I have been rendering using rendercows for a few months now without any problems. Yesterday I ran windows update, updated Norton anti-virus, re-installed my rendercows, and now they have stopped working. When I render, it renders the first frame, and then Vue just shuts down. One of the times I tried it gave me a message that said something like: This application has requested an unusual termination. Please contact the software provider. So I am contacting E-on, but does anybody know what could be wrong. I have urgent work to do and can't afford to be stuck without my rendercows. The only rendercow that works is the one on the machine where Vue is installed, and on which I didn't run Windows update, which makes me think it is something to do with the windows update or the Norton anti-virus update. PS. I have tried re-installing the rendercows, resaving the Poser PZ3, different files, shorter animations.

My money is on the Windows update; Mickeysoft has been on a binge lately of 'saving people from hackers', and basically screwing up everything. What version of Windows? If it is XP, then go over the built in firewall with a fine toothed comb. They have been turning the stupid thing on by default, and ignoring previous settings. If 2k, the last service pack did =bad= things to the functionality. I have SP-2 on my Win2k, and that is it. I deal with issues by running a good AV proggie (Norton), a software firewall, and the NAT and hardware firewall in my router. You can supposedly uninstall new service packs....supposedly. As for Norton, just turn off your connection and turn it off. If that is the problem, you should be fine then. They did have a few issues with updates a couple of weeks ago (in their haste to stop supporting Internet Security 2002, they hosed several patch files, and a lot of people found they had broken IS. It required a reinstall to clear the problem). But this did not involve the AV files.

Hi Dale, Thanks for the advice, but no can do. I work in an internet cafe, so I can't turn off or alter the firewall (don't have administrative passwords), and can't disconnect from the internet. Will just have to wait for the E-on guys to tell me what to do. I just find it strange that it renders and saves the first frame, and then switches off. If there was a connection or firewall problem it wouldn't let you render and save one frame. And it's doing it on the XP Professional and Windows 98 machines. I switched of the Norton Virus checker but that had no effect. Very frustrating.

My list of render cow problems has hit the floor. Its very disturbing and I'm using vue4pro. I render now mostly without the cows. Only a few projects meet the criteria for what I know will be acceptable to make the cows work. Its a shame.

numanoid; Your place of employment hasn't installed any port sniffer software lately, have they? Or swapped out routers and switches? From what I've seen of the Cow activity, the outbound traffic from the render controller -could- be interpreted as potentially dangerous, and the return signal treated as an intrusion, causing security software to lock that port. And locking the port on a Cow render -will- cause Vue to CTD. If this is occuring across -all- the machines you are using there, involving multiple OS's (particularly 98, which MS doesn't really support anymore) it almost has to be an issue in the infrastructure. You might ask the bosses about the status of ports 5000 and 5002. Some security freak might have tagged 'all unused ports'as potential holes, to be plugged at any sign of activity.

I'm using render cows mostly with sucess. When I use it though, I turn off my cable modem and since I use Zone Alarm Pro as a firewall, I turn it off too. I am finding more and more that firewall software messes with a lot of software programs. (I'll probably be installing a hardware one soon.) Now, every so often, I have an image that just refuses to render with the cows. The render just won't run (it starts, then disappears) or the program terminates. I'm sure there is a bug or two lurking in there. If e-on ever wants to test this, I have the perfect image. It bombs every time. I'm thinking that the render cows are very picky about the way the network is set up and the state of the operating system. But, for the most part, the cows work wonderfully (thanks to Dale B who gave me great advice setting it up).

www.lingriffin.com

they work great for small projects but anything professional, big, or complex they miss the mark, cause frustration, & waste more time then rendering alone.

OK. I found my problem. In all the files that I tested I had the Police Spinner model from Bladerunner. There is something wrong with the model, because as soon as I remove that model from the scene the rendercows work fine. The model seems to have some problems with reversed normals or something. Everything is working fine now, thanks for all the help and advice.

Hmmmmm..... -That's- one I haven't stumbled across yet; into the notebook of WTF it goes! I'm going to have to go scavenging and see if I can find meshes that do that on my system, and see just what it is. I know that you can lock Poser up with divide by 0 errors if the winding order on certain meshes is not what Poser considers 'correct'. What file format is that model in?

I've found one model that will crash VuePro every time. You might want to play with it. It is in the Vue freebies - search under "shack". It works fine in Vue 4. I'm not that knowledgeable about models, but you will probably figure it out. It was modeled in Wings 3d

www.lingriffin.com

Thanks lingrif! Only geeks say 'thank you' to people who offer them ways to crash their proggies...... :P And I'm a rank newbie when it comes to modelling. I have Truespace 5.5 that I intend to learn...once I stop being scared of it. But problems like this trip a switch and I =have= to see if I can dope it out... Kind of like when you have a popcorn husk between two teeth and embedded in your gums, you can move it with your tongue, but the little bugger just won't come out....

Know the feeling exactly - sometimes I think I've worked in the software industry tooo long. But if you can figure out why this model misbehaves in Pro, it might uncover a bug. It's a great feeling to stamp those babies out. By the way, with this model, i can add it to a scene, texture it, position it, whatever. But when I go to save the scene, it crashes.

www.lingriffin.com

Yah, I'm probably going to be doing a lot of 'crashing' before too long...just snagged a copy of Adobe Audition from Ebay (to go with the copy of Premiere 6 I snagged there...now if Adobe would hurry up and get the license transfer processed....), and I'm getting ready to ramp up the image size on some animations I have saved, just to see where the agony point is. Been using Magix Audio Studio for my soundtrack attempts, and a nice bit of software it is (particularly for the price). But Audition has one thing that hooked me. It has a resample feature that lets you alter the length of time of a sound loop without affecting its pitch. Oh, just and an FYI for those with animation pretensions. Magix has just put out a Sound Pool 2004 DVD collection of audio loops (in wav format, so you can use them just about anywhere). A nice little collection if you are looking to create your own soundtracks (they also make nice with Posertrax loops...save for duration and tempo. Which leads me back to Audition). Oh, and I have the model just waiting to annoy me.... ;)