Trouble with scene and Terragen crashing

Started by CredePendrel, May 25, 2019, 09:43:38 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

CredePendrel

Hey everyone!

Been working hard on a new scene today and having a really good time but am running into an into with Terragen crashing on me now. Every time I try to add a Tree Population or Clouds to this project file Terragen crashes on each render.

Now I know my machine isn't any way close to ideal but it meets the system requirements here https://planetside.co.uk/downloads/terragen-free-download/. My computer runs the new Terragen 4 Benchmark project, painfully slowly at 34.20 but at least it doesnt crash.

Am I pretty much out of luck for more complexity then the attached scene until I can get a better rig setup? Is there a way I can view how "complex" a scene is and when I am reaching my machine's limits.

bobbystahr

When I run into that on this older DELL I save the tgd once I've loaded and set up the pop but hadn't popped it yet, and then re open the saved from open recent and pop first off...usually works.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Dune

One thing I noticed in your file is that you load three heightfields, of which two aren't used. That still burdens TG (depends on size of course), so delete anything you don't use. With low RAM (apparently), your memory easily clogs, and once you hit your RAM ceiling, TG crashes.
Also with populations; try to use trees that are not too heavy in MB's, and place them sparingly and efficiently (e.g. no trees behind the camera). For far trees, there are ways to do it procedurally (search for 'fake trees').
If you don't really need the compute terrain, disable it, and TG will render faster. I know it's a bit against the convention, but it often works good enough, especially in scenes like yours.
But if you really want to dive into TG, aim for a better machine or at least more memory.

Asterlil

I was wondering today whether there's some hard limits (like no more than xFF populators) or whether TG will go as far as one's machine can bear.

Dune

Just depends on your RAM mainly. TG already uses around 4gig, your machine needs some, and if you only have say 6, well, it's prone to crash. For your information, check this thread; https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21672.msg217889.html#msg217889

CredePendrel

#5
Quote from: Dune on May 26, 2019, 01:59:38 AM
One thing I noticed in your file is that you load three heightfields, of which two aren't used. That still burdens TG (depends on size of course), so delete anything you don't use. With low RAM (apparently), your memory easily clogs, and once you hit your RAM ceiling, TG crashes.
Also with populations; try to use trees that are not too heavy in MB's, and place them sparingly and efficiently (e.g. no trees behind the camera). For far trees, there are ways to do it procedurally (search for 'fake trees').
If you don't really need the compute terrain, disable it, and TG will render faster. I know it's a bit against the convention, but it often works good enough, especially in scenes like yours.
But if you really want to dive into TG, aim for a better machine or at least more memory.

Hey Dune!

All of the pieces in my Terrain section are  in fact used in this scene. The Basic Fractal terrain, the Crater is there too, I was following GeekatPlays terragen 3 series and he made a crater then used it to place a lake directly in it. The Heightfield shader is the big mountain in the middle. I created it in World Machine then brought it into the work-space.

I am going to try some fake trees, or 2d billboards instead of populations.

Dune


CredePendrel

I removed some of my grass population layers and found this cool Fake Fire-like tree example from user AzurePlanet.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=2708.0

My scene rendered in under 6 mins now and I was able to include a cloud layer! What an improvement.

Dune - ok I see your new image about the unconnected nodes. If I removed any of the terrain layers in my hierarchy window they disappeared from the scene, therefore I assumed they were being used properly. Is there any example that shows how to connect these together? Why does it seem to "work" (i see the features, the crater, the mountain) even though those nodes are  not connected properly?

Thank you very much for all your help Dune! My terragen help document has lots of interesting notes from you I hope to explore soon! I feel like I had a very productive Terragen weekend!

CredePendrel

Just a small update here. Apparently anything else I want to do in this scene is maxing out the capabilities of my current workstation :'(
- post processing done in Photoshop

WAS

#9
You can give your machine more virtual memory and save from crashes. For example I did this on my phone with 512mb emulated RAM but 8 gb virtual. I did this when I had 4gb-8gb physical RAM in my PC too, and still do with 16gb. My only crashes are preview and nodes.

Best to use a dedicated or idle medium to reach peak read/write. Usually around 6gb/s. Slower than RAM but not snail speeds. My 3.1 USB 32gb flashdrive will peak near 10gb/s on a dedicated PCI

See my topic here: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,25384.msg253084.html#msg253084

CredePendrel

Thank you for your response WASasquatch. I gave your suggestion a try, even tried making the "Max size" equal to the current Space Available but I still suffer from Terragen crashes when trying to add any more populations to this project. Maybe there is something else going on behind the scenes with my computer.

WAS

#11
Quote from: CredePendrel on May 30, 2019, 11:44:30 AM
Thank you for your response WASasquatch. I gave your suggestion a try, even tried making the "Max size" equal to the current Space Available but I still suffer from Terragen crashes when trying to add any more populations to this project. Maybe there is something else going on behind the scenes with my computer.

Do you pause your preview when manipulating populations? I get crashes with editing/managing populations even when RAM isn't even near full, like changing feeding nodes and repopulating, etc.  Probably falls under GUI/Node errors. I think possible sometimes swappiong from RAM on the fly may cause crashes. Maybe creating a objects and than rapidly duplicating it(?) for a population can cause issues with OS management, who knows. Even Windows error logs from TG crashes often make no snese.

CredePendrel

Do you pause your preview when manipulating populations? I get crashes with editing/managing populations even when RAM isn't even near full, like changing feeding nodes and repopulating, etc.  Probably falls under GUI/Node errors. I think possible sometimes swappiong from RAM on the fly may cause crashes. Maybe creating a objects and than rapidly duplicating it(?) for a population can cause issues with OS management, who knows. Even Windows error logs from TG crashes often make no snese.

I am successful in editing/managing populations, the crash always seems to happen after hitting the render image button!

WAS

Quote from: CredePendrel on May 30, 2019, 01:33:33 PM
Do you pause your preview when manipulating populations? I get crashes with editing/managing populations even when RAM isn't even near full, like changing feeding nodes and repopulating, etc.  Probably falls under GUI/Node errors. I think possible sometimes swappiong from RAM on the fly may cause crashes. Maybe creating a objects and than rapidly duplicating it(?) for a population can cause issues with OS management, who knows. Even Windows error logs from TG crashes often make no snese.

I am successful in editing/managing populations, the crash always seems to happen after hitting the render image button!

By after, you mean just as the render starts?

CredePendrel

#14
Hey!

This is a little embarrassing; I seemed to have resolved my own issue and it can only be attributed to user error not computer hardware limitations.

I kept trying to use a specific tree I got for free from the xfrog website. Each time I was creating the pop the "object maker" box was empty and did not have an object assigned to it. I didn't even notice it till I was comparing the values between a grass population and the tree population. After assigning the object and populating again I can hit render WITHOUT crashing. Now I just have to experiment with controlling the population better.

Edit...finally was able to get a render with the background trees there! But it seems like i lost some colour of the grass models...will investigate after work.