I must be really unlucky. First, I couldn't save a .tgd file directly to root folder of any drive, then I've noticed I'm experiencing strange render problems while rendering in low quality (~0.3) where it looks like the render engine is intentionally missing some parts of the render and finally - Terragen crashes when I try to save .tgd file after loading .obj into population. Is anyone else experiencing such problems or am I the one and only victim?
To make it short:
1. TG2 refuses to write .tgd files to root folder. (see this (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5985.0) thread)
2. Render errors while rendering scene with low quality (~0.3) - black triangles of random shape and place.
3. TG2 crashes while trying to save .tgd file (not in the root folder) after loading at last one .obj model.
I'm also experiencing random crashes while trying to load an existing project into fresh Terragen2. Sometimes pausing the preview and then loading a .tgd helps.
1. I'll try this tonight
2. I haven't seen this yet, but I'll attempt to make it happen if possible this weekend
3. I have had no stability problems at all with anything related to object files or saving TGDs, but I do wonder if the size of your object file (and its conglomeration of files) isn't overloading your RAM and then this crashes TG2
Something it would be good for us all to acknowledge is that, with the wonders of having no 16-texture limit, we now have the possibility of overloading RAM with our objects. The limit of objects is based upon your machine's specs and I don't think it will be limitless for anyone.
I don't know if this file exceeds 16 textures but even if it does it should be very minor. I have abundant amounts of RAM so it shouldn't be an issue - together with fact that I do not use models that weight more than ~50 MB.
Just check to see what TGD.EXE is using, including virtual RAM when you load the offending file / object.
I had two objects last night that took about 3G.
tgd.exe clean - 92 MB
tgd.exe after loading 1 .obj model - 152 MB
Attempt at saving .tgd to H:\Temp --> crash
Could it be the model? Is there any way you can submit this to PS?
I don't think so. I've also tried loading different model and it still crashes while saving .tgd.
Something must be wrong with something else. I haven't had this problem even remotely.
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on April 03, 2009, 02:07:10 PM
I don't think so. I've also tried loading different model and it still crashes while saving .tgd.
I bet it has something to do with new .tgd saving mechanism that Jo mentioned.
But still - what about those holes in render while rendering at low quality?
thats odd... just did a quick render at .1, .2, .3 and none of them had holes in it....
Maybe it's a matter of multi-threading. I'll try to switch TG2 to 2 cores and 1 core after I finish rendering my small picture.
How many cores does your PC actually have? That's where you should set the min / max just for this test...and maybe all the time.
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on April 03, 2009, 03:09:13 PM
Maybe it's a matter of multi-threading. I'll try to switch TG2 to 2 cores and 1 core after I finish rendering my small picture.
I've got 4 cores on Q6600, but I've never had to touch min/max thread settings.
I set my min / max to 4 and 16, usually. I needed to manually set my recognized threads to 4. Have you tried that?
It recognizes the cores without any problem, but yes - I've tried forcing TG2 to 4 cores with no difference.
Bellow I'm attaching a screen from typical error situation. Render window says that the rendering is finished but it leaves a small, black part. It is very, very random as sometimes calculations are full (even on low quality settings) and sometimes a small, black part is still visible.
I've also tried setting threads on 1/4, 1/2 and 1/3 but the problem still persists.
have you tried maybe redownloading, completely uninstalling, reinstall?
Yes I did. I've also tried cleaning the registry after uninstalling to ensure proper and clean installation.
I don't know if all of those three problems persist on my laptop as I haven't checked all of them yet, but so far - I was also unable to save .tgd file on drives root folders. What worries me more now are those rendering problems and crashes after loading .obj files.
Have you confirmed your threads are setup correctly?
You mean this?
QuoteIt recognizes the cores without any problem, but yes - I've tried forcing TG2 to 4 cores with no difference.
(...)
I've also tried setting threads on 1/4, 1/2 and 1/3 but the problem still persists.
Yes, except did you try 1 / 1?
What does the splash screen say about the number of threads it recognizes?
Splash screen says that TG2 detects four cores.
I've just checked 1/1 and it looks like it's free from errors. I've tried rendering a couple of scenes with low detail on threads set on 1/1 and not a single one produced this error.
Sounds like a bug...but, maybe Planetside should delve into it deeper. Glad it's working, but with only one thread (boo).
It is working on four threads but with higher detail. Rendering at last 0.5 gives no errors. It only matters in case of low quality previews.
I'll try to force four cores and see if it makes any difference.
The saving to root bug we have reproduced and will address. The others I can't currently reproduce. The detail problem is particularly puzzling and troubling. Please do continue to investigate. I'll try to reproduce on my end.
Does the render error always occur at the same place in the render at a given detail level? If you could save a TGD that exactly and consistently reproduced it and send it to us that would be extremely helpful. Also can you give more information about your system?
- Oshyan
The render error happens usually on the last tile and it's very random. I can send you a .tgd but I'm experiencing it even on a plain, default scene.
I'll try to do some testing with forced 4 cores.
My specs:
Vista x64
Q6600
8 GB DDR2
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4
GeForce 8800 GTS
Btw. I've left my PC on for a night to render just to discover a blue screen after I woke up. That's something really rare and I wonder if it's uTorrent or TG2 itself.
@PorcupineFloyd - I hate to say it, but I think you might have bigger troubles than TG2. I haven't had any problems whatsoever.
I doubt it.
The problems started after installing TG2 2.0.1.1 and have never happened before.
I've tried rendering a simple, procedural scene in 3000 x 2000 twice and I've got the same ending - blue screen.
There are no crashes with other software that I'm using, even those CPU intense like Vue or L3DT. Games are smooth and steady too. I've also done a scan with Spybot S&D and Kaspersky AV with no positives.
So, my newest error discovered happens when I'm trying to render a scene (see attached .tgd) with 3k x 2k resolution. It ends with a blue screen with an error message (see attached .jpeg).
From what I can tell, the blue screen tells us:
System Thread Exception Not Handled
Memory Access Violation
and then where it happened.
Usual causes are with drivers and such. When was the last time you checked that your drivers were up to date? Like graphics and the such.
Graphics are latest (yesterday or something). Don't know about the rest but I'll check that out.
Causing a bluescreen is extremely unlikely for *any* software application is less there is some more serious underlying problem, e.g. drivers, hardware, etc. While I understand you haven't had any other problems to this point and it would seem very coincidental that the issues started right when the new version of TG2 was installed, it may simply be uncovering problems that already existed (or it may indeed be a coincidence and unrelated to TG2). Not to say that it's impossible for TG2 to be at fault, but considering these problems are so serious and have thus far not been possible for anyone else to reproduce, it does seem unique to your system.
While I understand it's a lot of additional work, I would recommend going back to basic hardware diagnostics to begin with. The first place I'd check is memory. Download Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org/), burn the ISO image to a bootable CD, then overnight run a scan and see if there are any errors. If so it's definitely not a TG2 issue. If that passes fine then I'd recommend some kind of system stress test, either OCCT (http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/OCCT/1166796118/1) (based on Linpack) or Prime95 (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/). If you can run a stress test successfully for a few hours, I'd be a lot more inclined to think it's a TG2-specific thing.
- Oshyan
Thanks for all your help guys.
I'll try to stress my hardware a bit with suggested software, and maybe even do an OS reinstall, but that's a real pain...
I think that I've found what's triggering this render error - weather.
It looks like my CPU is overclocked to it's maximum compared to what my cooling can do and during the winter days it was computing at it's limits but now - it's either crashing or giving an overheating error while doing a linpack test.
I've also found that Vdrop may have something to do with TG2 rendering as CPU usage is fluctuating while rendering and voltage drop may be too much considering overclocking. I really don't want to get rid of my 3.2 GHz but it looks like I'll have to. I've enabled CPU "Load Line Calibration" but I still have to do some testing in order to determine if that helps or not.
So, let's say that this crashing error is due to my overheating or undervoltaged CPU, but there's still something with those models crashing Terragen while trying to save a .tgd.
Btw. I love OCCT splash anim.
Thanks for the update. We'll look into the OBJ saving issue and the others, but I'm glad the crashing issue seems to be system-specific.
- Oshyan
I know this thread is aging now but I was looking for a solution the the exact same problems PorcupineFloyd was having and I am using 2.0.3.1. The BSOD's have been quite rare but the black triangles make TG2 unusable especially for animation where it is not possible to touch them up by hand. It makes the animation look like a 1920's film with black specks flashing all over the place.
I have tried re rendering a frame and the blackness does not seem to appear in the same spot twice. About 1 in 5 frames is affected.
I am using 32bit Vista with a Q6600 and Gigabyte P45 board and NV9600. Similar to PorcupineFloyd
I have also been struggling with the GI flicker problem often mentioned in this forum. I tried all the suggestions and in the end turned GI off and put in another sun with shadows disabled. This works but the GI problem is still there. Any solution yet? I have also been having a lot of CTD's. Whilst making the animation path I open a separate window on the terrain and move the camera from there. It seems to be at random times whilst this window is open that I get the crash, but it happens about every 30 mins.
I think TG2 produces the best pictures of any landscape prog, and I have used most of them but it is so full of bugs that a simple project becomes a mammoth task and often, finally, becomes impossible. This is no longer the tech preview (or have I got that wrong?) and having paid my $400 I would expect something a bit more finished and these bugs, that have evidently been around for months, to be attended to.
:o Whoa. Terragen causing the Blue Screen of Death?! That has NEVER happened to me and I hope it never does! And I've had black areas in renders before but that was 0.9 when the Sky Size was too small! The only problem with TG2 renders on my system is that they're veeerrrrrrrrrryyyyyyy sslllllllooooooooooowwwwwwwww. They take so long, you could probably learn programming code and write a faster renderer before the Terragen render was done! And I'm pretty sure this is a limitation of the free version, but if I use populations in my scenes, the render is reduced to half size! And I did a scene recently where a planet is getting smacked by asteroids, and it was set up like this: Main planet has one moon with an atmosphere. Huge asteroid (second planet) crashing into main planet. Three smaller asteroids in front of the camera. Orange light source near the huge asteroid. I add another small asteroid and render, and the moon disappears! The light source doesn't work at all, no matter what number of asteroids I have, and the huge asteroid turns black! Do you know why it happens? I have renders on the Asteroids! thread; look at them to see the problem. And the scene I'm describing is in the renders there. I'm pretty sure I didn't post any of the "black asteroid" pics there.
Hi,
First off it looks like most of PorcupineFloyds problems were caused by overclocking. Are you overclocking your machine?
Quote from: himalofa on October 09, 2009, 08:39:44 PM
I know this thread is aging now but I was looking for a solution the the exact same problems PorcupineFloyd was having and I am using 2.0.3.1. The BSOD's have been quite rare but the black triangles make TG2 unusable especially for animation where it is not possible to touch them up by hand. It makes the animation look like a 1920's film with black specks flashing all over the place.
I have tried re rendering a frame and the blackness does not seem to appear in the same spot twice. About 1 in 5 frames is affected.
Do you have a project you could send us? Even some example images would be helpful.
QuoteI have also been struggling with the GI flicker problem often mentioned in this forum. I tried all the suggestions and in the end turned GI off and put in another sun with shadows disabled. This works but the GI problem is still there. Any solution yet?
I'm not sure how the GI problem could still be there if you have GI disabled. Again it would help to see some examples and/or a project.
Quotehave also been having a lot of CTD's. Whilst making the animation path I open a separate window on the terrain and move the camera from there. It seems to be at random times whilst this window is open that I get the crash, but it happens about every 30 mins.
Do you get the crash while you are moving the camera? What sort of window do you have open? Is it an ordinary 3D Preview or is it a heightfield preview?
Regards,
Jo
I've had the same problems with holes in low render and full render but only with the alpine shader.
Question: What OS are you running and do you have any compression software running on your hard drive, I'm assuming you have checked for appropriate space on the drive. Another thing I would check would be the permissions, also depending on the OS, may need to set permissions to Admin... Just some thoughts.
JR
To answer Jo's questions.
Are you overclocking your machine? Just a little 2.4 to 2.7GHz Its been cold here and I don't think it's a heat problem.
Images attached:
The GI problem has not gone away I am just not using GI. GI renders certainly look better but it seems they can't be used in animations.
The CTD's occur just with the second window open. It is a heightfield preview opened in a new window. I move the camera with the arrows but it does not always crash, when it does it is usually soon after a move ie a few seconds. BTW it would be nice to have rotation of the camera in these views.
I have spent all day on the black triangle problem trying all options I could think of. On closer inspection it look like they all occur in the sky. I disabled clouds but they still occurred. I then upped the atmosphere samples to 60 and they seemed to be reduced but still occurring. My latest test I set samples to 50 and deselected "Adjust to distance" and I have had 30 frames clean so far. There are so many undocumented parameters that all this is guesswork. How about context sensitive help?
Seems I was wrong about it just being the sky. Here is one on the terrain with settings as above.
Hi himalofa,
It often seems when we have unusual problems like this, and these certainly don't seem to be widespread because we'd be hearing more about it, it's because someone is overclocking their machine. I would suggest try this with your machine in a normal configuration and let us know if you still have problems. If you do then we'll look into it further.
Regards,
Jo
I get these often. Tiny little black triangles in, almost exclusively, the sky. My machine isn't overclocked.
If I consistently get these render errors the only option I have is to take the very same .tgd and render in the last beta version. It NEVER has these errors.
Well unfortunately we cant all get the latest Beta version :(
Richard
Just to review - my problems were caused by bad overclocking parameters which caused BSOD when Terragen 2 was generating spikes in CPU usage. It started happening from 2.0.1.1 or some of the latest betas prior to TG2 final release. I've found that turning on Loadline Calibration fixed this problem as CPU was less affected by voltage spikes.
I still however (with the latest version available) experience those small black triangles in renders. There seems to be a rule with it that goes as this: If the render quality falls, probability of displaying small, black triangles increases. It looks like the renderer is missing some data and leaving the triangles unrendered. It's not a big deal as it happens only in preview renders and almost never exists with Q at 0.7 or 0.8.
Quote from: cyphyr on October 10, 2009, 11:32:51 AM
Well unfortunately we cant all get the latest Beta version :(
Richard
Sorry, Richard. I meant the LAST public beta. 1.9xxxxxxx http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4463.0
I don't have any new beta versions either.
In my Iona image there is one of these missing triangles, I left it in because it kind of looks like someone standing on the cliff top, or a little terrain outcrop. It isn't, it's a missing sky triangle. I usually just postwork them out if it happens.
That render had a detail level above 0.7 and it still happened.
It isn't a common thing at all, though. It only happens very occaisionally but in some specific scenes it'll be persistant.
The same scenes render perfectly in the last, pre-TG2 beta.
Just to let you know that I sometimes get the black triangles as well, again normally in the sky. I was going to make a new support thread about this exact problem but I might as well mention it here.
I don't overclock my machine either.
I believe it has something to do with render engine optimizations after the final TG2 release as it didn't happen prior to release.
I disabled overclocking and re rendered overnight. Out of 200 frames 11 had black triangles. This seems to have reduced the effect but by no means fixed it. Judging by the other responses in this thread this is a fairly common and serious bug. Whilst it can be tolerated in a still it can't in an animation.
I have spent 2 days now just trying to work around bugs in this software. The quality of the images is what keeps me going at this but professional software should not be this faulty.
The higher quality you render at the less noticeable the flickering will be. Also you can get rid of pretty much all of the flicker in post.
Have a look at TimeFilter (http://www.cemyuksel.com/software/TimeFilter/).
Richard
Richard,thanks for the link. İ don't have a project now to test it. Can you show us anything done with it?
İ don't want to hijack this thread.If possible please make it a new thread.
Kadri.
We've seen the black triangle issue internally as well and it's something we're looking into. Unfortunately it's not as simple to track down as it might seem.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on October 11, 2009, 08:24:30 PM
We've seen the black triangle issue internally as well and it's something we're looking into. Unfortunately it's not as simple to track down as it might seem.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, knowing it is acknowledged and being dealt with is reassuring. Meanwhile, if anyone has some settings that they know prevent this problem could you post them here.
I assume from the deafening silence that there is no way round this bug. Last nights render of 68 frames produced 23 splattered with these wretched black triangles. I am not overclocking any more. It does not happen every night but often enough to make me throw in the towel with this. There is mention on this thread of an older version that renders properly can someone post a link?
This really is a shame as TG2 terrains look better than anything else but it is totally useless for animation, at least for me.
Just put last night render on utube here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvw3xgT-4_k
The errors are mostly in the sky.
Hi himalofa,
Please email me your project file at:
jomeder@planetside.co.uk
Regards,
Jo
Jo
Sent