Been having some problems with rendering in Carrara...it just won't do it. I can do an area render, but when it comes time to do the final render, the program locks up and gives an "unexpected error" message. Machine: Dell P3500, 384mb ram, Diamond Viper 32mb video card, Windows 98. Any suggestions or input would be appreciated. I tried contacting MC tech support but they're closed for the holidays. TIA. Marybeth

Marybeth, If you want to E-Mail me the Carrara save file I'll be glad to try and render on my system to see if I also get the error message. Is it just this one file that gives you the error? If so it sounds like the save file may have become corrupt. Let me know if you want me to try it out for you. Clint

Clint, It's happening with every file I've tried. Now I'm to the point where all I want to do is render a simple textured sphere without the program giving an "unknown error" message. It does it even on the sample objects and files on the content CD. I can't figure out why it allows me to do an area render, but not a complete one. I'm beginning to get just a little frustrated. I checked the knowledge data base on the MC site, but I don't think there's anything information about Carrara in there yet. And I'm not too sure how much MC tech support can help because they told me yesterday that they don't even have a copy of the program yet and that they probably won't have it for another week or so. Sheesh! Marybeth

Ouch, Not good. I havent seen this reported as a bug, yet. If it was me, I think I might have to uninstall and re-install Carrara. Are you running DirectX 6.1 or better? Clint

If you do uninstall and reinstall, you should reinstall from a fresh boot up on the computer, and do the control-alt-delete thing to end task everything but explorer and systray. I had problems with Poser and RDS until I installed in this manner.

Yes, I have DirectX 6.1 which installed with Carrara. I ran all of the system tests through DirectX and everything seems to be working fine. Ummm, Clint? I've uninstalled and re-installed 3 different times and it didn't change anything. Wyrwulf, I had done that automatically because I've had problems with other programs and definitely learned my lesson there ;-) Thanks for your help, guys. I guess I'll have to wait until after the holidays and contact MC support. Marybeth

Does this happen when you render from the assembly room?

Marybeth is that a Diamond Viper 770? If it is make sure that you have the latest driver for it. It was reported a while back that this card had some problems with TrueSpace4 until they put out the new driver. Not saying this is it but a lot of this sort of thing can be traced back to the Vid Card. I use a Diamond Viper 550 with 16 megs. I also downloaded Direct7 today. I've not had any problems with Carrara yet but I've only tried a few things with it so far. Good luck DM aka Nite Miner

Jeff: Yes, it happens in the assembly room and the render room. Then after the "unknown error" message, the program locks up. DM: Yes, it's a DV770. I went and downloaded the drivers and installed them. I rebooted, uninstalled and then re-installed Carrara and still not able to render. This is so weird! Marybeth

Another easy thing to try. Reinstall Win98. You may have corrupt or missing files that is now showing itself with Carrara. Reinstalling will fix any corrupt Windows files without messing with anything else. The one thing I'm not sure about is whether this will drop you back to an older version of DirectX or not? I also can't stress enough that you have a good amount of room for the Scratch Disk. I gave it 2gigs for the Scratch Disk on a different drive. Maybe a little overkill but Carrara does like some breathing room here. One thing you can do if you don't have much Hard Disk room left for a Scratch Disk is to go into the prefferences and lower the number of undos that your allowed. Even though you may not have used the undos it will want to have the space needed to be able to do the amount of undos that it's set for. Don't try anything drastic, just the simple things. If these things don't do the trick you'll at least have them out of the way when you do get hold of Tech Support. Hope to hear that you have Carrara working soon. Happy Holidays DM aka Nite Miner

DM, Thanks so much for your suggestions. I'll try re-installing Windows tomorrow and see if that does the trick. I don't think it's a matter of the scratch disk, though. I have almost 17G free, so there's plenty of space available. Again, thanks so much for your help. Happy holidays to you, sir! Marybeth

Marybeth, Some on the onelist mailing list had problems with printer drivers screwing things up... try setting your default printer to an AppleWriter - I know it sounds wierd, but some people said it actually helped! Glen