Andrew West Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 In all my years of using Form.z I have never come across this issue. Here it is: I built a model complete in Form.z with no outside sources and JPEG images for my textures. Everything rendered beautifully. Then a few weeks later the client asked for some changes. Mostly minor tweaks to some basic geometry. Now when I go to render the image I hit renderzone and the materials start to load. As soon as they are loaded the image reverts immediately to a shaded render. No renderzone image. I then transferred the file and all the texture images to another workstation to see if that would help. When I load it and hit render I get the same issue. Only now in shaded render the textures are all incorrect. They are of images that I used at the very beginning of the project. When I check the folder the correct images are there but the program is loading the images from other locations on my computer as it searches for old files. So I was thinking that it might have something to do with my texture maps or material parameters. I then went in an did a Save As in photoshop on each material and checked to see if they were proper JPEG's. I then went in and reloaded each texture individually into the material slots. No luck. So I reset all my preferences to defaults and reset my workspace. No luck. I am now desperate. The marketing deadline is Monday morning. Anybody out there with any suggestions at this point? FYI I am running Windows 10 and windows 7 machines, Form.z 8.5.0.2. and it should be noted that all other projects are rendering just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 19, 2015 Author Share Posted December 19, 2015 More info: I tried to back save to 6.7 (still the most stable build ever). However, if I do a "save as" and check "save image files" option the image files do not transfer. I tried to open it and 6.7 crashes on render. Went back to 8.5. I renamed all my image files and re entered them in each material slot. Dozens of them. It now renders in Renderzone. However, the program keeps going back to the old image files. If I hit "open file" and hit add to project, only add materials, then it gives me an option to replace all the image files with the correct ones. The program now shows I have the correct images in each slot but when I render the old image files once again show up. Very frustrating and extremely confusing. And as always if I try to stop the render by hitting Command period or Command Esc. nothing happens. Just have to wait endlessly as the image processes before I start again. Not how I imagined my weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisA Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Can you post or send a link a folder with project (or just small part of project if too large that has rendering problem?) I can try & see if I come up with an answer today... I'm on mac. Did you try to ghost 1/2 of the objects & see if it still happens? Then try again with other 1/2 ghosted to see if there is a problem object? Can you paste some objects into a new project & see if they render? Also check out if you have any object or point out in space (commandF)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Hi Andrew, Sorry you are having trouble. One possible cause for a problem with JPG images is that they were saved with the Progressive Compression option. (Progressive is intended only for large images prepared for viewing on the web, and otherwise JPG's should always be saved with the Baseline (standard, or optimized) option.) Also, for any image format, make sure that you are using 8 bits / channel, and RGB mode (CMYK should only be used for printing). Another possible cause for a rendering problem is if you have an object that is way out in space. If you go to a Top View and Fit your project, does it fit properly -- or does it zoom way out? If it does not fit properly, frame pick half the screen and CUT it from the project -- and Fit again. If it then fits properly, you can get a New Project and Paste to see what "space junk" you removed. A third potential cause for such problems could be use of an illegal character (ie, / \ : * " < > |). Windows should prevent you from using these characters directly: However there are still ways to use these and that could cause problems (on Mac or Windows) and these should all be avoided for all file and folder names in general. If you need any further help, please send a part of your file and the image(s) that are causing the problem so we can see what else could be causing the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 21, 2015 Author Share Posted December 21, 2015 Thanks for the replies but I finally fixed it. Not sure what was causing it. To recap the file was rendering fine and then it wasn't after minor geometry changes. It seemed to be texture map related. All maps were named properly and saved as standard jpegs within the file folder. There were no objects way out in space. I had the same render problem on multiple machines. I saved as, saved a copy as, saved as 6.7, saved as 7.0, then saved as 8.5 and I kept renaming fmz files and jpeg files. Then all of sudden it started working. Go figure. All it took was 5 hours of fussing about. In the old 6.7 there was an option to clear the rendering memory. Where did that option go? It felt like there were cached images that were corrupted and couldn't be purged from the memory. In the future it would be really helpful for Form.z to have a log file similar to the one in Maxwell. It would list what the program was loading on render and any texture or geometry errors would be highlighted in red. Is this possible inside Form.z? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Hi Andrew, If you can send a copy of the file that is not working, we can investigate the issue and let you know what caused it.. It should no longer be necessary to Clear Rendering Memory, but closing and reopening the file will do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 22, 2015 Author Share Posted December 22, 2015 I can't send you the file because now it has suddenly started working again. Wish I could tell you what was causing the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Ok, if you ever need help, if you can send a file that shows the issue, we will do our best to analyze and respond asap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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