collapsing the modifier stack for all of the objects

[paulmonsef]

I was talking with archvision support about an issue i am having where my RPC's turn into red, green or purple boxes. I was told it's a memory issue and I should try "collapsing the modifier stack" << whatever that means!

http://www.archvision.com/Tutorials.cfm?Tutorial=tutorials/MemoryIssues/memorytips2.cfm

Could someone explain what that means exactly?

I was also wondering if there are other ways to try and consolodate the model to increase render times, etc...

Thanks,

[dongray]

If you highlight an object, right click and choose "convert to..." it will collapse the object to a mesh.
After you have done this will no longer be able to edit the modifiers that were on it.

[paulmonsef]

Thanks for the reply Don

So, my model was created via an FBX import from Revit and I have not added any modifiers (that i know of). So would this really help?

[Anonymous]

What renderer are you using? Are you using network rendering? And did you try to render the RPC's by themselves to make sure they are not the issue?

[paulmonsef]

What renderer are you using? Are you using network rendering? And did you try to render the RPC's by themselves to make sure they are not the issue?

Well, I have the file set up in two MAX scenes. RPC's are in one and are then linked into the main model.

I tried to render just the RPC's and had the same result. So i'll guess this collapse thing will not really help.

[Anonymous]

Did you try rendering just the RPC's from the linked scene, or the main scene with everything else? Are you using mental ray or scanline rendering? And are you rendering from just one computer?

[paulmonsef]

Did you try rendering just the RPC's from the linked scene, or the main scene with everything else? Are you using mental ray or scanline rendering? And are you rendering from just one computer?

Hi MK,
I did both, from the linked scene and in the main scene. I am using Mental Ray, rendering on just one PC. I could not figure out how to get the archivsion content manager to work in a network environment.

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

Can you post a rendering of how they look when they change into blocks?

[paulmonsef]

Sure, it's the oddest thing.

[Anonymous]

Can you post the RPC scene that you made?

[paulmonsef]

Sure. I've since deleted all the bogus RPC's and reinserted. That seemed to have fixed the issue.

Although i did run into a situation where, after copying 20+ RPC's, moving an RPC caused the thing to jump off the screen (even when moving the mouse a fraction of an inch).

12709_mqJlB9YEAMeorkdOwW4T.zip

[dongray]

Could be some of the objects were corrupt.

[Anonymous]

Did you try restarting max to see if the RPC's still jump when you copy them?

[paulmonsef]

Did you try restarting max to see if the RPC's still jump when you copy them?

Yes, that fixed the problem for about 15 min. I am thinking i have too many RPC's in my scene and that i should break out the different camera shots into different scenes.

But for now this project is done, I just need to tweek the colors (again) and render my 6 scenes.

So it sounds like collapsing the mod. stack probably will not help in my case. Unless the FBX import will benefit from this?

[Anonymous]

Are your RPC's still changing colors? You said before that deleting and replacing them fixed that. And I don't think the memory is an issue, considering how little memory the plugin uses and you had the problem when rendering the RPC's by themselves. I think it might be a corruption somewhere, either in the max file, or in the RPC plugin somewhere. I did some renderings with the file you posted and didn't have any color issues.

[paulmonsef]

Are your RPC's still changing colors? You said before that deleting and replacing them fixed that. And I don't think the memory is an issue, considering how little memory the plugin uses and you had the problem when rendering the RPC's by themselves. I think it might be a corruption somewhere, either in the max file, or in the RPC plugin somewhere. I did some renderings with the file you posted and didn't have any color issues.

I am going to render the scenes again on Sunday Evening, so we'll see how that goes.

I believe the issue is due to cloning the RPC objects. If i do it instance based I can pretty much duplicate the problem, when i clone as a copy I never see this behaviour. But I was told by archvision support that "In the past instancing has been troublesome, but it should not cause problems now".

Who knows. Thanks for looking at this.

[jon.bell · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Reviving this old thread to note that you can collapse the modifier stacks of all objects in a scene by selecting them (using Control-A, if you want), then going to the Command Panel > Utilities > Collapse, picking Multiple Objects, then Modifier Stack Results above, then collapsing everything in the scene. (Note that this will remove any parametric animation if it's been applied, so use this carefully.)

Hope this helps!