Insufficient memory (3DS MAX)?

leaf3d

I'm trying to render a scene. It's one object, with two photometric target lights, a camera and a backdrop. The polycount comes to 2500. I'm using Mental Ray and the 3point shader. It's one frame with 2400 x 3000 resolution.

I have a desktop PC with an i7 processor and 8gig of RAM. I've closed all other programs.
But I can't get it to render past 66% on 'very high' settings. It will render fine on 'high', but the shadows don't look right. I'll post a pic if you want.

Should I be able to render on very high settings? Why am I having shadow problems?

Any help would be appreciated.

sprunghunt

also:

try using mentalray (it's a bit better at memory management)

or

there's a checkbox in the render setup window in the "renderer" tab down the bottom that reads "conserve memory" which makes things run a bit slower but may stop an OOM crash

Xoliul

Also uhm ... you might be disappointed when using MentalRay with a shader like 3Point: it comes out just flat grey.

Use 3Point ViewThief or GrabViewport 2.5: you can "render" high res, shaders will look the same and you won't run out of memory.

leaf3d

Thanks guys. I appreciate your help.
Yes, I have windows 7 64bit OS. I can't see the conserve memory box Here is the message that comes up:



Here is the weird shading errors on high:


Maybe it's just the shader. I'll try one of those shaders then, Xoliul. Thank you again.

Abby3D

This probably isn't your problem, but older versions of 3dsmax have a file bloat bug, related to copy/paste biped poses. Check your file size.

leaf3d

How do I check my file size? If it is the software is there anyway of improving it?

Adam L. Gray

Not sure why you would want to use a real-time viewport shader for something like this really, if you do have a reason for it, then you could always try something like this one: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1612347&postcount=12



Should work relatively well, and will allow you to render it with textures, directly in the viewport (not quite realtime though). Keep in mind however that the exposure and contrast wouldn't match your normal environment, so the textures will probably come out a bit washed out, but tweak the settings and it should work. Still though really, why the use of the 3point shader when rendering with mental ray? :P

leaf3d

Thanks Adam. I'm not rendering with a viewport shader for any other reason then I thought I'd try it and liked the look of it. I tried again with a basic material from the material panel, but it still came up with the same error. More concerned about the that then the shader.

r_fletch_r

why are you rendering in mentalray with a realtime shader?. If you want to render your high poly then use something like arch&design.