Community
Mudbox Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Mudbox Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular Mudbox topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

How do I fix a mesh that is crashing Mudbox?

7 REPLIES 7
Reply
Message 1 of 8
rwilliams23
2337 Views, 7 Replies

How do I fix a mesh that is crashing Mudbox?

Hi!
My name is Ric--I'm a Mudbox student hoping someone can help me find and fix a mesh problem. Mudbox is consistently crashing when I go to Level 7 (4 million polygons) on my current model (attached). I can access levels 0 through 6 without problem.


At first, I wasn't sure what was causing the crashes and made various incremental saves as I worked. Mudbox began crashing as I was doing simple sculpting with the Wax brush--but the crashes were intermittent--I couldn't see a pattern. I updated all my device drivers and am using Mudbox 2015, Service Pack 1 with Windows 7 64-bit 8Gb RAM.


Eventually, I saw that Mudbox consistently crashed when I PageUped from Level 6 to 7 (though the crashes began before I created Level 7). Sometimes an incremental save will open, but often it hangs on opening with the message on the status line: "Calculating normals.... 61%). The problem has only been occurring on this particular mesh.

 

My questions are how to: 1) find and fix the problem and 2) transfer my Level 7 detail to a fixed mesh? I don't know if the problem began as a file corruption that got passed on with subsequent saves, or is endemic to a problem with topology or UVs. The project started as a simple base mesh created in Maya and UVs created in Headus UVLayout.

 

Can someone help me root out the problem?

Thanks much!
Ric

7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
Daf
Advisor
in reply to: rwilliams23

Hi,

 

8GB is not much ram - not sure if that is your issue or not but I just created a basic head and took it to 7 subs and checked my ram usage. It was at 8.75GB. Check yours at 6 subs and see where you are.

3DS Max 2020.3
i7-4790 @4GHz • 32GB • GTX 1080/8GB • Windows 7 Pro
Message 3 of 8
rwilliams23
in reply to: Daf

8GB is not much ram - not sure if that is your issue or not but I just created a basic head and took it to 7 subs and checked my ram usage. It was at 8.75GB. Check yours at 6 subs and see where you are.

 

Wow.  That makes sense, Daf.  I closed as many apps as possible and again went to level 7 (which is level 6 when starting at Level 0).  It loaded!  Task Manager shows 946 Megs being used (though at one point it jumped up to about 1.2Gig.)  I usually run LOTS of references, browsers, and tutorials while working  This may be the problem--I'll keep an eye on it tomorrow.  I'm running:

 

Asus P5Q m/b

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650

8Gigs

Quadro K5000 4Gigs.

Windows 7 64-bit

 

RAM is so expensive on such an old board, I decided not to max the board to 16GB.  I'll see what happens over the next few days.  (I come from using ZBrush--it usually gives me a memory warning when I go too high--and I don't recall it crashing on me.)  That said, I much prefer the Mudbox interface, especially the Object window.

 

I've been planning to do a major upgrade.  You may have given me a compelling reason to give the wife! 😉

 

Thanks!

Ric

 

 

Message 4 of 8
rwilliams23
in reply to: rwilliams23

I closed as many apps as possible and again went to level 7 (which is level 6 when starting at Level 0). It loaded!

 

I wrote that last night after getting Daf's note and then shut off the system. The next morning I started the system, went to Level 7 and the mesh crashed, using 50% of available RAM.

 

As a newbie, I'm identifying Mudbox normal/abnormal behavior. This is my first Mudbox mesh. I've 20 versions of the file I've created over the last week and need to find what is causing the problem.

 

The initial version "BasicboxMan1.mud" opens okay and subdivides to level 8 (76,546,048) okay, using 99% of RAM. I closed Mudbox normally.

 

The second version "BasicboxMan2.mud" opened, but crashed at Level 6 (4784128), using 23% of available memory. All the subsequent versions also crashed, some when going to Level 4, others at level 6. One of the later versions went to Level 7 without crashing, but I don't trust it.

 

To test my system, I opened the Mudbox "Basic Head" and subdivided it to 13,1203,072 polys without crashing, using 99% memory. I closed Mudbox normally.

 

Several times, Mudbox crashed during my tests. Once, after such a crash, I retested the Mudbox "Basic Head" and it crashed at Level 4, so I rebooted the system. Does Mudbox need time to recover from crash? Should I reboot the computer after a Mudbox crash?

 

I appreciate thoughts anyone might have. I've attached a zip ("BasicBoxMan.zip") containing three files:

 

  1. The original Maya mesh: Original_BasicboxMan.mb (929k)
  2. The initial version "BasicboxMan1.mud" (3,491k) that went to level 8 without problems.
  3. The second version "BasicboxMan2.mud" (6,327k) that crashed at Level 6

 

I'd be curious if others get similar results. My questions are:

 

1) Is this a Newbie's bad luck with a corrupted file or something I did? Did I do something in the Maya mesh or UVs that caused this problem?

 

2) If "BasicboxMan1" is error free, is there a way to reclaim the detail/work in version 20?

 

No other apps in my system have a history of crashing (so I don't think it's hardware); it's either my mesh and/or my Mudbox installation. Either way, I'm in the process of reinstalling Mudbox (it takes several hours).

 

Thanks much for any thoughts!
Ric

 

Message 5 of 8
blake23
in reply to: rwilliams23

I may have found a simple solution to fixing the crashing mesh. I exported the latest version as OBJ. Closed and restarted Mudbox to a new scene. Imported the OBJ. Rebuilt the subdivsions. Subdivided to level 7 (13 mil) polygons. No crash. Resaved.


I'm suspecting that I may have caused problems by running Mudbox with too many background applications running. Am very glad there's such a simple solution to an unstable mesh.

Message 6 of 8
blake23
in reply to: blake23

I wanted to update this thread regarding Mudbox crashing.  As a student, I much prefer Mudbox to Zbrush--Mudbox allows me to concentrate on sculpting in what seems to me a far more logical and coherent interface.  However, it crashes all the time, even on the basic Mudbox head, cube, and demo figure at low levels when relatively little RAM is used.  

 

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what contributed to crashing the application.  Among other things, I reinstalled, deleted preferences, husbanded RAM--and discovered that it worked best when I shut down as many background applications as possible; particularly TechSmith's SnagIt, which I used for exercise screen captures.  It still crashes while I'm doing something basic, like using the Wax or Sculpt brush, but more rarely.  I was finally able to complete my first exercise by saving every few minutes.  In regard to whether the crashing problem is due to my ignorance, flaws in my system, Mudbox specifically, or a combination of all three, I've been running Maya and ZBrush on this system for years with very few crashes--nothing like I saw with Mudbox. 

 

I mention this in case it helps someone else.  Each time it crashed, I wrote what I was doing in the Crash report with the hope it might help the effort.  It's an elegant program and I hope it does well.

Message 7 of 8
blake23
in reply to: rwilliams23

Thought I'd mention that I installed Maya and Mudbox 2016 and it has shown none of the crashing errors I encountered earlier in this thread. There are no other changes on my system.

 

Much relieved and pleased with this excellent program.

Message 8 of 8
absoluteKelvin
in reply to: blake23

Glad you're mudbox and maya is working great for you. I totally understand your frustrations, mudbox 2015 especially unstable to use. Unfortunately thats what i use at work, so i have to live with it. Like you ive noticed a perfomance improvement with mudbox 2016.
https://www.artstation.com/kelvintam

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report