Isotropix Forums

Thanks ryder,

That's good to know !

Looks like there was something fishy with their script too, because they manage to fix it, and now all my test scenes are validated. (3.6SP2 - windows).
The good thing is that you have to manage the data upload yourself, so hopefully that will resolve .abc / .vdb sequence problem I always had with Rebus.

So far I haven't had any success with either FoxRender or Conductor.

Foxrender doesn't know what to do with an exported project archive. Their helpdesk TD says they can't work with paths that lead to C or D drive.
I honestly don't understand that. My computer only has a C and D drive with the majority of my project assets on D.
Every file I send them fails during the analysis stage.

They gave me one successful render last Christmas, but apparently their TD had to go into the file and remap all the asset paths manually.

Clarisse projects also crash when sent to Conductor. The only files I've gotten to render successfully are files with 1 or 2 megascans sitting in an otherwise empty project file.
When I've sent over anything of any complexity their Cnode crashes on their end before it starts rendering.

I'm at a loss. Have other people been using these services with success or has anyone hit these problems.

Ken_M wrote:I'm at a loss. Have other people been using these services with success or has anyone hit these problems.

I have no experience with dedicated render services, so this might not be helpful as it is not direcly comparable. We rendered some jobs on AWS using Thinkbox's AWS Portal, which was appealing since we have a small Deadline farm on-site.

Doing the setup took quite a while, especially since we were early adopting by that time, but once it was done, jobs would render like a charm. Multiple shots with mutual dependencies on a decent amount of assets (maybe 30GB) and several layers of referencing would work just fine.

Thank you for the reply, T_b_s!
That makes me hopeful... I think conductor uses AWS as well. Not sure if it's the same thing....
Conductor sent me an e-mail (yesterday evening) that their move to the new AWS system was somewhat recent and they're still getting certain features set up.

Ken_M wrote:So far I haven't had any success with either FoxRender or Conductor.

Foxrender doesn't know what to do with an exported project archive. Their helpdesk TD says they can't work with paths that lead to C or D drive.
I honestly don't understand that. My computer only has a C and D drive with the majority of my project assets on D.
Every file I send them fails during the analysis stage.

Hey Ken
While I have not yet tested some of said services, it should be noted that mentioning drive letters indicate the root for most issues.

In the path manager , when checking the archive file, does it use then all relative paths ? Do you use $pdir ?
What version clarisse are you using ? I remember there was an archive issue in some version.

Overall drive letters inside a project will never work, as the farm does not have any. So all ressources and data as well as the output, must be relative using $pdir.


Also does it give feedback exactly where it is failing during analysis and why ?

Cheers
Kai

Thank you for the reply, Kai.

Clarisse version 4.0 SP5b x64

(I know what you're talking about with the project archive issue in the old version. A few versions back my objects turned black when I tried to make an archive... that seems to be fixed in SP5b)

I think I asked about the path manager earlier in this thread or another thread and I was told that pressing the 'project archive' button would create everything properly... that I didn't need to change any defaults. Maybe that's not the case with my problem?

In the project file that I built all the paths have the whole address either leading to my project on D or my megascans library on C.

Paths like this:
C:/Users/Ken/Desktop/ART/2019/AOE Weapon Wall/3D/ZBrush/Duelling Pistol/Obj_v001_sketchfab_export/musket_v001/_musket47.OBJ

Now,in the exported project file...

I unzipped the project archive and opened the scene file in notepad. I noticed two things:

The geometry specific to the project on my C drive looks like it has the proper path. It's pointing to a folder inside the project archive (which I assume is what it does automatically when I export) I assume this screenshot in the correct way the project archive is supposed to work.



However the megascan maps are still pointing to C drive.



Maybe this is the problem? I should have opened up the file in notepad to look at it. The maps are pointing to a local hard drive still. Not the project archive directory.

Any idea why that is? Is there something I can do in the path manager to fix this issue?
I did watch the path manager tutorial, but I'm a little unclear why it's superior to use 'variables' in the path instead of the default path while building the project?

I understand that the idea of the project archive is that it pulls all the assets/maps/files spread around my hard drive and puts them into their own project folder system... then it goes into the clarisse file and points all the paths to the folders in the archive.
I guess it's successfully doing that with my geo, but not my maps?

I know that Foxrender makes use of the Project archive where-as Conductor doesn't (as far as I know)... but is this path issue perhaps causing the crash issue with both services?

Thanks very much for helping me and your time. I'm still not clear how to fix this.

Ken

Additionally: My really simplistic tests (one or two megascan 3D assets with textures) sent to conductor back in late December worked properly)... but the actual projects I've built don't seem to work yet.
They render okay on my computer (if it matters)

There is something off..not sure why.

You are aware that all windows paths are using the forward slash (linux type) and all megascan files double backslashes (Windows UNC)?
Whatever the causes is, you have to make sure they are all equal and not mixed up ..

Either seek feedback by submitting a small sample here, in Discord or ask isotropix team ..
It's hard to say where and what went wrong, but it's clear that it would not render this way unless manually resolved.

You could use the path manager and search/replace all those issues and make all assets work again
If you have another machine simply export the archive and try to open it on that other machine.

Cheers
Kai

"You could use the path manager and search/replace all those issues and make all assets work again
If you have another machine simply export the archive and try to open it on that other machine."

this.
open your exported project whihc you extracted in zip
and do search replace for both "//" and "\\" to respective single slashes.
if you use PDIR, you shoud be prety safe, and as megascan assets showed they work.
change all pathing to how megscan has, if it has "PDIR/c/desmond/models/3dmodel.abc" change all slashes to "/"
Change to "\" if megascans work that way.
This will tell you what platform are they rendering on.

good luck!

Hi Kai and Desmond,
Thank you both so much with your help concerning the path manager.
I sent several small tests to foxrender and a fragment of a larger project and they all rendered sucessfully.

Using your suggestion of looking for any "\\" and "\" and replacing them both with "/" solved that particular issue (I think.)

Thanks again!

Ken