Max crashes with the new MR-Matte material IN COMBINATION with mental ray shadow map and transparent shadows.

Test scenario:
1. create a plane and a sphere
2. add a standard material to the plane, and the new MR matte shader to the sphere
3. add a mr area spot light with a mental ray shadow map
4. enable transparent shadows in the mental ray shadow map parameters
-> render will crash

The scene will render fine if you do not enable “transparent shadows” or if you do not use the new MR-Matte material. So I guess, it is something about the combination of those two that Max2009 does not like.

((If you use the test scene that I attached in the third post of this thread you can enable/disable “transparent shadows” for “mr Area Spot01"))

Can someone confirm this?

-Andrea

*Edited to give the correct Test scenario

Can’t seem to reproduce this one ...

upload a testscene ?

3ds Max 2009 Design - XpPro 32bit SP2
Dual Intel Xeon 2.3GHz - 4Gb Ram - nVidia GeForce 7600gt

The attached max file was created using the steps I listed in the first post (plus two boxes added). The scene crashes on my system while rendering. This is a recovered scene from the autoback folder.

Funny thing is, that I couldn’t reproduce the crash following the steps I listed when I created a new scene today . 
Honestly I don’t know what is different in the attached scene that causes max to crash.

Hope, that someone can shed some light on this.

-Andrea

	Attachment
7476_EQ8ZjQgNNoJ3OKhAuiZB.zip

I get the same error. Something not happy somewhere…
Same in 32bit and 64bit - only difference in the error is “DB 0.6"in 64bit (image is from 32bit).

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

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It crashed for me too.  SO it seems the file was not backed up during the crash OR the corruption was saved into the Autobak file.  I tried merging the file, but the corruption came with the data.

Maneswar Cheemalapati [FA]

Following your steps in a new scene did not crash Max, it completed the render.

Maneswar Cheemalapati [FA]

Thank you all for testing.

I think I’ve narrowed the bug down to the combination of the new MR-Matte shader and a light with a mental ray shadow map WITH transparent shadows enabled.

I’ve updated the description in the first post accordingly.

I know that there is no need for transparent shadows in this scene. But I’ve stumbled across this bug testing the new possibilities with hair&fur. And for compositing purposes it would be nice if one could use transparent shadows AND the new Matte shader together.

-Andrea

Tested, with Max 2009 32bit, and it crashed. 

See attachment.

(yup, it even sounded like the bully kid from the Simpsons! :D )

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AnRe 21 April 2008 03:38 PM

Hope, that someone can shed some light on this.

mr Matte/Shadow/Reflection must be used with ray traced shadows. It won’t work with shadow maps.

Of course, that it would *crash* with mental ray shadow map set to “transparent” wasn’t intentional - but since it won’t *work* (even if it didn’t crash), don’t try!

/Z

Updated the Suspected Master Bugs Thread just to point out MasterZap’s clarification.

Maneswar Cheemalapati [FA]

MasterZap 22 April 2008 07:24 AM

AnRe 21 April 2008 03:38 PM

Hope, that someone can shed some light on this.

mr Matte/Shadow/Reflection must be used with ray traced shadows. It won’t work with shadow maps.

Of course, that it would *crash* with mental ray shadow map set to “transparent” wasn’t intentional - but since it won’t *work* (even if it didn’t crash), don’t try!

/Z

Thanks MasterZap !  Where did you find this information?

-Andrea