Shader Networks Disconnecting

[Chris Cunnington]

Hi Everyone,

We are experiencing an unpredictable disconnection of shader nodes with
in a render tree.
Simply, when saving a scene and upon re-opening that newly saved scene
all the nodes within every material are no longer connected.

Has anyone else experienced this issue/bug?!

Chris

[Sam Cuttriss]

"experienced" is such a pleasant euphemism.

[Chris Cunnington]

Positivity is a great attitude... :)
I believe this is quite an issue of late (from reading forums, etc) I
feel like a Ghostbuster hunting this one!
-C

[Sam Cuttriss]

i think everyone is in the same boat,
its a squirrely one to track down.
send any scenes that exhibit the problem to support to help them
diagnose the problem.
thats about all we can do.

[Darren Macpherson]

[

Hey Chris,

Its a bug.  There is a hotfix that is meant to fix it (although I have heard it might not???) and I think Stephen might have writen a script to fix it. I seems happen when you load shader presets.  I havent been following the issue too closely but if you search the list I'm sure you'll find a whole host of threads on this topic.  Sorry about the round about answer, not sure it helps much.

Darren

--

darren macpherson | 3d artist | +2772 355 0924 | www.darrenmacpherson.com | dar...@darrenmacpherson.com | skype: darren.macpherson

[Rob Wuijster]

It's not just shader presets, so far any presets will wake up the bug in my experience..
The latest hotfix seems to kill it, but I haven't tested it fully yet ;-)

There's some stuff on the xsi support page on this: http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/

Rob

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Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1498/3507 - Release Date: 03/14/11

[Chris Cunnington]

Thanks Everyone,
Busy testing the external .xsi text fix... so far results seem promising :)
Chris

>> *darren macpherson | 3d artist | +2772 355 0924 |
>> **www.darrenmacpherson.com********| dar...@darrenmacpherson.com |
>> **skype: darren.macpherson*
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>
>> No virus found in this message.

>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com>

[Matt]

Hey guys, just to add to the conversation, hotfix 2 has not solved the problem for us. We rolled out the hotfix to all our machines since last week, and the bug is still present. At least it has not fixed any scenes that already had the problem. Seems that if a scene and it's materials are all created in hotfix 2, the problem does not arise. But this still doesn't help us out in any way. We are currently working on assets that took us weeks to complete, shader network wise. And starting everything over at this point in hotfix 2 is not really an option.

This is really a major issue and is definetly a showstopper waiting to happen. So is there any fix in sight???

Thanks

--
Matthew Rouleau

[Stephen Blair]

Hi

Yes. Please contact me off list.

Stephen Blair
Product Support Team Lead, Softimage/3dsMax
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Blog<http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/> | KB<http://autodesk.com/softimage-support> | Wiki<http://autodesk.com/softimage-kb>

If you would like to comment on my work, please contact my manager sy.do...@autodesk.com<mailto:sy.do...@autodesk.com>.
Autodesk Subscription<http://www.autodesk.com/subscription> The smartest way to optimize your software investment.

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt
Sent: March-24-11 12:27 PM
To: byder...@yahoo.co.uk; soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Shader Networks Disconnecting

Hey guys, just to add to the conversation, hotfix 2 has not solved the problem for us. We rolled out the hotfix to all our machines since last week, and the bug is still present. At least it has not fixed any scenes that already had the problem. Seems that if a scene and it's materials are all created in hotfix 2, the problem does not arise. But this still doesn't help us out in any way. We are currently working on assets that took us weeks to complete, shader network wise. And starting everything over at this point in hotfix 2 is not really an option.

This is really a major issue and is definetly a showstopper waiting to happen. So is there any fix in sight???

Thanks

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 8:30 AM, Chris Cunnington <byder...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:byder...@yahoo.co.uk>> wrote:
Thanks Everyone,
Busy testing the external .xsi text fix... so far results seem promising :)
Chris

On 2011/03/15 10:53 AM, Rob Wuijster wrote:
It's not just shader presets, so far any presets will wake up the bug in my experience..
The latest hotfix seems to kill it, but I haven't tested it fully yet ;-)

There's some stuff on the xsi support page on this: http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/
Rob

\/-------------\/----------------\/

On 3/15/2011 09:45 AM, Darren Macpherson wrote:
[

Hey Chris,

Its a bug. There is a hotfix that is meant to fix it (although I have heard it might not???) and I think Stephen might have writen a script to fix it. I seems happen when you load shader presets. I havent been following the issue too closely but if you search the list I'm sure you'll find a whole host of threads on this topic. Sorry about the round about answer, not sure it helps much.

Darren

On 2011/03/15 09:47 AM, Chris Cunnington wrote:
Positivity is a great attitude... :)
I believe this is quite an issue of late (from reading forums, etc) I feel like a Ghostbuster hunting this one!
-C

On 2011/03/15 08:58 AM, Sam Cuttriss wrote:
"experienced" is such a pleasant euphemism.

--
*darren macpherson | 3d artist | +2772 355 0924<tel:%2B2772%20355%200924> | **www.darrenmacpherson.com<http://www.darrenmacpherson.com>********| dar...@darrenmacpherson.com<mailto:dar...@darrenmacpherson.com> | **skype: darren.macpherson*
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No virus found in this message.

Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com> <http://www.avg.com>

[js]

Hi,

 

We went through alot of troubles lately with disconnected nodes and we did find some tricks to help us.

one 'cheap trick' we found to easely make sure you have a backup of your shaders is using this:

 

Close your softimage session.

Open an old scene in which your shader is not disconnected.

In the rendertree, branch select your shader network from the last node (before it's connected to the surface).

Right click on that last node, and select "Export Selected"

 

This seems to export, not a preset (PRESETS ARE BAD!!), but an .xml of the shader network.

 

To make your life easier, ask your TD to code a script that let you select all your shaders in a scene, and same them on your hard drive using that method. It should be rather simple to do.

 

Then in your corrupted scene, delete all your shaders. Save a new incrementation of it. Close Softimage (It's important to close softimage between opening/closing corrupted scene since there are some temporary files being saved).

 

Reopen softimage and create a shader. Then either use a script, or do it by hand, to drag and drop the .xsishaders (the xml file you saved previously) into your rendertree.  And voila, Softimage will regenerate all your shader network.

 

HotFix 2 doesnt fix older broken scene or assets. If you import older assets it can eventually break.  So make sure you do this shader trick on every old object your import in a scene (i.e. export shaders as .xsishader, delete current shader, create new shader, import the .xsishader, reassign shader to object).

 

It's a pain :( but it seems to work for us so far.

 

You can always do this steps to recuperate your shaders, but don't expect this to fix your scene in the long run...it just save them for the time the scene is open on your computer:

1- Open a new XSI

2- Open an old scene in which the shaders are not disconnected

3- Without closing XSI, do File-->new scene

4- Without closing XSI, do File-->Open-->Your corrupted scene

5- Your shaders *should* be connected.

 

And using this moment of peace where all your shaders are connected you can use the method mentionned up there in the email to export your shaders. In theory, if at this point you delete all the shaders in the scene and recreate them using the trick I mentionned, and then do a Save As. Close XSI, and reopen...you should be good.

 

Hope this help!

 

Jean-Sebastien Guillemette // SHED
artiste 3D

1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM

 

prenez note que mon nouveau courriel est le: j...@shedmtl.com

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 12:27 PM
To: byder...@yahoo.co.uk; soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Shader Networks Disconnecting

 

Hey guys, just to add to the conversation, hotfix 2 has not solved the problem for us. We rolled out the hotfix to all our machines since last week, and the bug is still present. At least it has not fixed any scenes that already had the problem. Seems that if a scene and it's materials are all created in hotfix 2, the problem does not arise. But this still doesn't help us out in any way. We are currently working on assets that took us weeks to complete, shader network wise. And starting everything over at this point in hotfix 2 is not really an option.

[Patrick Boucher]

If anyone wants to partly automate the fix proposed by eX-SI Support:
http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/590

Cheers,
Patrick

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 8:30 AM, Chris Cunnington
<byder...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[Matt]

Thanks so much everybody for all the info and potential solutions. Soft support has been helpful as well (thanks Stephen!). At least I now have a starting point to begin troubleshooting instead of running around the department and freaking everybody out.

Cheers!

Matt

--
Matthew Rouleau

[js]

Haha I've been the guy running around freaking everybody out for a few weeks now ;)

 

If you find other solution (or reason why the problem is occuring), please share!  Only way we can end up killing this problem!!

 

Jean-Sebastien Guillemette // SHED
artiste 3D

1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM

 

prenez note que mon nouveau courriel est le: j...@shedmtl.com

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 5:46 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Shader Networks Disconnecting

 

Thanks so much everybody for all the info and potential solutions. Soft support has been helpful as well (thanks Stephen!). At least I now have a starting point to begin troubleshooting instead of running around the department and freaking everybody out.

Cheers!

Matt

[Steven Caron]

well if you suspect a material/shader that has gone corrupt... do NOT copy/paste nodes out of that graph in an attempt to rebuild the graph. i had rebuilt a graph once and all was well for a while, i copied a branch from another graph which was working but had been in the pipe for a long time and afterwards the new graph was busted.

s

[Ed Manning]

don't copy/paste nodes or branches, don't use presets. 

I've found safest way to move things around is to save shader compounds out, then import and explode them.  (Knock wood) It hasn't failed me yet.

It's also probably a better workflow anyway, since it encourages one to make a library of frequently used branches rather than bringing nodes in one at a time every time...

[Steven Caron]

if i remember correctly, hotfix 2 was supposed to stop corruption with using presets. so i dont think there is any issue using presets any longer, but i suspect most people are going to avoid them for the time being until they are sure it has stabilized.

s

[Matt]

As far as exporting shaders, I have been making a dummy sphere or mesh, attaching all my shaders to it via clusters (just so that all my shaders are linked to it). And then exporting this mesh as a model. Upon import, I just delete the model and the materials and libraries stay intact. Just another way of doing this I guess!

--
Matthew Rouleau

[Thomas Helzle]

Hi Stephen,

since this is of interest to all of us, could your solutions be made
public here?
Why has this to be taken offlist?

Thanks and cheers,

Thomas Helzle

[Stephen Blair]

Hi Thomas

Because I don't have an official fix or announcement.
I have an unofficial beta that has so far has shown itself to be reliable.

Thanks

Stephen Blair
Product Support Team Lead, Softimage/3dsMax
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

If you would like to comment on my work, please contact my manager sy.do...@autodesk.com.
Autodesk Subscription The smartest way to optimize your software investment.

[Thomas Helzle]

Good to know - Thanks Stephen!

Is there a chance for a script that can fix a broken scene?
Or is the breaking something non-recoverable by scripting?
Is the exact problem known and explainable (I mean what exactly
happens in those scenes)?
I would more likely use 2011.x if I knew what exactly the problem is,
not only what the symptoms are.

Thanks and Cheers,

Thomas

[Stephen Blair]

Hi Thomas

A script cannot fix the corruption (the best a script can do is delete the corrupted materials and re-build them).

Here's a simplified description of the problem.

For each type of shader, there is exactly one "shader definition".
The shader definition contains the information that used to be specified in a SPDL file, like parameter definitions.

Every instance of the shader basically links back to the master "shader definition".
So, the parameters in a shader instance should link back to the parameter definitions in the shader definition.
The problem occurs when a shader instance isn't updated correctly to link back to the right parameter definitions. That's the "corruption".

Stephen Blair
Product Support Team Lead, Softimage/3dsMax
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

http://xsisupport.wordpress.com

[Thomas Helzle]

Thank you Stephen!

If there is no way of fixing it via scripting when it already
happened, is there a possible "antidote" to the problem? Like some
kind of forced refresh of the links to the master definition before
saving?
A script that runs through all shaders and checks them for something
that identifies them as broken?
Or is all of the problem outside of the scope of scripting/user resolvability?

Thanks and Cheers,

Thomas

[Stephen Blair]

Hi

I'm afraid not. You can't fix it from scripting.

[Jeffrey Dates]

http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/590?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+xsi-blog%2Fcontent+%28XSIBlog%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

[Jeffrey Dates]

sorry..  bizzare paste link.

Just bumping Patricks fix.:::

If anyone wants to partly automate the fix proposed by eX-SI Support:
http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/590

Cheers,
Patrick

[Patrick Boucher]

Here is another tool that might be of help. Just got an ok to share it.

https://gist.github.com/890800

If you run into a broken scene you can fix it and run this or just run
it preemptively. We've had cases where it helped.

For every selected material or every material in the scene it'll try
to recreate it from scratch and apply it to relevant objects. It'll
rename the old material. If everything checks out, you can the delete
the potentially corrupt old materials.

This script doesn't address 100% of the shading network possibilities,
doesn't pretend to be a failsafe solution and is totally unsupported
and unguaranteed but might just be helpful for some of you. Enough of
a disclaimer? ;) At this point I'm just struggling to try and ease the
pain a bit.

Cheers,
Patrick

[Patrick Boucher]

This uses the @tempSetValues trick from here:
http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/532

... if you're into that kind of stuff. ;)

Cheers,
Patrick

[Thomas Helzle]

Thanks guys!

Thomas

[Matt]

So just an update, I am still getting disconnected shaders after using every fix available.

I even tried this:

-In a new scene with nothing in it, I reconstructed all my shaders from scratch.
-I imported a model of my asset with no shaders connected to it at all (scene material).
-I saved the scene
-Upon re-open, all my shaders were disconected.

I am getting a feeling that compounds are part of the issue here, as all connections were broken to and from my shader compounds only. That or my model is corrupting things, but there is no way I will re-start my asset from scratch. Any one find a fix to this issue yet? At this point the bug is costing our company a lot of money in technical down time. Sorry to bring this back up again, but this is the worst bug I have ever seen in a Softimage release and it is making work extremely difficult for us.

Matt

--
Matthew Rouleau

[Marc-Andre Carbonneau]

Just asking : is this problem fixed in Softimage 2012?!

[Js]

Hey Matt,

 

We were also using a compound at work for a skin shader, and it seems it was causing problem.  I’m afraid that softimage somehow have trouble reading the shader definitions through the compound. Maybe same problem as loading a shader preset ?

 

Stephen Blair could probably answer better, but even tho it’s totally a pain to use, we rebuilded our skin shader from scratch without doing a compound. So we have a monster of a render tree…but at least it works. We just couldn’t lose anymore time with the problem…

 

Hope you find a solution to your problem,

Good luck. L

[Js]

Just to make sure, after saving the scene you did close softimage right?

 

If you didn’t close softimage after saving, some temporary file might be present that ‘corrupt’ your shader when reloading the scene