Vray 1.6 open beta

halroach

I will be sending bug reports by email to the vray developers and posting them in this thread for all to see aswell.
My specs:

Hardware:
CPU: Intel core i7-2600k @ 3.40GHz
Memory: 16GM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti

Software:
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Sketchup Pro 8.0.16846
Vray 1.6 Beta

Bugs I've encountered:

Animations not working!!!
Created two scenes with different positions
Chose to save render output as jpgs in an existing folder.
Checked animation on
Checked Include Frame Number
NTSC 30 fps

Ran Render - Sketchup Camera moves between the render scenes and Rendering of frames begins. It renders the same first frame over and over again. The jpgs are saved in consecutive frame numbers yet as above... all the same image.

RT Render - materials not updating consistently in render when changed.
bug reproduction:
a. Creating a box
b. Turning it into a component
c. Running Render RT - window opens and renders live - nice!
d. applying a blue color to the box (not to the surfaces but to the outside) - material in RT changes.
e. applying a different material red color... to the box - in RT the the box keeps rendering blue...
f. the same bug occurs in other scenarios - doesn't immediately update when materials are changed... sometimes needs to be closed and re-opened to see material changes.
RT Render crashes sketchup sometimes - will send more info when it happens again
Undo not working during or after RT render

under regular render undo still works.

Sketchup logo on Sketchup Program tab on taskbar changed to Vray Logo. I'm sure Trimble will be very glad to see that
Live update materials not always working:
In Materials Window Live update of materials doesn't always update live, even after pressing enter... It's kind of selective when to update and when not to.
Exporting a component as a proxy - works well and componet is transformed...
Upon import of the proxy into another model, the textures are lost.
Sketchup Freezes
Sometimes when zooming in and out with the mouse wheel in a render window, all of sketchup freezes. The only way out of it is to press CTRL-ALT-DEL and to press ESC (back to windows) and sketchup is freed up. - this happened on last two previous versions of vray as well. Only happens on windows 7.

Minor Annoyances:

a1. When running a render the Vray Progress Window pops up. the progress bar progresses normally. If the render is stopped the progress stops - all is nice and well. the only minor annoyance is that the progress bar keeps flashing in that fashionable Windows 7 Aero Theme kind of way... It's just annoying, and makes you think that maybe the progress bar is actually still progressing, and the render is still running...

Suggestions?

b1. Would be nice if the Render window and Render RT window were done in two separate windows. I personally would use RT as a preview to see how I should make quick changes in the regular render I just did... dunno if that is possible or makes any sense?!

b2. Have an option for thumbnail view (i.e. material preview balls) on left sidebar of material window. (like in 3DSMAX or Rhino) If we're spending all this time making previews why not see them all aligned up next to each other for comparisons and pure joy of having a real library...

Questions:
c1. Is there a way to edit an imported proxy, change it's materials... or must one remake a proxy every time?

c2. Does the toon material still exist? I couldn't seem to find it.

c3. BRDF. I have no idea how to use it - hope there is a manual.

Bravos:
d1. Prview renders are working a lot faster.

d2. Renders seem to be looking good.

d3. Transfer of materials between models seems to be working fine. My library of components with vray materials from vray version 1.48.96 (where material transfers between models used to work) still works!! Great!

d4. Organization of the Options and Materials windows seem to be making more sense.

andybot

@halroach said:

c1. Is there a way to edit an imported proxy, change it's materials... or must one remake a proxy every time?

My workaround for proxy amterials disappearing: go into the group object that is within the proxy component, and directly apply all the materials of that proxy to some faces. That way, SU can keep track of the materials, and you don't lose them when saving or loading the proxy.

thomthom

@cadfather said:

Hi Devin, sorry to bug you with this here, but i'm totally confused on this beta thing and had no reply at all from CG. is there a place to download this beta or only if you are accepted? and how do i get accepted if i can't get through to them? thanks for any help!

Go to the ChaosGroup website - login (or create an account if you don't have one) and follow the links to apply for the beta from this page: http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vrayforsketchup_beta.html

Gus R

@thomthom said:

@cadfather said:

Hi Devin, sorry to bug you with this here, but i'm totally confused on this beta thing and had no reply at all from CG. is there a place to download this beta or only if you are accepted? and how do i get accepted if i can't get through to them? thanks for any help!

Go to the ChaosGroup website - login (or create an account if you don't have one) and follow the links to apply for the beta from this page: http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vrayforsketchup_beta.html

I did that on the 15th and received an automated response that included, "Our team is processing your application and you will soon receive confirmation to download the Beta builds." Never heard back from them. I have already downloaded the beta install.

dkendig

@krisidious said:

Vray Beta is warning me when I open another instance of SketchUp that the program did not close properly and asks me to send a report. I believe this is happening because the other instance has not shut down.

When loading our plugin, we check our error log to see if we have our shutdown message printed in there. If we don't find it, we pop up the error message and ask you to submit a bug report. I'm told the bug report tool may be having issues... so... the error message is pointless at the moment...

anteolic

I really dont know where to ask this question than i ask here.

Does vrayforsu 1.6 beta has some limitation or what cause i cant get more prepass in IRRADIANCE MAP than just one.

dkendig

anteolic - I believe another user has submitted a bug report that sounds similar. Could you please send us a bug report at vfswip@chaosgroup.com? We would like to hear details about your experience with this issue, to ensure that we rectify this for everyone's workflow.

Gus R

Update. Misread an email and apparently I was approved for beta testing. So far so good and it loads up better than the previous version.

andybot

@anteolic said:

I really dont know where to ask this question than i ask here.

Does vrayforsu 1.6 beta has some limitation or what cause i cant get more prepass in IRRADIANCE MAP than just one.

There's an option for "multi-pass" (under "advanced options") If it's unchecked, you will only see one pass even though it is doing all the calculations. See if that is the case.

caecarvalho

Hi all,

I'm having problems on windows 8 and SU8 latest MR.
-The RT doesn't update the sun and shadows position, and used on a havy scene it even crashed my computer by overheating (it turned off- first time this ever heppened with this machine- it's a sager notebook, wich I consider a very well cooled notebook).
-And seems to be a problem with the progress bar when RT is running, couse it never passes 1%. (I saw in the demostration video that it stays in 97 or 98...)
-The render needs much more memory than the older version and always runs out of memory in identical scenes that I used to render in the 1.49.01 version with no problems.
There are many other problems that I found as well. It's definitely unusable for me like it is now.

I received a link for the video demonstrations of the new features, and I think the guy is using windows 7.It's definitely running way diferent than in my machine with windows 8.

Does anyone had problems installing on windows 8?

dkendig

If you haven't done so already, please send us a bug report about this. We haven't seen an out of memory error yet.

The RT render does not show a progress bar, because generally if you are using RT, you are trying to tweak materials or lighting, rather than producing a final render. It can produce a final result after a while, but generally it's used for previewing.

We have no known issues with Windows 8, and yes in the video the OS was most likely Windows 7.

caecarvalho

@dkendig said:

If you haven't done so already, please send us a bug report about this. We haven't seen an out of memory error yet.

The RT render does not show a progress bar, because generally if you are using RT, you are trying to tweak materials or lighting, rather than producing a final render. It can produce a final result after a while, but generally it's used for previewing.

We have no known issues with Windows 8, and yes in the video the OS was most likely Windows 7.

Hi devin, thanks for the reply.

I think I found what was causing the memory crash.The file that was crashing had lots of ligths(spots and rectangular) from vray 1.49.01.
I tryed to render another file that I have, almost the same size as the one that was crashing(65MB), but with no ligths, only the phisical sun and sky,and high quality settings, and there was no crash. Actually the render was faster and had better image quality with same settings that 1.49.01.

So it seems that the lights, at least rectangular and spots are not fully compatible.
I had no time to change all the ligths from the other file,to do a new test, but as soon as I can I'll post the results here.

Other issue is that the RT is not updating the sun and sky position, but materials and camera are updating fine.

About the bug reports, I think there was a post already in this thread saying that an error occurs when trying to send it.That's happening with me as well.

dkendig

the post I made about sending bug reports says the bug reporting tool isn't working well at the moment for some people, so email is the best way to submit a report to our bug tracker. SketchUcation is NOT the place to report bugs for our product if you want us to actually fix them. We also don't want bug reports in the Chaos Group forums. Forums are a horrible place to sort out bugs. Threads get sidetracked/lost/confusing... oh it's a nightmare! So please send us an email with bug reports. If you want to give fellow VfS users a heads up about a problem, and discuss a bug on the forums, by all means, go ahead. If you're trying to tell myself, or Joe (the other VfS developer) about a bug, we need a bug report or else more than likely it's going to be lost. The email address for bug reports is vfswip@chaosgroup.com

caecarvalho

@dkendig said:

the post I made about sending bug reports says the bug reporting tool isn't working well at the moment for some people, so email is the best way to submit a report to our bug tracker. SketchUcation is NOT the place to report bugs for our product if you want us to actually fix them. We also don't want bug reports in the Chaos Group forums. Forums are a horrible place to sort out bugs. Threads get sidetracked/lost/confusing... oh it's a nightmare! So please send us an email with bug reports. If you want to give fellow VfS users a heads up about a problem, and discuss a bug on the forums, by all means, go ahead. If you're trying to tell myself, or Joe (the other VfS developer) about a bug, we need a bug report or else more than likely it's going to be lost. The email address for bug reports is vfswip@chaosgroup.com

I didn't know obout the e-mail adress, sorry. I'll send the bug reports to it than...Thanks

dkendig

no worries, I just wanted to stress the importance of it. In the past we have had a very confusing mix of feedback sources, which ended up wasting a lot of time. We want to really tear through this beta at the highest efficiency that we can.

jiminy-billy-bob

By the way, will there be multiple beta releases during these three months, or do you plan to adress all the bugs for the future proper release ?

dkendig

there will be multiple beta releases prior to a final release.

kalu

@dkendig said:

there will be multiple beta releases prior to a final release.

Thank you for all your comments and help "dkendig".

Kalu.

dkendig

glad I can help. Sorry I'm not able to be on here more often. We have a bit of work ahead of us yet. Keep the comments and reports coming though! They are a huge help!

jiminy-billy-bob

@dkendig said:

glad I can help. Sorry I'm not able to be on here more often. We have a bit of work ahead of us yet. Keep the comments and reports coming though! They are a huge help!

I think we all prefer you working on the next beta release than lurking SCF all day long !