Rendering TyFlow in linux via VRayScene

[Jordi.Canela]

Hello,

I have been doing tests exporting both TyCaches and TySplineCaches into a VRayScene with mixed results. I need to do this in order to render in a Linux environment and so far this can only be achieved using Vray Standalone. Let me tell you about 2 simple cases:

1. In one of my tests 600 instances of geospheres where cached with TyCache along with their 600 trails using TyCache-TysplineCache-TySplineMesher. The scene along with other moving objects was converted in a few seconds into a VRayScene and submited to the farm (both managed by Deadline's VRay Standalone workflow). In this case the TyCached geospheres rendered fine as did the other normal geo, but not the splines, which were not shown at all in the render.
   
2. On another occasion I have used TyCache in the same way to render about 2000 animated geospheres. 400 frames where exported into the VRayScene, but all of them were rendering the same first frame of the cached animation. I kept the same procedure as I used on example 1 to create caches, export and use the same VRay Standalone route. No clue on why this time not even the TyCache objects are failing to render correctly as in they did in the case above.
   

-Does anyone have experience exporting TyFlow into a VRayScene?

-Is there a particular workflow I should be following or practices I should avoid?

-Are there any parameters I should be paying particular attention to in order to use this workflow successfully?

I know Chaos Group are more than aware of the existence of TyFlow, having tutorials on their website in where they use tyflow and have listed TyFlow as one of the compatible software with VRay. What I am not sure is about the limits of that compatibility. I would appreciate any help

Many thanks, 
Jordi

[tyFlow]

That's a pretty unique workflow. Unfortunately I have no way of testing it...and even if I could and was able to repeat your issue...I have no way of debugging VRay plugins like the scene exporter. I would recommending raising this issue with Chaos Group, if you haven't already.

[Jordi.Canela]

Yes, it is an unusual workflow. The reason for it being the huge price difference of Linux nodes versus Windows based nodes in the AWS platform. Rendering directly from 3DS Max is far more expensive than using Vray Standalone, as this one can be run on a cheaper Linux instance.

Chaos groups replied in the forum that they do support TyCache rendering in the Chaos Cloud platform (which as far as we know uses a .vrscene intermediate files to render from any 3D platform). Our tests with .vrscene files show otherwise, though. The only way to use TyCache in a .vrscene is to convert it into a VrayProxy first (or Alembic) which then gets referenced in. This represents a large extra time of conversion and a large extra usage of storage that would not be needed if TyCache was really fully supported.

PS:
For the moment Autodesk has not fulfill -some- users request for a Linux version as every other major 3D software has got, but now that the demand for virtual offices is raising this might become a more generalized issue. Being able to use all your office software in Linux on the cloud will result in a deal or no-deal scenario when choosing a 3D platform. I hear some vfx houses are moving to a Blender + Houdini pipeline to be able to do so, for instance. I just would love to stick to 3DS Max. If anyone is interested in voting in the yearly appeal, I found this one for 2021:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-i...p/10471487

---

Hi,
just an update as I got a second more in-depth reply from Chaos Group:

For the moment there are two known cache-related problems which were all recently reported in our bug tracking system:
* tySplineCache not being rendered in V-Ray Standalone (you can refer to it with VMAX-11092 when communicating with Chaos support)
* tyCache is rendered wrong in V-Ray Standalone when a modifier is applied on top (this relates to the above VMAX-11092 in a way, but has been reported
separately for tyCache in VMAX-11027 and also VMAX-11256)

So, they know and they will be working on it.

Cheers,
Jordi

[tyFlow]

Thanks for the update!

As for Autodesk...I'd be willing to bet that there's a virtually-zero percent chance they will ever support Linux. The 3ds Max codebase is not cross-platform, and heavily dependent on the Win32 API. Short of completely re-writing Max from scratch (something equally unlikely), a Linux version is just not possible.