[Jareb Coupe]

Never found a quicker way. So just buckled down with UVW unwrap. Meant the objects needed to be Editable, then UV box projection. Deleted the back face. Fit the UV map to the square image.

Ended up copying the UV coordinates via the texture tag 30 times. I guess that was the workflow solution I was looking for all along.

[Jareb Coupe]

No rush! Miraculously, I was able to get the wall/catcher to perfectly match the wall in the photo. It was a total jackpot – I just threw in some off-cam walls, and illuminated window portals, and somehow the GI lighting worked out perfectly. I’ll take it. So I can just super-impose the actual rendered painted wall onto the photo in place of the old wall, rather than trying to knock out the shadows only.

I realize I lucked out on this one, so I should still probably look for that plug-in for next time.

[Jareb Coupe]

Whhhell… I replaced the texture with a higher resolution HDR file, and it looks fine.

So, kids, there you have it.

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Hobbyist level – R17

[Jareb Coupe]

Eeeeh. I think I give up on these two GI methods. Finally caved and are now using an alternate rendering engine (Corona). So I’m now in the grueling process of updating all my lights and materials to be compatible with Corona. But the renders look GREAT, and the rendering time is cut down to maybe 1/5th what it was previously. Can’t complain about that!

So, future peeps searching for a solution: if you have blotchy indoor scenes with IR global illumination, or you have the checkered patterns with Team Render with QMC global illumination.. then maybe save yourself some heartache and go with VRay or Corona or something and avoid the whole mess.

[Jareb Coupe]

Holy crap, this is PERFECT! You nailed it, amigo!

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Hobbyist level – R17

[Jareb Coupe]

Just to circle back here for future readers – what Adam suggests is probably the only working solution. I didn’t want to go this route because it’d mean I’d be rolling the dice for how the reflections currently lined up. But ditching the Sky object and going with a Sphere was the only workaround for focal distance – so I bit the bullet.

Thanks Adam!

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Hobbyist level – R17

[Jareb Coupe]

Well, to provide an update, it doesn’t appear to be GI related. I’ve had it fail with no GI, and all manners of GI combinations. So, I’ve never figured out the cause.

But, here’s a workaround. Instead of using Team Render from within the C4D GUI for quick renders, I’ve installed Team Render Server. And, I’m not sure if it matters, but I’ve installed the Team Render Client on the host machine as well. I now load it up like back in the Net Render days, and send the job to the two machines. So far, it hasn’t crapped out.

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Hobbyist level – R17

[Jareb Coupe]

That’s a good theory!

But, alas, I’ve tried. In fact, even just as I log in, I can see the team render I set up last night has failed just after the GI passes (as usual) and I’m using QMC+IR.

I’ll keep farting around with it.

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Hobbyist level – R17

[Jareb Coupe]

After several days of testing, I thought I knew exactly what was causing the issue. It seemed to only crap out (team machines bail and go idle after GI pre-pass) when I was using a GI Secondary Method (IR, RM, or LM). In fact, when I left only a primary method selected (leaving secondary to ‘none’), I was able to get several renders off without a hitch. Then, suddenly, it started acting up again, even without changing the major GI settings.

I still think it’s related somehow. I just wish I knew the secret.

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Hobbyist level – R17

[Jareb Coupe]

Man.. I wish there was some more insight/acknowledgement of this issue. Or, at least some debugging/logging information that told the reason a client machine would stop helping and revert to idle (maybe there is?). I posted the same thing almost a year ago, with an update very recently.

But your post helps me realize it’s not specific to PC/Mac. I feel it’s related to a specific render setting, or combination of settings.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of render settings are you using? GI? And does the client always seem to crap out right after it builds a GI cache, and JUST starts rendering? We probably have different issues, with very similar symptoms – I say that because yours craps out on ‘allocating space to render’, where-as mine occurs just after GI pre-pass has completed. The end result being: the team clients ditch the render, go back to idle, leaving the host machine to do the render alone.

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Hobbyist level – R17