also read the help docs, they explain what is and isn't supported with the new ActiveShade iray workflow. And no i'm not saying you need to go spend mega $ to use ActiveShade iray. there are many low cost fermi cards on the market today that will provide a much better experience for you, plus you could still use the FX3800 to drive the viewport. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 21, 2011 Author Share Posted October 21, 2011 (edited) So how does that explain the fact that my GPU isn't even listed in the hardware resources rollout? Also, since I don't even have a GPU as an option to process the scene I've been using the CPU. So then it doesn't make sense to say that IRay's poor performance is due to a lackluster GPU. Even if that were the case I would expect that changing lights etc. would change the render window perhaps at a slower rate than a more modern GPU but surely it would affect the rendering outcome. E Edited October 21, 2011 by erickdt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelperfectg Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 So how does that explain the fact that my GPU isn't even listed in the hardware resources rollout?Using outdated GPU drivers possibly. When's the last time you updated your video card drivers? If not recently then you may need to do so before iray will use the GPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted October 21, 2011 Author Share Posted October 21, 2011 Okay, so updating the NVidia drivers made my GPU showup in the hardware resources list. Everything appears to be working now. It sure wasn't easy but it is working. Thanks for your help everyone! E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erkutacar Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 iray doesnt have activeshade renderer.. u need to use scanline for that. there shouldnt be a reason for iray to render black coz it comes integrated, so its cant be ur faulty installation. and it cant be about ur drivers either coz it also uses cpu. does it give any error? the only thing that comes to my mind is that u might be using only the light types that iray doesnt support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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