I am trying to use partitioning and it has been pretty straightforward so far, but my current file is giving me a small issue. I set it for 12 partitions and set the range from 1-12, and hit “generate partition range locally”, but it only calculates and saves 1 partition. I tried again with the range at 2-12, and it only saved partition 2. Also, since I am trying to do a single frame only it should be creating a .prt file for two frames, but it is only creating 1. I tried it with “generate all partitions locally” as well but same thing. I also tried it via Deadline (just put the 2 node demo on) but that isn’t working at all yet
I have 3 Pflows in the file, totalling about 3M particles at the chosen frame, and it renders without a hitch if I run it normally.
Is there some other switch/setting that might be interfering? up to now I have had no issues, but was only trying it with single Pflows and less partitions.
I just rebooted everything and it seems okay now. One of those things I guess.
Another questions if I may though: I got Deadline working on my workstation and one other node and tried submitting via Deadline to generate my partitions. It ran through the set okay (10 partitions this time), but the .prt files are all empty. It seems to have calculated only frame 0000 (I was generating from 33, and generated locally it was giving me the single frame warning and actually generating for 34 and 35). Is there some way to specify the frames for Deadline? I had a poke around the docs but could not find anything.
Thanks /b
EDIT - figured it out: specify the frames in the Max render dialog. Can you tell I don’t do animation stuff at all?
oh its been awhile since i’ve submitted to deadline but it should just take the render settings from the file you sending to it. Shouldn’t be much harder than that
If you look in the monitor it’ll tell you what frames that job is doing.
You are right. However because I do stills I habitually just render whatever frame I happen to be on (and/or like) and almost never use the frame range options of the render dialog. Generating partitions locally picked it up and worked fine, it’s only necessary to specify the frames when sending to Deadline. Maybe that could be added to the docs?
This sounds like a bug we found and have fixed for the next release.
In short, 3ds Max 2009 and higher support a so-called Iterative mode which disables saving of images and renders a single frame for preview purposes.
Krakatoa also has an Iterative mode which is supposed to do the same when you press the RENDER button in the Main Controls rollout. That option is normally disabled in Save Particles mode. But I made the mistake of also turning on and off the Max Iterative mode when the Krakatoa Iterative Mode is checked/unchecked to ensure that pressing the teapot-shaped render icon in the Main Toolbar of Max will have the same effect as pressing the RENDER FRAME button in Krakatoa.
Unfortunately, when switching to Save Particles To File Sequence mode, the Iterative mode of Krakatoa is turned off, but the Iterative mode of Max can get stuck at on and force a single frame saving without an obvious warning (although you can turn it off from the flyout in the Main Toolbar, or switch back to Render Scene Particles, uncheck Iterative, switch again to Save Particles To File Sequence).
I suspect this is what you have hit in your tests. I have made sure that switching to Save Particles To File Sequence will turn off both the Krakatoa and the Max Iterative mode in the upcoming v1.6.0.
