Objects which reference material images show in black when rendered

Hmm, that is getting rather close to GPU memory limit of 3GB on your GPU. I would currently guess that what you see with black patches and black objects is due to GPU memory running out. That said I am very well aware it is just that, a guess. But maybe this is something @jeff can take into account when he ponders more on this issue. Thank you for taking the time to do some logging!

Hi @cfee,

Who is “they”? Certainly not McNeel… If McNeel “disabled AA support in V5”, then that means I would have been the one to do it…and I assure you I have done no such thing. However, it is possible that for specific, low-end video cards, using AA was crashing more often than not…in which case, AA was turned off in a Service Release if and when those specific cards are detected…which I suppose could be viewed as “disabling OpenGL in V5”…but IMO, not really.

Which would you prefer: Rhino crashing more often, or no AA? I have V5 working here just fine using AA=8x, so I know it hasn’t been “disabled”.

What video card make and model are you using? If for some reason AA is just not working for your V5, but really should, then there might be a way I can fix it for you. But if you’re using an old, out-dated Intel GPU, that never really had good OpenGL driver support, then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do…other than suggest upgrading.

Thanks,
-Jeff

Hi Jeff. A couple of observations.

  1. It has been a while since I have seen black BLOCKS in the pdf output from layout pages. It occurred to me that recently I have been waiting for the pdf output to be generated for a layout page before selecting the tab for the next layout page. Prior to that, I had been initiating the pdf generation, via Rhino PDF which is great, then immediately selecting the tab of the next layout page, to be ready on that page when Rhino finished generating the PDF for the previous page. Remembering that my laptop is 8 years old and has limited grunt, there is a possibility that some internal confusion could have been occurring between the image being printed and the rendering of the view change. That probably differs from the cause of the black OBJECTS which were being displayed in the Perspective view. I have tried to old approach again today, but cannot see ang black BLOCKS in the PDF output.

  2. Some of the layout pages which include multiple Rendered Perspective images had been taking more than 5 minutes to generate a PDF. Recently, that time has been reduced to seconds. I am now on Version 6 SR16 (6.16.19169.11231, 18/06/2019). Has anything been done recently to speed up this process? I have not made any material changes to my laptop or the model to explain such a performance improvement.

It is not a very scientific observation, but it seems that there has been some supercharging inside Rhino to overcome or hide the problem.

Speaking of my 8 year old laptop, the courier has just delivered its replacement. It is an Alienware M17. I am about to fire it up to see what has changed since 2011…

Regards, Garry.

Thanks again Garry for all your effort and details… It gives me more things I can continue to bang on.

Very interested in hearing how Rhino performs on your new beast :slight_smile: A 17" laptop is pushing the term “laptop” :smiley: IMO… Portable Desktop, or Battery Powered Desktop, or Non-tethered PC … LOL

Did you get the M17 config that comes with the RTX or GTX? Either way, I’m expecting Rhino to run pretty well on it… Let me know otherwise. .

Thanks,
-J

Hi Jeff. That tether is a 240 volt rope, although I did opt for the 90 WHr battery. Regarding screen size, it reminds me of the race to produce the smallest mobile phone, then along came the smart part, and now the race is to find the largest hand to hold a device.

I have Rhino on both laptops via the Zoo, so I will be able to run tests on the old and the new if that helps you. Understandably, at some stage you might want to make a call that the old hardware was the root cause of the trouble.

It has the RTX 2080 8 GB MaxQ with 2944 shaders. Initial observations are impressive. Much smoother operation all around. Someone has been working over the last 8 years.

Raytracing the image below at 1920 x 1080 from initiation to 1000 samples took 1 min 52 sec.

Raytracing the same image at 3840 x 2160 from initiation to 1000 samples took 1 min 52 sec.

I could not use Raytracing on the old laptop.

The log below is from the Raytracing.

GPU-Z Sensor Log 2019 06 26 Raytracing.txt (72.2 KB)

The log below is from the Zooming and Rotating a Rendered Perspective. GPU memory used is well under the 8 GB,

GPU-Z Sensor Log 2019 06 26Render Zoom Rotate.txt (33.3 KB)

Hi Jeff. I have been using the new laptop exclusively since it arrived 2 weeks ago. A few minutes ago, I saw the first instance of black objects on the new laptop. I did not manage to capture an image, as it appeared during a print to Rhino PDF. I noticed the black objects on a Layout page when the File Save dialogue was presented. I clicked Cancel, and the objects were immediately displayed in the correct colour. It was a solid basic colour, not an image based material.

That probably removes hardware from the culprit list.

I have switched to the 4 view main display, and the Perspective now contains lots of black. The image is included below.

I have the update frequency set to Service Release Candidate. Immediately before the black images were displayed, Rhino updated to:

Version 6 SR17
(6.17.19189.16411, 8/07/2019)
Commercial

Since that update, I am now seeing thicker printed lines on some objects, as shown below.

Before the update:

After the update:

image

The thicker lines appear on Technical Details of Layout pages. I have not changed the Options settings.

The line weight problem occurs with RhinoPDF and PDFCreator, so it is probably an issue within Rhino.

I have created a separate posting for the line weight issue. PDF line weight became heavy after Rhino 6 update to SR17 (6.17.19189.16411, 8/07/2019)

It is back. This is the black image which I saw last night. It is back this morning. It is on Layout Page 10. I switched to Page 9, then back to Page 10. The black appeared, then immediately flashed to the correct colours, which are a mix of basic colours and image based materials.

Happy digging! I will make some time to run some tests with the stripped down file that you prepared earlier.

Regards, Garry.

@coffsoft

Hey Garry, haven’t forgotten about you :slight_smile: … I just now discovered a problem where textures will get deleted before they’re even used…the result is that any material this happens to, causes entire objects to turn black… Sound familiar? Anyways, I’d like to confirm that your issues with black materials… Do they all reference a texture? Or do some of your solid color, non-textured materials also turn black?

I’m planning on committing the fix later today, which means there will be a build tomorrow that you can try (if you’re willing).

Let me know.

Thanks,
-Jeff

@coffsoft

Hi Garry, I also fixed the thick line problem you mentioned…it’s in SR17 (RH-54266) …

Just an FYI.
-J

Doh! I see you already found my fix for the fat lines problem in another thread… Sorry, I’ll try to keep up better in the future :slight_smile:
-J

Hi Jeff. Good to hear from you. The black floor in the last image of posting 48 above does not use textures. I have included another image with the layer selected, showing that it is a basic solid colour. The problem is not limited to textures. It sounds as though you might have found one culprit. Happy hunting.

Regards, Garry.

Dang! Ok…well if/when I find another one, you’ll be the first to hear from me.

Thanks,
-Jeff

1 Like

@coffsoft, and there are no textures in the bump and environment channels for this garage floor material? (just to make absolute sure).

Hi Nathan. That is correct, as shown in the image below.

Regards, Garry.

Hey Garry,

Ive recently tried using the _refreshalltextures command with great success. Will this help at all?

Hoping for the best I know your frustration.

Hi Stephen. Thank you for the suggestion. I tried it, and it provided some change to the image, but probably only due to luck. I can achieve the same luck by zooming, which usually corrects all black images. @jeff

Version 6 SR20
(6.20.19302.15121, 29/10/2019)

Before…

Run RefreshAllTextures…

image

After…

Regards, Garry.

@stephen7 thank you for your suggestion, it worked for me! Hope everyone else gets the results they are after!

Uhhmmmm…
Don’t really CARE who “would” have disabled it, it was disabled, doesn’t work correctly, and this happened with a version update.
If AS you say, YOU “might” have done it if a particular video card was detected (NV GTX-1060/6Gb), then - maybe without realizing it - you seem to be CONFIRMING my assertion.
This assertion by the way- was determined as the most likely answer by SUPPORT, me only reflecting here what THEY told me.
So- in your opinion - it wasn’t disabled,
except it “MAY” have been disabled if a particular video card was detected.
Ok,… fine, but can’t have both.
Interesting note, dealing with other related/similar issues, as SUGGESTED I upgraded to a CURRENT VIDEO CARD with 6Gb V-RAM at SUPPORT’s suggestion, and with absolutely BRAND NEW - CURRENT - drivers, we now have a new AA problem in R-5.
Interesting side-note:
In an OLDER SYSTEM (older NV with only 1GB V-RAM) I have NO PROBLEM with AA in R-5, so yep, moving to an older SLOWER system until you guys get this sorted out. Should move to R-6 ? SERIOUSLY ? I’ve TRIED way too many times , AGAIN because of some other connected issues (eg.: NO Shadows now with A-O no matter WHICH Lighting Scheme is selected but AA seems to work :-/ , even tho this seemed to come as a surprise to Support) - not the LEAST of the problems introduced with RAYTRACED in an effort to force us away from NEON - perfectly usable - if we need a step up from RENDERED for a particular need, but DON’T need to use our full external Renderer to get the needed shot, yet WITHOUT the attendant issues we’re TRYING to sort out here.
Additionally, we’re ALSO dealing with the inability to go to the SKYLIGHT dialog and adjust the SKYLIGHT INTENSITY, right there, since its NOT included where we adjust ALL OTHER LIGHTING SETTINGS including intensity.
Somebody MADE that DECISION, too.
Fortunately, however, we have a video of a hand-drill covering OTHER issues to turn to, but apparently the setting is NOT there either. It seems to be in an area dedicated to SOMETHING DIFFERENT: Sun .
Nope, not THERE either. Oh. it IS there, I just missed it ? Isn’t THAT the point ?
Interesting too - When researching this issue I stumbled across ANOTHER problem here on the blog that I’m ALSO dealing with - some materials rendering as BLACK in R-5 AND R-6 .
With the blame placed on Video Cards with insufficient VIDEO Memory, the other person’s card has 3Gb and mine has 6. SIX. I solved the problem by changing the material image to something else, and THAT rendered ok. HHhhhmmmmm…
Interestingly, I’m stepping back to my older system, that has only 1Gb V-RAM, but isn’t suffering with these problems. Probably NOT v-ram limitation issues, but IF SO, then it MAY be a Memory Leak problem, a symptom I pointed out as a possible culprit, but was roundly dismissed as “unlikely” . A hint that MAY help- we first identified this particular problem at the end of R-4 (yes I’ve been with RH since EARLY in -3’s life), Identified it with SUPPORT logging in to my system, diagnosing THE bug, with a FIX at R-5, but now it seems to be surfacing this again. Could be connected ? Just noticing a POSSIBLE link, maybe/maybe not.

I TRY keeping these things internal to my communications with support, and ONLY report SUCCESSES here, but John just doesn’t think I should bother them with these kinds of things because he "… doesn’t do rendering … " .
Ok, no worries, so here we are.

So-
to cut to the chase:
Are there ANY SOLID answers to these problems ?
By now the solutions should have been developed for -5 (out for YEARS now) and migrated forward - with appropriate improvements - to -6. Maybe impossible with the “improvements” to 6 requiring Raytraced (replacing perfectly usable NEON) and the whole visual interface / RENDER vs RAYTRACED developmental issues, but really, at SOME point, SOMETHING successful should lock down.

6 was “in development” for YEARS before release, and THAT was AFTER 5 HAD BEEN out FOR YEARS.

So-
Is there anything we can use focusing on THE few steps to adjust Skylight INTENSITY ?

THAT question should be straight-forward enough to handle with a few focused steps to SOLVE the problem ?

Thanks -
C.

@coffsoft
Hi, I have read through the sub and was wondering if there was a solution to this? I am running r6* with Maxwell, and I am having the same problem. I noticed this is specific to the materials that use an image for the light reflection, or in other words the color… I have materials with images for the bump and they are working fine.

I have tried to refresh textures, and my “material cache is disabled”.

To make things worse, I believe this issue is crashing my Maxwell plug-in, and in turn crashing r6 as well. I reached out to Next Limit [Maxwell] and am waiting to hear back from them.

*Rhino 6 SR25 2020-4-23 (Rhino 6, 6.25.20114.05271, Git hash:master @ f35d7ded15ec317635ced435d8df84327397038d)
License type: Educational, build 2020-04-23
License details: Stand-Alone

Windows 7 SP1 (Physical RAM: 16Gb)
Machine name: SWINGLE-JR

Non-hybrid graphics.
Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M (NVidia) Memory: 2GB, Driver date: 4-9-2019 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 425.31

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On

Anti-alias mode: 4x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Height

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 4-9-2019
Driver Version: 25.21.14.2531
Maximum Texture size: 16384 x 16384
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 16384 x 16384
Total Video Memory: 2 GB

Rhino plugins
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 6.25.20114.5271
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RPC.rhp “RPC”
C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell for Rhino\maxwell_rhino.rhp “Maxwell for Rhino” 5.0.6.1
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RhinoRender.rhp “Rhino Render”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 6.25.20114.5271
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk_ui.rhp “Renderer Development Kit UI”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 6.25.20114.5271
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 6.25.20114.5271
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”

I have not seen the problem for many months. In my case, it seems that eiher the random chance occurence has reduced to zero, or a recent service update has scared away the gremlin. @jeff The only thing that is different in operation is that around that time I discovered the right click Print item on the Layout tab. at about that time Prior to that, I had been using the main toolbar Print icon after switching to a different Layout tab. It is unlikely that such a procedural change would have an impact, although the different clicks could have a minute timing impact. I have also discovered the All Layouts option on the Print dialogue, which was a lightbulb moment. Very handy. I should have looked for it sooner. As a quick test, I have just opened my model and tried my old approach via the main toolbar, and the problem did not recur. We all love intermittent gremlins.

Version 6 SR26
(6.26.20118.17211, 27/04/2020)
Commercial

Regards, Garry.

Ok, Glad to hear that this has more or less disappeared for you. I ended up restoring an older file that does not have the ‘gremlin’. Then I sacrificed a lamb. It seems to be working now as well.
From experience, I saved often and there is no fix for the material application once they are black. Just start from when it was working. Not ideal at all, but ok.
The most worrying part is that I found certain plug-in buttons trigger the symptoms.
Thanks, t