3ds max 2012 (+HF1+SP1) Quicksilver totally broken!

[FelixDames]

I start a new thread because Quicksilver is totally broken!

Quicksilver: Indirect illumination bug
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=6&t=970688

Quicksilver: shadow intensity doesn't have any effect with quicksilver renderer
http://area.autodesk.com/forum/t54321

I confirm both issues and even more!

Depth of Field in render settings does nothing! it is simply not working and shows no effect in rendering. Changing the settings or override the camera with custom values does nothing!

here is a link to a test scene from the first thread (Indirect illumination bug)
http://www.3dece.com/question/quicksilver_test_2011.max
(thank you for the scene - I hope it's ok to link it here)

If you render this scene in 2011 with enabled "Depth of Field" or "Enabled Indirect Illumination" everything works fine.
If you do the same in 2012 you do not get "Depth of Field" or "Indirect Illumination"!
Both setting in 2012 are broken. If you disable "Enable Indirect Lightning Shadows" you get "Indirect Illumination" in rendering but without the indirect lightning shadows!


If you change the visual style more often or in general change a lot of render settings while always render in between it sometimes happens that quicksilver stops rendering at all and simply just displays the last rendering. Switching the visual style has no effect anymore. I have to restart max to bring quicksilver back to work properly. Just switching to another renderer doesn't help to bring Quicksilver back to life.

The whole render settings in Quicksilver are totally broken and full of bugs!

Here are my systemspecs just to show you YES I have a NVidia QUADRO FX 2700M and YES I have the latest driver installed!

Dell M6400
Windows 7 64bit SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9300 @ 4 x 2.55 Ghz
RAM: 8GB
GPU: NVidia QUADRO FX 2700M 512MB Driver 267.76

[EKlok]

Just about to install, but did some searching first, and stumbled on yr post ...

Did installing the last ServicePack help anything?

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17210608&linkID=9241178

[Steve_Curley]

Report the bug

[FelixDames]

The issues in 2012 are still present even with HF1 + SP1 installed.

I reported the issues several times. But please do report them by yourself again to get them fixed.

Here is a summary of all issues with Quicksilver I know about and I do confirm them:

1. "Depth Of Field" is broken and does nothing.

2. 2012 Ambient Occlusion produce different rendering results than 2011 with same "Radius" settings.

3. "Indirect Illumination" is broken and does not work when "Shadows" are enabled and "Enable Indirect Lighting Shadows" are enabled. When "Shadows" or "Enabled Indirect Lighting Shadows" are disabled "Indirect Illumination" works.

4. Render Setup -> Renderer -> Shadows -> "Intensity/Fade" value is broken and does nothing. The maximum value for this slider is 2.0. The same slider for the viewport settings has a maximum slider value of 1.0.
Render settings Shadows "Intensity/Fade" is broken and has a strange maximum value of 2.0
Viewport settings Shadows "Intensity/Fade" works fine and has a maximum value of 1.0 which makes sense.

Quicksilver is still pretty buggy in 2012+HF1+SP1

Hope it helps and please report it.

[EKlok]

'still pretty buggy' sounds like an understatement, indeed ... 😉

[EKlok]

And Steve: Do you have the same experience?


btw. I haven't installed 2012 yet, but was planning to.
Haven't worked with QS yet too, but was planning to.

(I always wait at least until SP1, to install any new version ...
And for that matter: I never installed 2011, and 2010 only because someone I co-worked with on a project, worked with that version .... )

[ken.pimentel]

Checking. Please report your hw/config when you report GPU-related problems.

[FelixDames]

Hey Ken,

good to know your are checking on that.
I checked all issues again on 17 July 2011 (see my post) with the following hw/config and max 2012 64bit +HF1 +SP1 and all issues still remain.
I haven't checked again with HF2 but in it's release notes I can't see any changes regarding Quicksilver so it still should be valid.

hw/config:

Dell M6400
3ds max 2012 64bit +HF1 +SP1
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9300 @ 4 x 2.55 Ghz
Physical RAM: 8GB
Virtual RAM: 16GB
GPU: NVidia QUADRO FX 2700M 512MB Driver 267.76

[macrod]

For Depth of Field:
1. Open quicksilver_test_2011.max.
Note Quicksilver says Enable and From Camera.
2. Select the camera.
3. Check Multi-Pass Effect group > Enable.
4. Choose Depth of Field (mental ray) from the dropdown list.
5. Set Depth of Field Parameters rollout > f-Stop to 0.07.

You'll get similar DOF effect like in Max 2011.

[macrod]

Ambient Occlusion is different but I think now it is better.

[FelixDames]

@ macrod

well, your are right regarding depth of field. But it does not make any sense to choose 'Depth of Field (mental ray)' when rendering with Quicksilver! And this solution renders 4 times longer. I don't know why and which DepthOfField solution is used? Quicksilver or MentalRay?!? Total confusion...
In 2011 you do not need to enable the 'Multi-Pass Effect group' in the camera to get DepthOfField. This is also different.

And I found out something very strange:
I wanted to compare your workaround regarding Quicksilver DepthOfField (with your Mental Ray solution in camera settings) for 2012 with 2011. And if I open 2011 at the same time (2012 is also open) 2012 Quicksilver totally stops rendering at all and just display the last rendered frame! If I also used Nitrous as the display driver Nitrous stops working at all and just displays black viewports! Switching Visual styles in Quicksilver does not work anymore. Changing the renderer to Mental Ray and back to Quicksilver does not reactivate Quicksilver - Quicksilver does not work anymore. I have to restart 2012 to get Quicksilver renderer and the Nitrous viewports back to work.

[FelixDames]

Hey Ken, any news on this? Reproducible?