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Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:00 am
by Draydin_r
Right off the bat I've found that an issue with pathtracing and PMC. It seems that max depth seems to be messed up for me. Is this happening to anyone else?

Any max depth past 2 creates huge problems.

I'm using max 2012 with octane 2.57.

Help would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:21 am
by gabrielefx
Draydin_r wrote:Right off the bat I've found that an issue with pathtracing and PMC. It seems that max depth seems to be messed up for me. Is this happening to anyone else?

Any max depth past 2 creates huge problems.

I'm using max 2012 with octane 2.57.

Help would be greatly appreciated!
I don't see any problem in your settings...except that you play a lot with gamma, exposure, aperture....
you should think like to use a real camera

generally I use 8 - 12 or 16 bounces using PT or PMC, I never render with PT...I use it only for previews
For direct lighting you can use 3-5-8 bounces. For exteriors ambient occlusion and 5 bounces is the ideal config.

Use an Evermotion scene with Vray materials and convert it with the plugin, you will understand how Octane works.

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:29 am
by Draydin_r
For the most part the play with the settings had more to do with trying to see what was wrong.

I'm just at a loss as to why there is such a difference between octane standalone and the plugin. The max depth setting has never produced this effect for me for as long as I've used it. With more playing around I've noticed that the vast majority of the kernels seem 'off' from what they should be. Though I could live with that, this issue with the bounces really limits what I can do by comparison to the main software.

After having used octane for the last year and a half this is extremely vexing. From all my experiences with octane, this bounce issue has never happened to me before.

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:44 am
by gabrielefx
Draydin_r wrote:For the most part the play with the settings had more to do with trying to see what was wrong.

I'm just at a loss as to why there is such a difference between octane standalone and the plugin. The max depth setting has never produced this effect for me for as long as I've used it. With more playing around I've noticed that the vast majority of the kernels seem 'off' from what they should be. Though I could live with that, this issue with the bounces really limits what I can do by comparison to the main software.

After having used octane for the last year and a half this is extremely vexing. From all my experiences with octane, this bounce issue has never happened to me before.
you added lights in your scene?.... I see a black background but the sphere is illuminated

in Max change the floating point visualization to 5 decimals to see how ray epsilon is set. I use a value of 0.0001 or 0.00001
This setting will help you to set glossy parameters because a value of 0.00001 is different from a 0.0001. Now you can't set it.
Vray parameters use 256 values, from black to white, Octane uses floating point values.

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:05 am
by Draydin_r
Sadly no effect. The issue stems with or with out active lights and will behave the same way with ambient lighting and no direct lighting what so ever it seems. :S

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:45 pm
by roeland
Is the sphere touching the plane? What happens if you leave a tiny gap between the sphere and the plane?

--
Roeland

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:23 pm
by Karba
Draydin_r wrote:Sadly no effect. The issue stems with or with out active lights and will behave the same way with ambient lighting and no direct lighting what so ever it seems. :S
Some times it can happens bacause of plugin licence.

Try to do next

go to
C:\Users\Andrey\AppData\Roaming\Refractive Software (just type
"%appdata%" in command line to get C:\Users\Andrey\AppData\Roaming\)
And remove all folders with name inside {}, like
{d3d9446802a44259755d38e6d163e820}

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:43 pm
by Draydin_r
Hey Guys! Thanks for the reply!

@roland

It was intersecting with the box, but the problem still occurs with or without intersection. I still wonder if this is in relation to occlusion, the proximity of the objects in relation to the light and seeing the results of the error seems very coincidental (See Attached)

@Karba

I deleted the folder and restarted both programs (max and octane), the issue still occurred.

So what should I try next?

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:47 pm
by Karba
Can you try to assign diffuse material to the sphere and box and set the diffuse color to black?
Draydin_r wrote:Hey Guys! Thanks for the reply!

@roland

It was intersecting with the box, but the problem still occurs with or without intersection. I still wonder if this is in relation to occlusion, the proximity of the objects in relation to the light and seeing the results of the error seems very coincidental (See Attached)

@Karba

I deleted the folder and restarted both programs (max and octane), the issue still occurred.

So what should I try next?

Re: Serious Issue With Pattracing/PMC with Max plugin (HELP!)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:00 pm
by Draydin_r
Well, this is confusing. The black does remove the issue but if something is even slightly off black it returns....

For reference, max depth is 16 for both