LW crashing on hi res render w/Corona

[JDaniel]

I have 2 1.2 processors, oxygen GVX420, and 1gig DDR on a PC.
3 days ago LW7.5b crashed on the Corona pass, after 20 hrs. of rendering a print res. image. It somehow corrupted my LW exe, generating error on opening LW. :mad:
I uninstalled LW, deleted all files, then installed LW7.5c.
I rendered it again. 22 hrs later.... crash! Exactly on the Corona pass. This time it didn't corrupt the exe files. So I rendered it again w/ 1 thread. The next day..... crash again, on the Corona pass.
If I render a smaller image it doesn't crash. My segment memory is 512 w/1 segment set.
Is segment memory based on the amount of images in scene?
Does anyone know why this might be happening? My deadline is the end of the month. confused: :eek:

[WizCraker]

I've never used corona, but by your description it is apparent that it could be the cause of the problem. Since corona is an extension to bloom, have you tried just bloom? Or have you tried saving corona to file in its options. You might be able to add it later in post. For the segments if the new help files explains about them at /LightWave/Online_Docs/help/content/013_Camera/010_camera_segment.htm hope that helps.

[Mylenium]

I'd say this is a classical memory problem. Looks like there is not enough RAM left over for the Corona filter. Mem usage can easily go up to 4 times the usage of the image itself. You see, Corona uses a set of Gaussian and other blurs to create effects and in order to do this needs to store many pixels temporarily. In most cases it combines 2 or more filters so you might get an idea about its hunger for RAM. I'd save separate specular, reflection and luminosity passes and do it in post (which might be a better solution for color correction later, also).

Mylenium

[JDaniel]

Hmmm. Thanks. I'm rendering seperate passes, I guess. After I reinstall LW again. What's your favorite way to render spec pass Mylenium?

[Mylenium]

Well, in your case I'd probably create an extra scene. I'd create separate versions of the objects that would all be black so all coloring comes from specularity. Also this would allow to crank up specular settings a little so you get more contrast. After that it's all up to your Photoshop skills.

Mylenium

[JDaniel]

PSD Export seems to work good. It gives you all channels in one rendered psd file. :D