PNG Render output: Render Elements corrupted

[Anonymous]

Hi,

As stated above, when rendering PNG output from Max 2014, quite often the beauty pass will render out just fine, however the additional render elements will be corrupted upon saving out. They display properly after the render has finished eg. when they pop up on the screen at the end of the render but the saved file is not usable.

I initially thought this may be a problem with the network on the renderfarm here at work, however I am now getting this problem when rendering from my local machine to my local disk. The only workaround I have found for this is to switch to any renderer other than MentalRay and then switch back and to delete all the render elements from the list and then add them all again.

Obviously this is becoming really tedious, so any help would be appriciated.

below is the alpha element that gets saved out....clearly corrupted!

Will

[BenBisares]

Testing things out over here on my end and no corrpution so far.

Can you give us more detail on your setup:

    -Service pack installed

    -Output resolution

    -PNG settings (Colour bit depth, alpha, interlace settings)

    -mental ray settings (Sampling mode, Global Illumination settings, etc.)

Happens with any scene with mental ray? Like just a box with the default material?

[Anonymous]

Service pack will be original max 2014 install as far as I am aware, I cant seem to find the Autodesk cloud manager, will download this shortly.

Output resolution is 1920 x 1080

PNG settings: RGB 48 bit, Alpha channel: YES, Interlaced, NO

Mnetal Ray:

Sampling: Unified/Raytraced, Quality 10, Min: 4, Max 16

GI: FG only, Point density:1, Rays per point 300, interp: 30

[BenBisares]

You can download the latest Service Pack (SP 5) off the Autodesk website (http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/downloads#?cg=Downloads&p=3ds%20Max&v=2014&sort=score&...)

Highly suggest you install it before doing any further testing as I still can't reproduce your issue with your settings. I do remember some issue with PNGs a while back. Might have been resolved in the service pack.

Couple of questions though:

    -Why 48 bit colour for the render elements? That's usually reserved for when you need the wider range for things like HDR/EXR images.

    -Why enable the alpha channel? I can possibly see why you would want it for the beauty pass but the render elements normally do not need to have the background changed in any way.

[Anonymous]

I have downloaded the service pack and will install once the current redner finishes (hopefully with some nice looking passes!)

I will test and see if this clears up the issue.

In regards to the 48 bit colour, well I guess why not! We often have to print out the renders here at work and from what I had heard...

 "Higher bits per channel will reduce the likely hood of banding across colour gradients due to more colour info being stored in the image. This is only really useful when printing, I believe. Other than that I don't know what I'd want them for"

However if there is no real difference then let me know and I shall change my workflow.

My render elements seem to take all the settings from the main beauty render, is there a way to disable the alpha for the elements seperatley?

[BenBisares · Accepted solution]

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will.mundell wrote:

My render elements seem to take all the settings from the main beauty render, is there a way to disable the alpha for the elements seperatley?

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In the Render Elements tab you can change where the files would be saved "Selected Element Parameters". If you click on the browse button " [...] " you'll be presented with the same window you see when saving the main render output.

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will.mundell wrote:

In regards to the 48 bit colour, well I guess why not! We often have to print out the renders here at work and from what I had heard...

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My main concern would be compatibility with other programs. Older versions of ZBrush for example would not properly display 48-bit colour files. As for printing I guess it is technically correct but in my days doing graphic design we only used 24-bit colour depth images and I never had any issues with banding.

I guess the key take away here is if it works at 48-bit then no need to fix it. If you get problems see if reducing to 24-bit makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

I am having the same issue and I am saving at 24 bit. Doesn't matter if I am using Mental Ray, Corona or Vray.

On the latest 3ds Max 2015 service packs.