Rendering Issues

Hi guys, really need your help.

I'm running 3Ds Max Design 2010 and whenever I attempt to render it either fails (with avi files, can't create a I/O file) or I try with .movs and it gets a certain way through and then turns off my PC. There's no error messages, the screen goes black shortly followed by my PC turning its self off. I don't experince any error messages when turning it back on either.

I talked to my tutor at uni and he seems to think its a memory issue. I've tried different compression codecs and lowing the settings that comes up for a quicktime file to their lowest, which makes it render faster and for longer (animation wise), but still cuts off before it gets to the end. Doing these things before has been okay, but I figured my scene must be more complex now and I'd really like to be able to turn up the settings and do a high quality render.

I'm running Windows Vista home 32bit.
Intel Quad Core 2 CPU
4GB Memory
I've been meaning to get a new graphics card for awhile, as I know the one I have isn't brilliant. Would a better graphics card do alot to solving this issue? Any other ideas to solving this issue in the mean time?

wel as for me 32-bit only use up to 2GB memory.. why not change to 64-bit... o d kaya malaki yung file mo at ang lakas kumain ng memory..

Feels like a memory issue to me also. What rendering engine are you using? I think you can cut your scene to separate clips then merge it after you are done. This way you will save more time and avoid unexpected crashes.

Yeah, that's something to consider Chobs, thanks.

I'm rendering using Mental Ray.

I'm upgrading to Windows 7 in the next few days MoKong, so I can't really upgrade to a 64bit system just yet. What I'm rendering isn't very complex (some extuded text with some texture/material and a camera along a path. Only 250 frames). I think it stands to reason that my system should be able to handle it and it just needs some settings tweaked or there's a deeper underlaying issue.

Did you try setting up another simple scene? It maybe also the integrity of your scene objects or render setup that is causing the render to crash.

do not render with a single video file format output (avi, mov etc). when rendering animations always output to sequential images (PNG, TIFF or TGA are preferred), then just compile them afterwards (and even apply post editing). this prevents you from losing work. you can always render from the last frame rendered if your PC fails again.

mokong wrote:wel as for me 32-bit only use up to 2GB memory.. why not change to 64-bit... o d kaya malaki yung file mo at ang lakas kumain ng memory..

Ah well, you can scrap my previous comment on this as I am now on a 64bit verion of Windows 7. My boyfriend ordered it for me and I didn't know which version he had got.

This seems to have fixed the issue, although I haven't obviously used it much yet

mushroom wrote:do not render with a single video file format output (avi, mov etc). when rendering animations always output to sequential images (PNG, TIFF or TGA are preferred), then just compile them afterwards (and even apply post editing). this prevents you from losing work. you can always render from the last frame rendered if your PC fails again.

sir you mean to say your rendering your animation in image format then merging them into an animation?
where do you merge? adobe premier?

this is a way to do the animation, saving it in jpeg, png or tif as what sir mushroom have mention...in this way whenever the pc crashed. you can just continue rendering it again, starting to the last frame rendered. just compile it using after effects(i prefer). import it as a sequence file, AE would recognized it as a animation file then render it again to your type of animation....

That is correct. It is very important that you follow this procedure. It is more convinient and I would also say is the best solution.

Rendering the whole animation straight into a MOV or AVI format would always put you at the risk of loosing the animation at the end thus wasting plenty of time trying to re-render again and again just to finish the whole animation into one movie format.

As what Mushroom mentioned, you should render the Animation in frame sequence.

If you render it in one whole clip...lets say ug have 2000 frames and on the 1999th frame, the system crashed, you would loose all the animation. That would be a nightmare if you have tight deadlines.

But If you render via Image sequence(TGA, PNG, TIFF, or even JPEG), max would save every frame it completes...so if in the 2000 frames your 3d max crashed at 1500th frame, you get to keep frame 0-1499 and you can start the render sequence again from 1500-2000.

Do not forget to properly precalc your animation so that your frames will be consistent to each other.

you can always use After Effects, fusion, nuke and other compositing software to compile frames.

I hope this helps

SHIFT to 64bit windows para magamit 4gb na memory mo...Paul is correct ( vITMINS)...mas stable kung irerender nga ng frame sequence...Merge mo nalng sa ram player kung wala kang compositing software such as after effects...Then saka mo isave ng AVI or MOV format....