3D Studio Max BAT Version 2 Released !!

[g-funk 1]

hey, what i wanted to ask, is it pssible to get an night preview? it's not hard to get a day preview with selecting the zoom cam u want and render it. but how can i get night previews?

[CycleDogg 130]

The only way I know of to get a night preview is to bring the finished building into the game, the lot editor, or the ilive reader (probably datgen as well). Not really much of a preview.

[Djohaal 121]

Date: 1/23/2005 11:19:07 PM
Author: CycleDogg



It shouldn't have anything to do with number of nightwindows/nitelites. I just did a test export with 400 nightwindows and 100 nitelites and it worked fine.

quote>

Weird... my max 7 had issues to render my building with around 200 nite windows
And Joerg reported that his stadium didn't render, and had many night lites.

I wonder if a recompliation of the 3dsmax BAT plugin is needed for versions 6 and 7 to fix this...

[CycleDogg 130]

OK, little subtraction mistake.   Code 22 means all the zoom 5 and zoom 4 renders went OK, but something went wrong with the first zoom 3 render.  Which means there is probably something wrong with your LOD3.  If your LOD3 is missing, or if it has been renamed to anything other than LOD3 (such as nite_LOD3, or LOD03, or LOD3new) then you'll get the Code 22 error.  (Likewise, you'd get a Code 14 error if there was something wrong with your LOD4, or a Code 6 error if there was something wrong with LOD5 - but there are lots of other things that could cause a Code 6 error).
Your LOD3 could have been renamed if, for example, it was accidently selected when using Randomize Night Windows, or Randomize Window Colors, or Rename Objects.

This could easily be the cause of J.O. and Jeorg's problems as well, especially if the rendering issues involved an error code 6, 14 or 22.

[swi21 0]

What could be an error 6 code?

My building (the one for the SC Brasil competition) is a 272x86 m. (quite enormous, 17x6 sqr) with VERY simple LODs (rectangular...)

I experienced an error code 6 and i would like to find the solution quickly as it will take 3 days to render (estimation) and as you probably know, the competition ends next monday.

if you can give me the possible reasons of this error or if you need other details..........

Thank you for your attention!

Nikos

[timo 15]

I experienced that error 6 myself... But I've been able to solve it by rising my virtual memory (info found here on the forums). I did so, then scaled my bat down (80%) and it worked.
It took me 17 hours (P4 2,2GHz; 512 ram) and I had around 220000 polys if I remember well.

But I was using gmax not 3ds max... I hope this helps, and that you can export your stuff.
Good luck

[swi21 0]

Actualy I have 1GB of RAM + 2BG virtual memory.. Do you think it'll need more than that? The problem with the resizing is that the building is on scale..

[Djohaal 121]

Date: 1/25/2005 8:50:38 AM
Author: swi21
What could be an error 6 code?


My building (the one for the SC Brasil competition) is a 272x86 m. (quite enormous, 17x6 sqr) with VERY simple LODs (rectangular...)


I experienced an error code 6 and i would like to find the solution quickly as it will take 3 days to render (estimation) and as you probably know, the competition ends next monday.


if you can give me the possible reasons of this error or if you need other details..........


Thank you for your attention!


Nikos

quote>

I also had some error 6s, however they were related to the number of night lights and night windows (I have bugs with that) however error 6 means running out of memory, what may be the case with your enormous bat... And I don't think that it will take so long. a 6x6 bat I'm making (check my NDEX thread) takes just 15 minutes with reflections on the sphere inside the dome,I would give your model more or less a few hours... However I don't know how complex is it...
To know if it is a night illumination bug, watch the render. If it crashes after a day render (most probably after the first day render) it is due to the lights random bug

[CycleDogg 130]

The error codes will be different for gmax/BAT and 3dsmax/BAT.  But memory or hard drive space is a possibility.  Need more info though.  For example, did it start to render anything before giving you the error code?

[CycleDogg 130]

Looks like you have enough memory.

[swi21 0]

well actualy, i get the error just before start to render the first view....

[CycleDogg 130]

How tall is it?

[swi21 0]

64m height... But I was thinking of something now... some of the objects aren't included in the LODs, from left and right, and under z=0

[CycleDogg 130]

That shouldn't cause it to crash, I don't think.  Also, the size is not too big

[Djohaal 121]

Due to the external LOD rendering, I beleive that objects outside them don't crash, just screw the batch FSH...

[swi21 0]

After several test and modifications and with cycledogg's precious help, the render is done, finaly !

But there is another problem now... see by yourself...



Any ideas anyone?

[g-funk 1]

select only the house, goto file-save selected. then close max, open the newly saved file and try to export it again, u also may render the lods in gmax new. i had such problems several times, but i got them solved after a few tries

[Djohaal 121]

Open a blank scene, load any night material libraries you may be using, and merge with the other scene, but DO NOT merge with the camera handles and etc..
Always works for me...

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

Whats NEW!?

[swi21 0]

I tried all the possibilities, but nothing... Actualy, the problem was from the script... well, Cycledogg said so... I'm rendering a new version tonite.. Let's see the result......

Many many thanks Cycledogg for your REALY precious help! I wonder what I could do without your support......

[couchpotato 8]

Another reason for those primary colors showing instead of your building is when the group numbers are different.   This can be fixed just by opening the building in the Reader and changing the numbers.  

[CycleDogg 130]

New Script
Here is a new BuildingMill script that fixes a few problems related to night lighting and night libraries.  Also there are new error codes.  Unzip and replace your existing CPBuildingMill.ms file (in 3dsmax\gamepacks\BAT\scripts) with this file.  Thanks to swi21 for testing.

[CycleDogg 130]

Hopefully you'll never encounter any of these, but if you do, here are what the new error codes mean:

100 - Problem deleting old directories (deletetree).

102 - Problem setting render type.

104 - Problem setting cameras.

106 - Problem resetting cameras.

108 - Model name structure failed to initialize.

110 - Problem cleaning out temp folder.

112 - Problem cleaning up destination folder.

114 - Problem deleting temporary meshes leftover from previous renders.

116 - Problem creating .bat file.

118 - Problem creating temporary light.

120 - System.bmp file missing from BAT directory or corrupted.

122 - Failed to find or create LODS

124 - Failed to get the LOD for the current zoom level

126 - Failed to set up render viewport

128 - Problem deleting temporary light or resetting camera rig after rendering complete

130 - Problem creating fsh files/updating .sc4model file.

150 - Problem saving temporary day material library

152 - Problem adding scene materials to temporary day material library or temporary material library is empty.  (Possible cause: scene is empty or has no materials).

154 - Problem saving temporary night material library

156 - Problem adding scene materials to temporary night material library or temporary material library is empty.  (Possible cause: scene is empty or has no materials).

158 - Problem initializing temporary night alpha material library

160 - Problem building the night alpha library.  (Possible cause: Bad or incompatible material in scene.  Standard materials work best with night library render.)

170 - Problem getting night window opacity

174 - Problem setting night window opacity in file properties

180 - Problem getting night window texture map

190 - Problem getting name of night window texture file

196 - Problem getting truncated filename of night window texture

204 - Failure to get LODS

210 - Failure to create LOD

220 - Failure to create LODs 3 4 or 5

230 - Problem setting up LODS/setting render region

250 - Problem backface culling LOD shell

260 - Problem slicing LOD shell

300 - Failure to apply screen region UV mapping

320 - Failure to apply diced region UV mapping

400 - Pre-render setup problem (day render)

404 - Problem making or cleaning up daytime render directory

410 - Rendering problem for daytime render (may be 3dsmax or memory problem)

412 - Problem processing daytime alpha map

416 - Problem processing daytime render or converting to .bmp

418 - Failure deleting source render (.tga) files

490 - Problem enabling/disabling nitelites

500 - Problem making or cleaning directories for night render

510 - Incorrectly set render type

511 - Problem loading night library or assigning night library materials to objects

513 - Problem setting up nitelites

514 - Problem setting main lighting rig for night render

516 - Night render failure (nitelites) (may be memory problem)

518 - Problem restoring lighting level

590 - File preparation problem for Nightwindows processing

592 - Problem converting day render to night colors

594 - File handling problem, post day -> night conversion (nightwindows)

600 - Problem loading temporary alpha library or assigning alpha materials to objects (for nitelite or night library alpha render)

602 - Problem disabling lighting rig

604 - Night Alpha render failure (may be memory problem)

606 - File handling problem (night alpha)

608 - Problem during alpha adjustment

610 - Night alpha file handling problem, post-adjustment

612 - Failure restoring lighting rig or camera rig

614 - Failure loading temporary day materials library, or reassigning day materials to objects

700 - Nightwindows post-processing setup

703 - Problem setting texture tiling parameters

704 - Failure opening nightwindow texture file.  Possible cause: File name doesn't conform to standard.

705 - Problem tiling nightwindow texture.  Possible cause: Image size not 256 x 256.

706, 707, 708 - File handling problem, nightwindows

709 - Failure placing nightwindows onto night render

710 - File handling problem - night windows

800 - Night Alpha post-processing, file handling problem

814 - Alpha compositing problem

815 - File handling problem, post-compositing

816 - Same

817 - Problem deleting temporary camera, or memory cleanup

900 - Image dicing initialization problem (pre-render)

910 - Problem rendering the 256x256 dicing source image.  If you get this error, try disabling the render viewport, or pan the render viewport until all geometry is far outside of the viewport.  This will save memory (and reduce render time).

912 - Problem initializing file names for image dicing

914 - Problem creating temporary bitmaps for dicing

950 - Night dicing initialization problem

952 - Failure deleting source files (Source file missing?)

954 - Problem during dicing of temporary daytime or daytime alpha bitmap.  Problem could be occuring while: Making or cleaning out directory for fsh slice, pulling grayscale bitmap (gbuffer channel) from dicing source image, writing pixels to daytime slice or daytime alpha slice, writing lines to .bat file, writing index.fsh file, or writing .tgi file.

960 - Same as 954 except nighttime

968 - Problem during post-dicing cleanup.

[Djohaal 121]

Cheers cycle!
thanks a lot for fixing the building mill script
Just a question, in my maxes (6 and 7) the mental ray rendered is built-in. If I used it as the renderer would the script fail or it also works with it, Vray, Brazil and the new one (maxwell) too?

[CycleDogg 130]

I don't know of any reason why it wouldn't work.  Try it.  If the renderer isn't compatible with the scripts, you will probably get error code 410.

[Sarg 4]

I have been using these plugins as a way to get around my Gmax being unable to render (luckily, it can render the LODs).

Even though the plugins are fantastic, and you guys have all my respect and admiration for doing this for free, there is a very very serious problem: Documentation!

The .txt included is just not clear enough. There are thousands of errors with the plugins that weren't even explained in that document. A bigger and better documentation would be cool.

[Djohaal 121]

Most of the freatures that 3dsbat has aren't that hard to figure out. Feel free to PM me if you need help.

[Sarg 4]

Thanks! I figured most of it on my own, but wasting 5 or 6 hours to properly configure a program is not nice

[meng881124 2]

Is it suppose to support 3ds max 7? I tried it on mine and after it render the first image it gives me code 6. any thoughts?

[Sarg 4]

I've been playing with the plugins a bit, and I must say they are incredibly useful: the rendering time is so much faster than Gmax!

I am having no problems whatsoever with small buildings. However, whenever I try to render a bigger building, I get some problems with textures. For example, in this building, which is a 6x4 biomass power plant, you can see those ugly grey lines. They show up in the Reader and lot editor (and I think in the game too). It is as if those FSHs weren't lining up properly. I tried re-rendering and I'm getting the same lines at the same exact position as before.



Anyone has any ideas about this?