bump? anyone have this issue?

After a day of messing about I found the problem, I'll give an update just in case it helps anyone.

My security and software I use to manage all my workplace machines has an auto container feature - so if it doesnt trust software one of my staff is running it will run it in a container to stop it infecting anything. Turns out it didn't like this version of Vray. It usually opens windows with a green boarder around them to signify its doing it. There must be some glitch with SU opening up in a floating window which means it just wont open.

@rv1974 said:

check Jim's 'Add hidden layer'.
Additionally, there was something like 'scene\layer matrix' -I don't remember exact name. The plugin in form of table to control layers visibility through all your scenes.

It's called VisMap2 by Martin Rinehart. It was updated for 2015 by Jim Foltz, but haven't tried it yet in 2018. It's a very useful extension, and I would love to see someone create a new version of it.

I also use Jim's Add Hidden Layer plugin regularly and recommend it.

This is the problem when model has geometry far away from UCS. Correct IFC so all the geometry is close to UCS - do not use absolute coordinates.

@monkers said:

Even better would be a dialog with a list of scenes each one would have a check box beside it. that way you could custom show/hide in each scene.

Something like this?

Hide in Scenes.gif

bump... anyone?

For some reason VR is scaling up each exported component of eash window pane. Is there an easy batch fix for this?

If I explode the group of window components it seems to render okay. but I would rather not have to do this each time/variation. As I'm also worried about the file becoming unnecessarily large.

extracted pane

exploded render

a simple PC restart seems to fix the problem. Strange the map still doesn't load in the progress window but its working now.

be aware that using displacement means that you are asking vray to subdivide your faces for you if they are something other than quads (more than 4 vertices per face.) You will see such triangulation artifacts if you are not careful to draw interior lines so you end up with more "square" planes on your face.

Are you using 2.0?

I see a huge boost in rendering times even with just 2-3 computer slaves. There really isnt a whole lot to setup. Have the slaves on and running the spawner. Make sure all of your licensing is setup correctly, click render. Assets are transferred quickly and I see a boost in both my LC pass and IR passes. If it's working, you will see more render buckets at final pass time. If your machine is running low on RAM, just open the 64 bit spawner on your machine and check "Dont Use Local Machine" and just make sure localhost is checked on in your DR setup. With this method, you will not see you LC pass, but it is essentially 64 bit rendering on your local machine because you are no loner confined by SU's 32 bit environment.

Now this is all assuming you are on 2.0, if not, then DR is pretty busted and I wouldn't recommend it.

For more info on DR, see the manual
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/help/sketchup/150PB/distributed_rendering.htm

To keep everyone updated I got 2 replies when i contacted chaos group.

"Hello Peter,

We do have an error log now in our latest release, which is located in the ASGvis folder, maybe it can shed some light on these issues. The ASGvis folder changes location according to the OS you use:

XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ASGVIS\VfS\vfs_stderr.txt

Vista and Win7:

C:\ProgramData\ASGVIS\VfS\vfs_stderr.txt

OS X:

/Applications/ASGVIS/VfS/vfs_stderr.txt

The error log is wiped every time you open SketchUp, and it won't be fully written out unless SketchUp is completely closed. So as soon as you see a problem of some sort, close SketchUp, and then open the error log file to see what it says. If there's an issue with materials being mismatched or something along those lines, you should see some sort of message about that particular asset in the error log. The most common things we see causing errors are corrupt materials, textures, or components. If you have any Unicode characters in the file paths this will sometimes cause an error too.

We are working on a patch to correct the Unicode issues but for now you can get around it by storing textures, materials, etc in a root folder using only English characters.

The latest version of our software comes along with a few tools to help you if a particular scene (especially older scenes) doesn't render correctly. They can be found in the Plugins->V-Ray for SketchUp->Help->Debugging menu. They are as follows:

Regenerate all V-Ray Materials - This tool will delete any material information that is currently stored in the V-Ray Material Editor. Then it will iterate through the SketchUp scene, treating it as if it never had any V-Ray material data in it before, and it will create a V-Ray material for every SketchUp material. The newly generate material will only have a Diffuse layer. This tool is useful if your scene's materials are preventing you from rendering, and the Force Sync tool doesn't do the job. Keep in mind that while using this tool, any materials you have set up are going to be completely destroyed, so it might be a good idea to back up the scene prior to running this tool. In addition, if this tool allows you to successfully render the scene, then you know that the issue was a material in your scene. So you can just load your old backup scene, save all of your materials, run the tool, and then import that materials back in to your scene. If after importing one of the materials, you notice that the scene fails to render, then you found your problem. If after importing all of the materials back in to the scene, it still renders fine, then there was probably just some data corruption that was floating around from an old version.

Force Sync for All Materials - This tool will iterate over all of the materials in the SketchUp material editor, and then all of the materials in the V-Ray material editor. The two lists of materials are compared, and if either the SketchUp or the V-Ray material editor is missing a material that the other editor has, a new material is created to correspond with the missing material. This tool should not be destructive.

Clear Texture Cache Folder - Every time you open SketchUp, the directory we write textures gets cleaned out. Occasionally, it helps to have that folder wiped during a SketchUp session. This is usually something that isn't going to help unless you're about knee deep in code though, so I don't recommend using it unless directed. If you use this option make sure that you are using a New/Blank scene.

Please send us your error log so that we can look further into your issue.

Thank you,

Chaos Group USA"

AND

"Hello Peter,

A member of our support team has replied to your support request:

Hello Peter,

With Devin and Ted already helping you there is not too much I can add but I do have one trick to share.

SketchUp is always a 32 bit program even on a 64 bit machine. All 32 bit programs have a RAM limitation and as a result can crash when 4 or more GB of memory is required. To get around this limitation we have added a 64 bit V-Ray DR process that you can offload all of the work to.

If you are using a 32 bit machine crashes at large resolutions or with large or complex scene files would be normal and I'm afraid nothing can be done to fix that.

Please try these steps if you are using a 64 bit computer.

Open the V-Ray options. Click System Check "On" and "Don't use local machine" under Distributed rendering. Press the "..." under Hosts. In the Window that appears press "Add server" Enter 127.0.0.1. Press OK. Ok on the Distributed Rendering Settings window to close it as well. In the options menu under "Output" Check "Save output" and "Render to VRImage" Under "Output file" beneath this click on the "..." and choose a location to save the file. Attempt to render.

It's not perfect and sometimes you'll have to trim the scene down where you can or split large structures into multiple files on top of the above but it can be very helpful. Unfortunately we have to work within the framework we have and not every scene that can be built can be rendered.

Thank you,
Chaos Group USA

We hope this has answered your questions. If not, please just reply to this email.

Thank you,

#TICKET THREAD#

Date: Tue, May 13 2014 12:55pm
From: Keith Thompson
To: phm@timep.com.au

Hello Peter,

With Devin and Ted already helping you there is not too much I can add but I do have one trick to share.

SketchUp is always a 32 bit program even on a 64 bit machine. All 32 bit programs have a RAM limitation and as a result can crash when 4 or more GB of memory is required. To get around this limitation we have added a 64 bit V-Ray DR process that you can offload all of the work to.

If you are using a 32 bit machine crashes at large resolutions or with large or complex scene files would be normal and I'm afraid nothing can be done to fix that.

Please try these steps if you are using a 64 bit computer.

Open the V-Ray options.

Click System

Check "On" and "Don't use local machine" under Distributed rendering.

Press the "..." under Hosts.

In the Window that appears press "Add server"

Enter 127.0.0.1. Press OK.

Ok on the Distributed Rendering Settings window to close it as well.

In the options menu under "Output" Check "Save output" and "Render to VRImage"

Under "Output file" beneath this click on the "..." and choose a location to save the file.

Attempt to render.

It's not perfect and sometimes you'll have to trim the scene down where you can or split large structures into multiple files on top of the above but it can be very helpful. Unfortunately we have to work within the framework we have and not every scene that can be built can be rendered.

Thank you,

Chaos Group USA"

You can't change where we write temporary textures to, without breaking everything. 1.6 doesn't exist. That was a beta version, you should be on 2.0 now.

FYI - there is a vray subforum, may be good to post questions there to get more people with vray knowledge looking at your question: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=322

I believe there will be a batch render mode included in the upcoming service pack for 2.0. Hopefully that will fulfill your request.

@monkers said:

Whats bug(splat)ing me is, sometimes when I import the component into my sketchup model they will load in no problems I can have a few different ones in with no problem. But sometimes it crashes and gives me a bugsplat error. I'm struggling to single out what causes this other than it only happens the instant that I add the component to the model. Is there anything that stands out to you guys?

I think there can be errors if you try to bring in the same linked proxy as one that is already in the scene. I'll have to check again, as I haven't seen this in a while. Maybe check that you have the latest version of Vray for Sketchup.